Interoperability Assessment of IEC 61850 Devices in a Multivendor Digital Substation

 Researchers at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) presented a great paper at the IEEE GPECOM, June 2024, in Budapest:

Interoperability Assessment of IEC 61850 Devices in a Multivendor Digital Substation

"The present paper investigates interoperability challenges in multivendor digital substations, focusing on vertical data exchange reliability and Precision Time Protocol synchronization amidst various implementations of the IEC 61850 standard. The state of the art is examined through an Interoperability Testing Framework that assesses communication issues and data exchange across different equipment. Utilizing a two-phase bottom-up and top-down approach within this framework yields an efficient system deployment, focusing on synchronization, data exchange reliability, and addressing variations in IEC 61850 implementations, alongside a systematic literature survey. Results indicate that the proposed top-down engineering process can mitigate interoperability issues, promising streamlined future deployments."

Click HERE for more information ...

Ethernet Comes with a Brand New Easy Solution: Single Pair Ethernet (SPE)

Ethernet is well known globally as solution for communication. Ethernet was hated and liked for the last 40 years or so ... there have been alternative solutions developed that were marketed as much easier, faster, deterministic, ... think of Tokenbus (IEEE 804), Profibus, ... and many others.

Now we see a new version: Single Pair Ethernet (SPE). SPE can bring fast Ethernet (up to 1 GBit/s) and power to the field level using just one twisted wire pair ... enabling application of protocols using TCP/IP.

Click HERE for a general description.

Click HERE for a nice presentation by IEEE experts (January 2019)

SPE is a new technology to replace CANbus in automobiles (cars, trucks, busses, ... trains) and fieldbusses. SPE is a layer 1 standard ... so it can be used for Profinet, Ethercat, ... and it could run TCP/IP.

SPE is more intended to replace fieldbus systems ... here my dream of the late 80s becomes true:

Fieldbus Standardization - Another Way to Go

http://blog.nettedautomation.com/2017/05/tsn-fieldbus-standardization-another.html

additional posts related to the topic:

http://blog.nettedautomation.com/search?q=another+way

The use of SPE for connecting sensors to the cloud is to follow a trend ... it may increase the sales of component manufacturers.

When I wrote my Diploma Thesis in 1982 (at Siemens) I was asked to analyze Ethernet ... the idea was cancelled because of the very very expensive MAU ... needed two ... each for 23,000 USD ... total of 46,000 USD ... no way to get approval to spend that amount for a "standard" Diploma Thesis ... 

It took some 40 years to get to SPE - likely the real Ethernet ... ;-)

Too late for me ... just retired this year with 67 ... 

One crucial challenge is here: HOW to SECURE a huge number of end nodes (sensors, actuators ...) directly connected to the clouds or data lakes? Compare the situation with Smart(er) Grids: In Smart(er) Grids it is intended to connect millions of smart meters to the entities (clouds!?) that use the data for billing and further applications like controlling millions of inverters or power users. 

In the German power system there is a requirement to use the so-called Smart Meter Gateway (SMG) to provide highly secure communication channels! 

Click HERE to check what has to be implemented ... many published Megabyte pdf documentation of the required specification like: "Protection Profile for the Gateway of a Smart Metering System (Smart-Meter-Gateway PP)" ... by the German BSI.

It took many years before we have seen the first certified Smart Meter Gateway offered at the market. And be aware: The Administration of this infrastructure is very complex and ... far away from cheap and affordable by "everyone".

Many similar huge "security systems" would be required to connect the billions of smart sensors and actuators through Single Pair Ethernet to some centralized entities ... 

SPE is nice - BUT to build secure distributed systems it is required to develop also new security solutions that are as simple as Single Pair Ethernet!!

We have to look at the complete SYSTEM COST - not just at the possibilities of a new physical layers ... the SPE increases the problems of implementing secure systems, because it is easier and cheap to build a huge mashed network of millions of end nodes ... that may not perfectly secured!

Closing 2016 - Greetings from Karlsruhe

As 2016 comes to a close, I say "a hearty Thank You!" for choosing our services, visiting the IEC 61850 blog, and for the great cooperation this year.

I wish you, your family, and the many people around you a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year 2017 … living in peace and harmony.

Hope your home is a safe place to live. Take care.

Please, help to keep the power flowing and the grass green - with the various standards defined by IEC and IEEE.

I look forward to meeting you in 2017 - maybe soon in San Diego (CA) on January 30, 2017.

Please drop us an email if you like this blog or you would like me to post other interesting information on the blog.

Bye for now.

