Is the Protocol Stack for IEC 61850 important?

No and Yes! No, compared to the many other aspects covered by IEC 61850, the protocol issue of IEC 61850-8-1 (upper layers like MMS and transport layers …) are relatively of minor importance. There are the two crucial areas defined in IEC 61850: Information Models and System Configuration Language. I usually put it that way: SCL, engineering and configuration is 51 per cent of the importance … may be 52 now …

There is no real need to discuss other protocols and mappings from the view point of importance.

Yes, the protocols are very crucial!! … when it comes to the question how and how fast and for what cost can I get IEC 61850 information communicated? To exchange even the value of a single bit position of a digital input requires the implementation of the various protocols like MMS, Presentation, Session, RFC 1006, TCP/IP, …

This was – and still is –in many cases a quite expensive and time consuming effort! Yes, the availability of the protocol software is very IMPORTANT!

The other day I received an email with the following: “Although we have a … license, we wanted to get started with SystemCorp's stack. The reason was simple: some manufacturers came to us asking what to do to incorporate IEC 61850 to their products. When we told them about …, what it costs, how big it's API is, etc, they got frightened and said that it wasn't worth by now. When we first saw SystemCorp's solution in your blog, we realized that it was an excellent product for companies that wanted to "explore" IEC 61850.”

A lot of people have made similar statements during the last months.

Five IEC 61850 Gurus Conduct Tutorial in Sydney, March 07-09

The comprehensive Tutorial with five world renown professionals is filling up very fast - to get a seat register NOW. The IEC 61850 Tutorial is scheduled for Sydney (Australia), 7-9 March 2011.

Click HERE for the program and other details [pdf].
Click HERE for the registration form [word].

Click HERE for additional events ... all over.

NettedAutomation will provide an Evaluation Kit for IEC 61850 clients/server and publisher/subscriber - DLL that runs under Windows. The kit can be used after installation for six months.

By the way, Karlheinz Schwarz is a member of IEC TC 57 WG 10, 17, 18, 19 and IEC TC 88 PT 25, ... he received the IEC 1906 Award for his engagement in bringing IEC 61850 to the wind power industry.

Panel Session on IEC 61850/61400-25 at first European IEEE PES Smart Grid Conference in Gothenburg (Sweden)

Panels are technical sessions to exchange experience and to discuss around an actual topic. Prominent speakers have been invited to speak at the panel sessions. The presentations are followed by a panel discussion involving, comments and discussion from the audience.

The first Panel Session of the conference in Gothenburg (Sweden) on 2010-10-11 was titled "Standards for Smart Grid" chaired by Lars Nordström, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden

Session summary:
ICT is a core component in the smart electricity networks of the future. Implementing the Smart Grids requires integration of distributed control systems at different levels across the power industry. This requires that information from different domains such as markets, control, automation and load management can be shared seamlessly. For this cause, standardized interfaces and information models is a very important building block for the Smart grid. In the panel session, a broad overview of existing standardization efforts, including IEC, IEEE and NIST initiatives as well as their area of application are described. In addition more in-depth studies of specific implementations using the main standards, specifically the IEC 61850, are presented.

Invited speeches were:

• “Standards for interoperability make the grids smart”, Lars Nordström, Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden
• “IEC 61850 Lite Implementation - Low cost micro controller chip with IEC 61850 (IEC 61400-25) and IEC 61131-3”, Karlheinz Schwarz, Netted Automation, Germany
• “Results from Surveys on Smart Grid Standardization Initiatives”, Mathias Uslar, OFFiS, Germany
• “A case study on Multi-agent Interoperability in IEC 61850 Environments”, Arshad Saleem, Technical University of Denmark, Denmark

Click HERE to download the presentation “IEC 61850 Lite Implementation" [pdf, 700 KB]

Slides of IEC 61850/61400-25 Workshop at Hydro Quebec (Canada) available for Download

NettedAutomation GmbH successfully conducted a one day Workshop on IEC 61850 IEC 61400-25 at Hydro Quebec in Montreal (Canada) on Thursday, September 30, 2010

Some feedback:

"Thank you for the opportunity you provided to Canadian experts. I received good comments from attendees and surely, this will help the 61850 cause."

