IEC TC 88 Published Edition 2 Documents for the Series IEC 61400-25

IEC TC 88 has published the edition 2 of the following two parts of the series IEC 61400-25:

IEC 61400-25-4: Wind energy generation systems -
Part 25-4: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -
Mapping to communication profile
The mappings specified in this part of IEC 61400-25 comprise:

•  SOAP-based web services,
•  OPC/XML-DA,
•  IEC 61850-8-1 MMS,
•  IEC 60870-5-104,
•  DNP3.

Click HERE for the Preview.

IEC 61400-25-6: Wind power generation systems -
Part 25-6: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -
Logical node classes and data classes for condition monitoring

Click HERE for the Preview

Note that the mapping to MMS according to IEC 61850-8-1 is the most used communication protocol for applications in the Wind Power Industry.
The modeling approach and the models are now in general compatible with those defined in IEC 61850-7-x. This is a major step forward.
General gateway solutions for IEC 61850 could be used for wind energy generation systems to bridge from Profibus, ProfiNet, Modbus, CAN bus, ... to IEC 60870-5-104 or IEC 61850-8-1.

Monitoring the Battery of the Boeing Dreamliner 787 would have helped to prevent damages

I guess you remember the trouble Boeing was faced with when the huge battery packs in the Dreamliner 787 some two years ago. The Auxiliary Power Unit Battery Fire was likely caused by several severe “cell internal short circuiting and the potential for thermal runaway of one or more battery cells, fire, explosion, and flammable electrolyte release”.

More precise Condition Monitoring would have helped to prevent such incidents – and would have shown very early that the design of the battery system was quite fragile.

One of the findings (page 91 of the released incident report) is:

“More accurate cell temperature measurements and enhanced temperature and voltage monitoring and recording could help ensure that excessive cell temperatures resulting from localized or other sources of heating could be detected and addressed in a timely manner to minimize cell damage.”

Click HERE for the complete official NTSB report.

Monitoring batteries is very crucial the more our life depends on these systems – in airplanes, in substations, power stations, mobile systems, communication infrastructure … It is not sufficient to have a battery – the batteries must be maintained, tested from time to time, and monitored continuously.

Two groups (I am aware of) have defined Battery Monitoring information models:

1. IEC 61850-90-9 (Use of IEC 61850 for Electrical Storage Systems)

Excerpt of the battery system (without further discussion):

2. IETF EMAN (Energy Management)

Definition of Managed Objects for Battery Monitoring / draft-ietf-eman-battery-mib-13

Click HERE for the EMAN draft for Battery Monitoring.

Battery monitoring could safe life!

New Models for Condition Monitoring: IEC 61850-90-3

IEC TC 57 just published a very comprehensive document (draft technical report, 57/1522/DTR) of 150 pages that suggests a lot of new models:

IEC 61850-90-3 TR:
Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 90-3: Using IEC 61850 for condition monitoring diagnosis and analysis

The CMD (Condition Monitoring Diagnosis) which diagnoses power grid health status has been one of the major issues to improve the reliability of the power system by preventing a potential failure in advance. Since too many different information modeling, information exchange, and configuration techniques for CMD in various forms from many vendors are currently used, they need to be standardized in TC57.

The new document contains a lot of new Logical Nodes and Data Objects like for:

• GIS (Gas Insulated Switchgear)
• Transformer
• Load Tap Changer (LTC)
• Under Ground Cable (UGC)
• Transmission Line (TL)
• Auxiliary Power System

Example of an extension of the very common Model for a tank (KTNK):

LevMaxSet - Maximum level reached setting
LevHlfSet - Half level reached setting
LevMinSet - Minimum level reached setting

LevMax - Maximum level reached
LevHlf - Half level reached
LevMin - Minimum level reached

Voting terminates on 2015-01-16

More to come.

Siemens reported using IEC 60870-5-104 for DEMS

Siemens DEMS 3.0 stands for third version of their “Decentralized Energy Management System”. It uses IEC 60870-5-104 for communication with power generators, storage devices or loads. The use of open communication and other solutions built-in reduce the engineering cost for virtual power plants by 60 percent – according to Siemens.