Crucial IEEE 802 And Other IEEE Standards For Free Download

The IEEE Get program grants public access to view and download current individual standards at no charge:

IEEE 802® Standards

IEEE 1622™ Standard: Electronic Distribution of Blank Ballots for Voting Systems | Design Automation Standards

IEEE 2600™ Standards: Hardcopy Device and System Security 

IEEE C95™ Standards: Safety Levels with Respect to Human Exposure to Radio Frequency Electromagnetic Fields

IEEE/ANSI N42 Standards: Radiation Detection Standards.

Click HERE for the list of IEEE Standards available for free download.

IEEE PES published Report on "Centralized Substation Protection and Control"

The IEEE Power System Relaying Committee has published a very comprehensive report worth to be read by power system engineers dealing with substation protection and automation (partlywith focus on the  North American market):

Centralized Substation Protection and Control IEEE PES
Power System Relaying Committee Report of Working Group K15
of the Substation Protection Subcommittee
(2015-12)

Excerpt of the Introduction:
"The power grid is now more dynamic than ever before and newer tools are increasingly developed to manage the grid better. Renewable energy sources are changing power system characteristics at a time when utilities are also focusing on improving customer service and resiliency of the grid, by using advanced monitoring and control technologies....
In addition, communication technologies are advancing and related international standards are maturing to be deployed in substation environment. ... the IEEE Power System Relaying Committee has formed a working group to prepare a report describing and analyzing the state-of-the-art technologies for centralized protection and control (CPC) within a substation...
This report starts by reviewing the advancements in substation protection and control technology. Next the report describes CPC and reviews its history. Then the report reviews some of the existing
technologies that can support CPC.
Finally the report concludes that CPC technology, when appropriately applied, significantly improves the reliability of protection and control systems and the power grid at an affordable cost - with enhanced applications capability and maintainability for both hardware replacement an software upgrade."

Click HERE for the full report [pdf, 80 pages, 4.4 MB]

The report gives inside views of the challenges in managing future power systems. Power systems are very complex - and will become more complex in the near future. In addition to the fact that "utilities are also focusing on improving customer service and resiliency of the grid" the utilities are quite often focusing on increasing their shareholder values ... and outsourcing many tasks. In the German "vdi nachrichten" (a very famous weekly German technical newspaper) I read yesterday an interesting statement of the new president of the BDEW (Bundesverbandes der Energie- und Wasserwirtschaft):

Translated: " ... Unfortunately the industry invests too little in view of the challenges in research and development. The German Pharmaceutical industry employs 40,000 humans in R&D laboratories.
In the energy industry there are not such research and development mechanisms. That is not because of the fact that our industry is come to a hold and does not see challenges. It is financially no more able to implement comparable research activities. We have no more enterprises, which can do that. Everyone knows nevertheless around the difficult situation of many large energy enterprises. Also normal public distribution utilities cannot advance innovative developments in the storage area."

Original: " ... Leider investiert die Branche angesichts der Herausforderungen zu wenig in Forschung und Entwicklung. Die deutsche Pharmaindustrie beschäftigt 40 000 Menschen in F- und E-Laboren.
In der Energiewirtschaft gibt es solche Forschungs- und Entwicklungseinrichtungen nicht. Das liegt nicht daran, dass unsere Branche verstockt ist und Herausforderungen nicht sieht. Sie ist finanziell nicht mehr zu vergleichbaren Forschungsleistungen in der Lage. Wir haben keine Unternehmen mehr, die das können. Jeder weiß doch um die schwierige Lage vieler großer Energieunternehmen. Auch normale Stadtwerke können bahnbrechende Entwicklungen im Speicherbereich nicht voranzutreiben."

Vendors, too, are struggling with similar challenges. We need more universities to compensate these situations. When it comes to the definition and application of information exchange systems in power or energy systems, we could be quite happy that we have the well accepted standards IEC 61968/70 (CIM), IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, ICCP/TASE.2 (IEC 60870-6), ...

Check the Latest in IEC 61850 Testing Tools during the IEC IEEE PES T&D in Dallas (TX)

Mingle at the GridEx® Smart Grid Product Release- IEEE T&D 2016

FMTP (Sweden) welcomes YOU to meet with their experts in the casual atmosphere of the Rustic (just a few miles away from IEEE PES T&D in Huston (TX)) for food, drinks and the reveal of FMTP Power latest product GridEx® on Wednesday, May 4, 2016, at 8:00 p.m.

GridEx®, a digital multimeter for Smart Grids, bridges the gap between traditional power technology and new digital communication (models, GOOSE, Sampled Values, SCL, ...). Complex data is translated into easily understandable information to support decisions for increased reliability and improved system utilization.

Click HERE to register for the product presentation of GridEx®.

NEW: 80 Page Report on Centralized Substation Protection And Control

Centralized Substation Protection and Control is quite new compared to the age of the a.c. power system. A couple of experts have published recently a very comprehensive IEEE report on the subject. They are going back into the history and provide an outlook into the advantages that come, e.g., with IEC 61850. IEC 61850 is mentioned almost 50 times ...
Many details are discussed - recommended to be read by non-protection engineers.
Click HERE for downloading the report [pdf].