"It was a pleasure meeting you in Montreal. Your workshop made 61850 real for most of us. And I am looking forward to build an installation based on the protocol. As discussed, we are planning to upgrade two of our substations on the campus to be fully compliant with IEC 61850."

Click HERE to download the set of the 100+ slides presented [pdf, 3 MB]. If you have an account please use your email address and password. If you don't, just enter your email address and you will immediately receive an email with the password.

Seats available for Two Day IEC 61850 Training in Dallas (TX)

A two-day special seminar and training on IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25 and DNP3 will be conducted by Karlheinz Schwarz (Editor of IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, member of NIST PAP16, ...) at:

Remote 2010 Conference & Expo
October 19-20, 2010 - Dallas, Texas

Who should attend? All experts that are looking for a real standardized method to model and exchange information from any process application domain (power systems, factories, process control, ...). If you are tired of the discussions which one of the 100+ field busses to use: come by and learn that you can now easily implement and use a TRUE International standard (IEC 61850) that uses message standards on TCP/IP and standard Ethernet - no special Ethernet needed!

You will get the latest in the NIST SGIP development and in the international standardization world of IEC, IEEE, ...

You will receive a CD ROM with some 500 MB of useful information on standards, products, tools, and demo software. You will also learn what the IEC 61850 Lite implementation Starter Kit is all about ... and you will get a copy of the Evaluation / Starter Kit.

Click HERE for a description of the Evaluation / Starter Kit.

There are still seats available. See you there soon.

Click HERE for more information.

Click HERE to contact me if you need more information on the program and what you would get.

Understanding IEC 61850 Concepts, Basics and Solutions is Crucial for Smart(er) Grids

There is still a lack of understanding of IEC 61850 concepts, basics and solutions. During a September 30th IEC 61850 Workshop at Hydro Quebec in Montreal (Canada) 20+ participants from Canada, USA, Japan, Denmark, South Korea, and Germany received a bunch of useful information with regard to IEC 61850.

Here is some feedback from attendees:

"Thank you for the opportunity you provided to Canadian experts. I received good comments from attendees and surely, this will help the 61850 cause."

"It was a pleasure meeting you in Montreal. Your workshop made 61850 real for most of us. And I am looking forward to build an installation based on the protocol. As discussed, we are planning to upgrade two of our substations on the campus to be fully compliant with IEC 61850."

Click HERE to contact me if you are interested in the course material I have provided at the workshop. Please let me know what your needs are.

FREE IEC 61850/61400-25 DLL - One Download per Hour

The FREE IEC 61850/61400-25 Evaluation/Starter Kit is now available for download since August 31, 2010. The kit provides a DLL for simple IEC 61850 Client, Server, Publisher, and Subscriber Applications running on a PC under Windows.

In average one kit has been downloaded per hour since then! This DLL and its API seems to be one of the crucial Highlights of Standardized Information Models, Information Exchange Methods, and Configuration Language! It brings you the Best after the holiday season (in many countries in the northern hemisphere - or before in the southern).

You simply can't get it for less - Its's FREE.

DO NOT Click HERE if you want to keep going with your legacy solution.

IEC 61850 Chip Revealed at DistribuTech 2010 in Tampa

The Beck IP@CHIP integrating IEC61850Li (IEC 61400-25) was revealed during the DistribuTech Exhibition in Tampa (Florida) from March 23-25, 2010.

The Tampa Convention Center hosted the 20th DistribuTech. The Conference and Exhibition was a big success - more exhibitors, more visitors, and more products, interest and discussions related to IEC 61850!

One of the crucial topics was the discussion of Smart Grids. The range of names for the same thing span a variation of terms: from Advanced Metering, Smart Metering, Smart Grid, to Intelligent Smart Grid. Experts that have a good understanding of the North American market told that this was the first time where almost all people talked about IEC 61850 - one way or the other.

In the light of the many requirements from Smarter Grids and Distribution Automation to define, use, exchange, store, and manage much more "signals" in future, the IEC 61850 Chip revealed at the UCA IUG Booth was really welcomed by many international experts: from Australia, Russia, Europe, North an South America.