What could you do to apply the same cost reduction – or more – if you have to integrate IEDs that provide IEC 61850 information, information exchange and configuration language? Or how to connect a DEMS 3.0 system to IEC 61850?

Here is – I guess – the easiest and shortest time-to-market solution … without writing a single line of program code: The gateway using a so-called com.tom (communication to machine). The topology of an example is shown in the following figure. The gateway is implemented in the upper box.

All WEB PLC objects (inputs and outputs) related to IEC 61850 models are automatically generated from the corresponding SCL files. There is no need to do any manual configuration as long as you have the ICD files of the devices. The object names of the WEB PLC are derived from the object references of the IED/LD/LN.DO.DOA and so on. You see the path names in the I/O list.

All WEB PLC objects can be used to build applications like linking any input with any output (applying the same type – of course): single point input to single point output. The following diagram shows a simple gateway functionality to receive a command via IEC 60870-5-104, route it through an IEC 61850 client to an underlying IEC 61850 server that switches a fan on or off. The status of the FAN LN (using an extended Data Object OpSt) reports the status of the fan. This status is received from the underlying IED via an IEC 61850 report and routed to an IEC 61850 server and an IEC 60870-5-104 server in the gateway.

After “drawing” this diagram, all you need to do is to store the diagram to the gateway (com.tom Basic 3.1 S) and start the program. That’s it.

You may also have figured out the the com.tom Basic 3.1 S integrates an 5-port Ethernet Switch and another independent Ethernet port. This allows to build secure proxy servers/gateways.

The WEB PLC with IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3, Modbus, IEC 61850, … is a very easy, low cost and fast-to-market product that can be applied for many applications running on these communication solutions and for gateways. The application is freely configurable by drawing lines.

If you need complex functions, you can write them in C/C++ or IEC 61131-3 (CoDeSys) and wrap them for immediate use at the WEB PLC. For more complex applications you can program the application in C/C++ or CoDeSys and use the same communication.

Whatever protocol standard is used for a system (IEC 60870-5-104 for Siemens DEMS 3.0) you can easily integrate other devices that run DNP3, Modbus, IEC 61850, … with the com.tom WEB PLC gateway.

You want to learn more about the gateway, please contact us.

Click HERE for information about the com.tom family. The com.tom Basic 3.1, for example, costs 368 Euro plus some license costs for IEC 60870-5-104 and IEC 61850 – this includes already the 5-port Ethernet Switch!

New Work Proposal: IEC 61850 – Modbus Mapping

The Korea Electrotechnology Research Institute (KERI) has proposed a new work item: Guideline for mapping information between IEC 61850 and IEC 61158-6 (ModBus).

Document: 57/1434/NP
Closing date for voting: 2014-04-25

Quite interesting proposal!

We conducted yesterday (during a Workshop at Beck IPC in Wetzlar/Germany) a very easy tool to map between Modbus, IEC 60870-5-104, IEC 61850, … using a graphical webbased configuration tool needs just a web browser:

1. Topology for mapping between Modbus and 104:

Signals (Inputs and Outputs) that can be used by the WEB PLC:

Available communication solutions (Modbus, IEC 60870-5-104, IEC 61850, OpenVPN, …):

Function chart of objects and simple logic:

The interest in such a simple solution that does not requires any programming – except drawing lines between input/outputs, functions and outputs/inputs – is very high. Wrappers are available to integrate C/C++ or CoDeSys programmed functions (Function Blocks).

The IEC 61850 information models are interpreted and the PLC inputs and outputs are automatically generated and shown as a tree …

Finally we demonstrated a Gateway: Process –> Modbus and other I/Os –> IEC 61850 –> IEC 60870-5-104 (DNP3):

The IEDs com.tom BASIC 3.1S (with 5 Port Ethernet Switch and second Ethernet Port integrated) and BASIC 5.1 have been used for the system (process, process monitoring and control, gateway and CC communication).