Click HERE for other related papers for free access at IEEE..

IEC 61850 DLL Demo with Looging and Log-File

The DLL Demo based on SystemCorp’s IEC 61850 Stack/API can very easily be configured with the corresponding CID-File for the Server to log data attributes listed in a DataSet. The log entries are stored in an XML file.

All you need to do is: Add the following 3 lines in the configuration file (after line 52):

Directory: /Resources_localhost (/Resources_2machines)
File: /VHPServer_localhost.icd (/VHPServer_2machines.icd)

<LogControl datSet="BHKW_ST1" intgPd="0" logEna="true" logName="DLLDemo" name="DLLTestLog">
    <TrgOps dchg="true"/>
</LogControl>

Restart the Serer and you have a log that is filled with events coming through the DataSet "BHKW_ST1".

Model as seen by an IEC 61850 Client (Browser):

The file format (DLLDemo.Xml) is vendor-specific:

Two Log Entries (4 and 5):

Note: The time stamp “t” is “000…0” because the Server application program is not providing it to the Stack … this could be done by extending the C# application source code that comes with the Demo package … if you are familiar with C# programming.

The services QueryLogByTime and QueryLogAfter will be available in the future.

The Log Model is available in the SystemCorp Library. It means, e.g., it is available in devices like the HMS SG line. The log file may grow very fast … be careful not to consume all memory resources. In the future the file will represent a circular buffer so that it will never overflow (by overwriting the oldest entries – as defined in IEC 61850-7-2).

There is a possibility to convert the XML coded Log file into another XML based file: COMFEDE („Common Format for Event Data Exchange") published by IEEE.

Click HERE for Information on COMFEDE (DE).
Click HERE for Information on COMFEDE (EN).

Click HERE if you are interested to download the DLL Demo.

IEC 61850 and DC

IEEE invites all interested parties to contribute to the development of a plan "DC in the Home" to ensure that DC electricity can be safely and conveniently accessed in homes, eliminating the wasteful conversion of AC to DC, and in many cases, DC to AC, prior to entering the home.

This seems to be an interesting question. I guess people digging into this issue will – some time down the street – start discussing a DC communication standard. Is this required? I guess it is not needed.

IEC 61850 could already be applied as well for DC systems. IEC 61850 defines many models for, e.g., PV inverter, batteries, storage systems, DC protection, … DC measurements.

As an example see the logical node MMDC defined in IEC 61850-7-4 Ed2:

IEEE Standards for free download

Did you know that many IEEE 802 and other standards are available for free of charge download? IEEE provides these documents for free six months after their publication.

Click HERE for the list of free standards.

IEC 61850 - Common Format for Event Data Exchange

Event data can be logged in an IED by a Log according to IEC 61850-7-2 (IEC 61850-8-1, MMS Journal). The Log can be queried by time (before, between, after). This query returns MMS messages.

Logged event data in an IEC 61850 IED could now additionally be retrieved by an XML file called "COMFEDE":

Common Format for Event Data Exchange (COMFEDE) for Power Systems (IEEE Std C37.239™-2010).

This file may optionally rely on the information models defined by IEC 61850 Logical Devices, Logical Nodes, DataObjects, DataAttributes. An example of a file is shown here:

<Entry entryId="4294967292" timeOfEntry="2011-03-11T14:38:13Z">
  <EntryData t="2011-03-11T14:38:12.423834Z">
   <DataRef>MyLogicalDevice/MyMMXU1.A</DataRef>
   <DA name="phsA.cVal.mag.f" val="1023" valType="xs:double"/>
   <DA name="phsB.cVal.mag.f" val="1022" valType="xs:double"/>
   <DA name="phsC.cVal.mag.f" val="1019" valType="xs:double"/>
  </EntryData>
</Entry>

Even that standard is an IEEE standard, it could be understood as an extension of IEC 61850 - it extends the use of the information model, information exchange and system configuration language.

From a 40,000 ft point of view it is a kind of a SCSM (Specific Communication Service Mapping). I guess it is also easy in an IEC 61850 client to transform the ReadJournal response messages according to MMS into an COMFEDE file - it is the same payload carried.

Click HERE for more information.

Customers talk Much to Vendors - Less to Standardization Groups

The IEEE PES Power & Energy Magazine stated recently "in my view" that "At a recent stakeholder workshop on smart grid interoperability standards sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NISIST), the electric utility industry accounted for less than 15% of the total attendance. If the industry continues to be severely underrepresented as the process moves to the various standards development organizations, the utility industry will have little say over the final standards as they are developed without its significant input. ... For all of these reasons, it is critical that electric utility knowledge and vision
are a part of the standard setting process."

