Case Study - IEC 61850 Application for a Transmission Substation in Ghana

A lot of discussions about the benefits of using IEC 61850 have happened in the past and are still going on ... and will go on also in 2017 and beyond.

A nice paper has been presented some three years ago:

Case Study: IEC 61850 Application for a Transmission Substation in Ghana

"One of the benefits of implementing IEC 61850 is minimizing or even eliminating the copper field wiring used to exchange protection and control data between intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) across a substation. Conversely, implementing IEC 61850 has introduced commissioning, testing, and maintenance complexity that can be alleviated with proper training, documentation, and testing plans. The design and implementation of the Kintampo, Ghana, transmission substation required redundant protection and control functions distributed among the IEDs and a robust communications network to implement IEC 61850 protocols. ...
As the acceptance of IEC 61850 communications by utilities grows, this type of large-scale project will grow as well. ...
A system solution that is repeatable, pre-engineered, pretested, and designed to specifications is extremely important because it provides the user with a standardized solution that can be implemented across the system, minimizing different designs."

Click HERE for the 10 page paper [pdf]

SEL Reduces Prices for their IEC 61850 Option by 60 percent

One crucial result of the standardization work is that prices of standard based solutions are lowered! A good proof of this expectation is the announced price reduction of IEC 61850 based communication for SEL protection and control IEDs:

SEL reduced the price for the IEC 61850 option by 60 (SIXTY!) percent !!

““Utilities in Brazil, Mexico, the United States, India, Vietnam, Namibia, and many other countries rely on SEL solutions with IEC 61850 technology to maximize their power systems’ reliability and safety,” said Erik Newman, SEL vice president of Sales and Customer Service. “We look forward to offering this new option price to our customers who choose IEC 61850 as a method of communication and integration.”
IEC 61850 was created to be an internationally standardized method of communication and integration and to support systems built from multivendor intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) that are networked to perform protection, monitoring, automation, metering, and control.”

This is what the market expected in the MAP days (during the early nineties). The MAP (Manufacturing Automation Protocols) were just too early … it took another 20 years to get here! It’s not too late – we are still at the beginning of the Journey IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25.

Click HERE for the press release [PDF].
Click HERE for more information on IEC 61850 provided by SEL.

Read a paper published by Karlheinz Schwarz in November 1991 on the Use of Ethernet instead of Token passing in the MAP 3.0 specification [PDF, 720 KB] - at that time the author did not know about Gigabit Ethernet; and a paper published by Karlheinz Schwarz in March 1991 on the Use of Ethernet as a Fieldbus [PDF, 720 KB].

It just takes time – the waiting for the right standard solution for information exchange, modeling and configuration is over: IEC 61850 is here!

Devices from multiple vendors for wind power plant substation

24 devices from 9 different product platforms provided by 6 individual vendors (SEL, GE, RuggedCom, Siemens, ZIV, and Team Arteche) have been tested and approved for a crucial CFE substation connecting a wind farm to the grid. Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is Mexico’s national utility and major provider of electric power

Considering the international scope of the La Venta II transmission, protection, and control system CFE decided to use the IEC 61850 standard. IEC 61850 provides methods of developing the best engineering practices for substation protection, integration, control, monitoring, metering, and testing.

Read complete report from SEL [pdf].

SEL has enhanced the support for IEC 61850 in 2008

SEL is now supporting IEC 61850 as Significant Substation and RTU Standard ... SEL as one of the world leading supplier of protection IEDs is providing a wide range of IEC 61850 compliant devices and tools.

A new brochure provides many links to a wide range of applications of IEC 61850 with various SEL products:

"Combine IEC 61850 technology, Ethernet networking, and SEL high reliability to perform station computing and protection, automation, and control for distance, current differential, distribution, transformer, bus, motor, and bay control applications."

Job Opportunities - IEC 61850 knowledge required

Experience with the International Standard IEC 61850 and other advanced IEC standards is a prerequisite for many open Job Opportunities! The application of IEC 61850 compliant IEDs and Tools is growing very fast all over - also in North America. Join a booming technology.

Here are a few Job Opportunities that require IEC 61850 experience:

• 3G Malaysia ("... Excellent experience in IEC 61850/60870 protocol")
• Virelec ("...Systems Integration (SI) Specialist IEC 60870-5-101/103/104, IEC 61850, TCP/IP ")
• MR Control Systems ("...IEC 60870-5-101, IEC 60870-5-103, IEC 61850, ...")
• SEL ("...Research Engineer – Communications Emphasis ... Experience with various SCADA protocols: IEC 61850, DNP, Modbus, IEC60870")
• Think Energy Group ("...and substation automation protocols such as IEC 61850 and DNP 3.0.")
• The Select Group ("...Understanding of the advantages of modern Substation Automation communication standards and protocols (e.g. IEC 61850, DNP 3.0)")
• ABB ("... Comprehends the benefits of modern Substation Automation communication standards and protocols (e.g. IEC 61850, DNP 3.0)")
• GE ("... Experience in substation automation and IEC 61850")
• Siemens India ("... Experience on IEC 61850 protocol devices")
• SCADA ("... Familiar with typical utility protocols such as IEC 61850, DNP, and Modbus")
• Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) ("... Knowledge in the related area of substation automation and in particular, the application of IEC 61850, would be highly regarded. ")
• 3G Labs India ("... Looking for IEC professionals (61850/60870) ...Looking for IEC professionals (61850/60870)")
• ...

If you need help from the real experts on IEC 61850 ... to become an expert in the advanced Standards and to get a better job ... check the following training opportunities on IEC 61850 and other Standards. We help you to get the skills required - You’ll get first-hand, comprehensive, up-to-date, vendor neutral knowledge, experience, and guidance:

Training Overview
Training opportunities on IEC 61850
Training Modules on IEC 60870-5, DNP3, ICCP, TASE-2, CIM, ...