A second Workshop in German will be conducted on March 12, 2014. The first Workshop in English is scheduled for March 13, 2014.

Click HERE for more details on the workshops. Register soon – the space is limited … and interest high.

How do you know which IEC 61850 Information Models are published or underway for publication?

Information models in IEC 61850 are growing very fast. Many groups have understood that one of the benefits of IEC 61850 is this: Information Models for real world information (measurements, status, configuration, limits, control, …).

One crucial question is this: Where can you get an overview and introduction in the many models already published or those models underway? There are several groups extending the models for several applications inside and outside electrical substations.

The easiest way is to ask somebody that has a good overview and long-term experience with IEC 61850 …

One of the crucial extensions is defined in the draft IEC 61850-90-3. During a training course I was asked last week if IEC 61850 defines something for overhead line monitoring – he did not have a chance to easily figure out that there is one document under preparation … sure you usually don’t know it or don’t find some documentation.

The following figure gives a brief overview about the various aspects of line monitoring:

Want to learn more on the 300+ Logical Node classes defined so far? Please contact NettedAutomation … or attend the next training course in Frankfurt/Germany on 16-18 October 2013.

You have the chance to learn the basics AND the most crucial definitions of the standards and how they could be used. See you there.

The aging infrastructure and aging work force requires more sensors to make sure that the power is flowing reliably in the future! Almost every day you can read stories about breaking infrastructure.

First draft for IEC 61850-90-3 (Condition Monitoring)

IEC TC 57 has recently published a first Draft IEC TR 61850-90-3 – Using IEC 61850 for condition monitoring diagnosis and analysis (57/1372/DC). The document comprises almost 200 pages. Comments are requested by 2013-07-12 at the latest

Domains covered are among others: monitoring of GIS, transformers, load tap changers, underground cables, transmission lines and the auxiliary power system … proposing a few new Logical Nodes and about 200 new Data Objects extending existing Logical Nodes of, e.g, IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2.

If you are interested in this work, please contact your national mirror committee of TC 57.

Use of IEC 61850 for Electrical Systems Monitoring and Control in the Oil and Gas Industry

Laurent Guise and Patrick Montignies both from Schneider Electric Industries (Grenoble, France) have discussed the use of IEC 61850 for Electrical System Monitoring and Control Systems in the Oil and Gas Industry. The results can be found in a nice paper some years ago.

“Crucial industrial sites such as for Oil and Gas plants are requesting more and more monitoring and control of their electrical installation to increase the electricity availability of their process while optimizing the cost of operation.

While willing to implement an Electrical Monitoring and Control System (EMCS), users face the issue of choosing the right communication technology.

By the way an emerging technology – IEC 61850 – appears on the market. This technology promises real interoperability, while offering unprecedented capabilities for reducing the wiring and increasing the installation agility. Are all these promises a reality? What would be the most pragmatic way for taking the maximum benefits of this new technology while minimizing the risk? The object of this paper is to make a point of technology maturity, to identify the real benefits, but also some potential drawbacks.”

In the conclusion the authors state: “Is there a value to choose IEC 61850 for EMCS application? … there are definitely a lot of reasons for considering positively the usage of IEC 61850.”

Access the complete paper on IEC 61850 for Electrical System Monitoring and Control [pdf]

Today, a few years after the paper was published, we can state that the situation has been improved since then. Especially the availability of mature products for monitoring and control of any kind of processes and equipment installed in the many electrical systems make it easy these days to implement IEC 61850 in short time to market – and for a reasonable price.

To build a Gateway between IEC 61850 and any typically used RTU protocol is as easy as riding a bike.

Condition Monitoring of Assets with IEC 61850

Asset Management using IEC 61850 is one of the important areas of future power delivery 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 of a paper by Karlheinz Schwarz at the Distributech 2010 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]

Recently another paper on the same subject was presented by Rod Hughes and Christoph Brunner.

More to come soon.