The module shown above is a Gateway (Beck IPC - COM.TOM; with the Chip integrated) that could map CAN Bus signals into IEC 61850 models. The Module supports also a GSM/GPRS modem. The application could be programmed using C/C++ or IEC 61131-3 (PLC programming language - based on CoDeSys, the well known platform). Other modules with different I/O's are available. Support for IEC 60870-5-101/104 and DNP3 is under way.

The most crucial help for the application of IEC 61850/61400-25 is the Development Kit for IEC 61850: DK61. The Chip as well as the Development Kit are available for purchase. The prices for both components are amazingly low - you can afford to purchase the Development Kit without long discussions with your management and your accountants.

Get Smart Quick with the IEC61850Li (IEC 61850 Lite implementation). One interesting product with the IEC 61850 Lite implementation is the IPC@Chip® with IEC 61850 Client, Server, GOOSE publisher and subscriber on the Chip in addition to IEC 61131-3 (PLC programming language, using the well known CoDeSys platform), C/C++ programming, FTP, TELNET, TCP/IP, web server, 2 Ethernet ports, GSM/GPRS, WiFi, CAN bus, and many other possibilities.

The Chip and Ready-To-Go Modules (with the chip on board) are applied for IEDs, Gateways, RTUs, Data and Information Managers, Smart Grids, Distributed Energy Resources like PV, CHP, Wind, Hydro, Fuel Cells, ...

Click HERE to get general and background information.

Beck IPC (Germany) and SystemCorp (Perth, Australia) will present the Chip, compact modules, ruggedized IEDs for high voltage environments, and IEC 61850/61400-25 Stack Software at the Hannover Messe 2010 in Hannover (Germany) on 19-23 April 2010. Visit them in Hall 27 Booth E51.

I want to share a nice experience with you: Some 2 1/2 years ago I did a half day presentation on IEC 61850 to the experts and the management of a North American electric utility. At DistribuTech 2008 I asked the young engineer of that utility how IEC 61850 is doing in his company. He said: "Oh, we are still two retirements away from using the standard." During the Distributech 2010 I asked the young man again. This time he mentioned, that things are improving: They are now just one retirement away from using IEC 61850. This is an experience I have made quite often - utility management blocks new technologies, technologies that they may need to keep the lights on in the long run.

DistribuTech 2010: Paper and Presentation on IEC 61850/61400-25 for Monitoring

A very important topic at the recent DistribuTech Conference (23-25 March 2010) was the paper presentation on "Monitoring and Control of Power Systems and Communication Infrastructures" based on IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25" presented by Karlheinz Schwarz, SCC. The Session was about "Enterprise Information and Asset Management". The first presentations were the right basis for the presentation of IEC 61850: the smart grid and the transformer monitoring will create much more information to be exchanged than in today's systems. Transformer monitoring in the Distribution Network is one of the crucial solutions to keep the power flowing. IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 have a lot of logical nodes and data objects.

The presentation was attended by some 40 experts. Good questions were discussed at the end of the presentation.

The paper has an attachment with the names of all 283 published Logical Nodes of all standards of the series IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25.

Click HERE for the paper [PDF, 670 KB]
Click HERE for the presentation slides [PDF, 300 KB]

Get Smart Quick with IEC 61850 on a Chip

The long wait for a lite implementation of IEC 61850 is over:

IEC61850Li® is available now

Get Smart Quick with the IEC61850Li (IEC 61850 Lite implementation). One interesting product with the IEC 61850 Lite implementation is the IPC@Chip® with IEC 61850 Client, Server, GOOSE publisher and subscriber on the Chip in addition to IEC 61131-3 (PLC programming language), C/C++ programming, FTP, TELNET, TCP/IP, web server, 2 Ethernet ports, GSM/GPRS, WiFi, CAN bus, and many other possibilities.

The Chip and Ready-To-Go Modules (with the chip on board) are applied for IEDs, Gateways, RTUs, Data and Information Managers, Smart Grids, Distributed Energy Resources like PV, CHP, Wind, Hydro, Fuel Cells, ...

Click HERE to get more details and contact information.

A demonstration will be provided during the DistribuTech 2010, Tampa (Florida), 23-25 March 2010: See you at the UCA IUG Booth 1932