On the other hand Dr. Lemmer (Siemens Power Automation) stated at the CIGRE in Paris event end of August 2010 with regard to innovation that "our customers tell us where we are going" (see video at 05:35 minutes).

I hope that more utility domain experts will get involved - one was or the other - in the future standardization work. Especially in IEC TC 58 and related groups. As well as in the various "users groups" - that are in fact "vendors groups". Dear Utility Domain expert, you are welcome to join one or the other group ... which also brings you around to see many airports ... and meet a lot of Smart People!

Click HERE for the full text of the "time to speak up! get involved in developing smart grid standards".

Smart Grid Devices with IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 at IEEE T&D Conference in New Orleans - 21 April 2010

The 2010 IEEE Transmission and Distribution Conference and Exposition (New Orleans, 19-22 April 2010) has the title: Smart Solutions for a Changing World.

What makes the Grid smart? Smart people that develop smart solutions! One of these smart solutions will be presented (by smart people) on

Wednesday, 21 April, 2010 8:00 AM-10:00 AM
IG01Wd1
Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee Poster Session

2010TD0592: Towards Intelligent Smart Grid Devices with IEC 61850 Interoperability and IEC 61499 Open Control Architecture

The Smart Grid vision, outlined in EPRI’s “Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap”, incorporates into the grid “the benefits of distributed computing and communications to deliver real-time information and enable the near-instantaneous balance of supply and demand at the device level”. This vision implies a multilayer information and control system architecture, with power transmission and distribution layer playing a crucial role in achieving the “smartness” of the grid.

The complexity of this task requires reconsidering grid control architectures, possibly changing them from the traditional hierarchical topology with distributed data acquisitions but central decision making, to decentralized decision making. For that, basic automation devices would need to become “intelligent”. Most advanced version of such devices are currently based on microcomputers with communication capabilities, but the data flow is purely bottom up, from devices to the control center, and control flow is opposite: from the control centre to instruments. In Smart Grids this may need to change to horizontal communication, negotiation and collaborative decision making by the instruments.

There has been considerable amount of research on the corresponding computing architectures capable of implementing such distributed intelligence. For example, multi-agent system architectures for grid automation have been proposed. Unfortunately these ideas cannot be implemented on current grid devices based on proprietary and closed hardware/software platforms. Besides, multi-agent implementations require high computation performance and still cannot deliver sufficient real-time performance and determinism. While multi-agent systems need powerful workstations to run, practitioners in the field are very conservative and insist on high reliability, determinism and performance of the microprocessor-based instruments. Reliable communication is crucial, and interoperability amongst IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices) is of paramount importance.

Thus, practical deployment of intelligent multi-agent solution at the transmission and distribution layer of Smart Grid can happen if a new generation of IEDs appears that have open architecture based on industrially accepted standards in the areas of information, configuration, communication and distributed automation.

The paper presented proposes an approach to pave the way to multi-agent intelligent control of grid is using two standards: IEC 61850 and IEC 61499.

IEC 61499 (Function Blocks) promises a framework for gluing those functions together in patterns of increasing capability and complexity.

Abstract-- The paper reports on developments and experiments conducted to prove the feasibility of using decentralized multi-agent control logic in the automation of power distribution networks. The utility network is modelled as communicating logical nodes following IEC 61850 standard’s architecture, implemented by means of IEC 61499 distributed automation architecture. The system is simulated in an IEC 61499 execution environment combined with Matlab and proven to achieve simple fault location and power restoration goals through collaborative behaviour and interoperable devices.

Index Terms-- Smart Grid, IEC 61850, interoperability, distributed intelligent automation, IEC 61499

IEEE Smart Grid Web Portal

IEEE has launched a new web portal on Smart Grid activities to support the many activities in the domain of making the grids smarter. The portal is intended to provide the "latest information on IEEE’s involvement in the area of Smart Grid including conferences, publications, standards, educational programs and public policy."

Click HERE to visit the portal.

The focus seems to be on North American solutions. The list of "IEEE Approved Standards Related to Smart Grid" ignores many other International Standards (e.g., published by IEC). The page "IEEE Smart Grid Standards in Development" lists more than 30 (!) standard projects related to smarter grids.

Which international organization is about to coordinate the development of standards for the many different aspects of smarter grids? There seems to be some competition. It would be advantage for the global community to have - more ore less - a single set of standards for smarter grids. IEC should play a crucial role in getting a consistent set of standards (including IEC/IEEE double logo standards) ... in order to prevent the situation we have in the international fieldbus standardization with tooooo many standard solutions in one (!) standard: IEC 61158.
Click HERE to see the list of filedbus standards.