Introduction to IEC 61850 – two Papers available for download

Karlheinz Schwarz (SCC) has presented two papers on IEC 61850 in Macau (2008). The papers can now be downloaded for free:

The first document gives an overview about the common aspects of the new international standard series IEC 61850 and how it is applied and extended to meet the requirements for al-most the whole electrical energy supply chain. It discusses the reduction of total life cycle cost of power utility automation systems using standard compliant devices, communication and tools.

IEC 61850 beyond Substations – The Standard for the whole Energy Supply System [pdf, 174 KB]

The second document gives an overview about the application of the new international standard series IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 for condition monitoring of primary equipment and monitoring of any process information. It discusses the basic monitoring concepts of IEC 61850 using the many information models (status information and measurements) and communication services for reporting, logging, GOOSE, sampled values, and recording

Advanced Condition Monitoring of Primary Equipment with the Standard Series IEC 61850 AND IEC 61400-25 [pdf, 432 KB]

.

Distribution Company Vector’s Ten-Years Plan for IEC 61850

Vector Limited is the electric power distribution company in the Auckland (New Zealand) area. The company publishes every year an Asset Management Plan (AMP) – informing the public and others what the company is planning to do with their assets. The current plan covers a ten year planning period from 1 April 2011 to 31 March 2021.

One goal of the current AMP is to demonstrate innovation and efficiency improvements. What does this mean related to IEC 61850? A lot in the past and in the future:

• Vector’s substation automation system is based on resilient optical
  Ethernet local area network running IEC 61850 compliant IEDs.
• Vector’s current standard for internal and external communication systems is IEC 61850 standard. DNP3 is also used as an interim solution.
• At present over 50% of Vector’s primary substation are equipped with IEC 61850 compliant IEDs.
• Vector has been running an annual RTU replacement programme for a number of years, and is currently replacing approximately 10 RTUs per region per annum. To replace conventional RTUs, two approved solutions have been used, traditional RTUs with a migration path to IEC 61850, and fully compliant IEC 61850 solutions.
• …

Click HERE for the current plan (2011-2021) [PDF, 10 MB]

IEC 61850 for Substations Only?

The title and scope of IEC 61850 was for many years very restricted:

2001 – 2009: Communication networks and systems in substations

2010 – … : Communication networks and systems for power utility automation

The new title and scope is still too restrictive! The working group wanted to change to “… for automation”. This was not accepted by the IEC Central Office. IEC deals with electro-technical matters. The term “automation” was understood as to broad.

From a content point of view IEC 61850 could be used all over where measurements and status information needs to be communicated – in any application domain. Even if you are just monitoring a process or system (no control need) you can use IEC 61850 models, messages and configuration tools.

The Model “STMP” (temperature supervision logical node) can be used wherever a temperature measurement is taken: Temperature of a transformer, of a room, ambient temperature or your body temperature. When the “STMP.Tmp.mag” value reached the configured limit (Alarm limit or Trip limit) an report or a GOOSE message may be issued.

By the way, IEC 61850 has rules how to define extended logical nodes and data objects. All values can be communicated the Ethernet and TCP/IP based information exchange methods.

Experts pointing to the scope “substations” are not up-to-date. Those arguing that IEC 61850 is for “power utility automation” only may not like to accept that IEC 61850 is very generic or common – applicable in a wide range of applications.

The title and scope are just “toner on paper”.

High Level of Interoperability of Devices in the Power Utility Domain

There are no (almost no) competing solutions in reaching interoperability of monitoring, protection and control devices in the various areas of the power delivery domain. There is no need for a (FERC, EU, …) mandate for interoperability standards ... we have already a high level of interoperability and acceptance of standard families like IEC 60870-6 ICCP, IEC 61968/70, IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, IEC 62351, ... for the process and for the control center level in transmission, distribution, and generation.

Compare it with the international Field Bus standard IEC 61158 – there are little competing international standards for field busses!! YES!! BUT: There are some 60 solutions competing in ONE SINGLE standard: IEC 61158. See:

http://blog.iec61850.com/2008/10/iec-fieldbus-edition-2008.html

Have you ever seen such a (non) standard? I have seen it when I took the photo of the stack on my desk in my office in 2008! ;-)

We could be very lucky in the power utility world!!

I am happy to read FERC’s encouragement of “…utilities, smart grid product manufacturers, regulators, and other smart grid stakeholders to actively participate in the NIST interoperability framework process to work on the development of interoperability standards and to refer to that process for guidance on smart grid standards.”

Smart(er) grids need to be build on interoperable standards – Because there is one huge interconnected, interoperable application to be monitored, protected, and controlled: The interconnected power delivery system. The largest machine globally is the European interconnected system. So, interoperability (of the electric power system) is a key objective in the power world.

We need standards for IEDs that are as interoperable as a power generator (or inverter) from Alstom and a transformer from Siemens producing 400/230 V and 50 Hz and a hair dryer from GE that consumes 230 V and 50 Hz.

Electrical Engineers should understand the need of interoperability of IEDs. Just require the same for monitoring, protection and control IEDs.

IEC 61850 in Papers at the CIRED 2011 Conference in Frankfurt (Germany)

One of the topics presented and discussed at the CIRED 2011 Conference in Frankfurt (Germany) was IEC 61850. 15 papers were about IEC 61850 with different objectives and scope.

You can freely access these papers from the CIRED website. Just click on the following links:

• Minimum common IEC 61850 specification document published by the Spanish gr
• A Plug & Play concept for IEC 61850 in a Smart Grid
• A Study on theApplication Method of IEC 61850 for Data Acquisition and Exc
• Compatibility of IEC61850 edition 1 and edition 2 implementations
• Configuring a IEC 61850 based standard Automation System for a standard Dis
• From Smart Substations to Smart Grid - How IEC 61850 can help making power
• Graphical specification for IEC 61850 based substation automation systems
• IEC 61850 Based Adaptive Distribution Protection
• IEC 61850 GOOSE over WiMAX for Fast Isolation and Restoration of Faults in
• IEC61850 9-2 Process Bus: Operational Experiences in a Real Environment
• IEC61850-BASED LOSS OF MAIN PROTECTION:THE MILANO WI-POWER PROJECT
• Toward an Auto-Configuration Process Leveraging The IEC 61850 Standard
• Benefits of converting conventional instrument transformer data into Smart
• On-line condition monitoring and expert system for power transformers - Int
• Smart eVolution, simplicity and reliability in the MV distribution network

There seems to be a lot of applications which people have not thought about some five or ten years ago.

One of the key needs seems to be all over to USE the standard for many applications in a FAST TO MARKET approach – instead of discussing one or the other protocol issues. The use of WIMAX applications demonstrates what we have said many times: the layered architecture of IEC 61850 can leverage the progress in communication systems. The same is true for 1 GBit/s Ethernet and time synchronization according to IEC 61588 (IEEE 1588).

The last two papers introduce IEC 61850 for condition monitoring – quite interesting and good examples for the application of IEC 61850 in power distribution.

The last but one paper from ABB (On-line condition monitoring …) says:

“This new circuit breaker (CB) is a highly integrated device that combines measurement, protection and control capability with the primary power disconnection, switching and interruption technology. The CB embeds a protection and control Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) designed to unleash the full potential of the IEC 61850 standard for communication and interoperability. …

Fast delivery
The high technology production line and component standardization enable to guarantee the same delivery time for the new CB series as the standard circuit breaker.”

Fast delivery means fast development. Embedded Controllers with IEC 61850 software already integrated into the platform could provide an easy to use and fast to go API (Application Program Interface). You can start right away with your application development – skip the IEC 61850 software integration that usually may take six to 12 months!!

The first small footprint embedded controller with an integrated IEC 61850 stack providing a simple API is the Beck IPC 61850@CHIP. There will be two other controllers running LINUX available soon that have the same IEC 61850 stack from SystemCorp and the same simple API.

Many IED vendors are already developing their HW and SW applying the Beck IPC Chip for various applications (protection, control, measurements, charging stations, …).

Stay tuned to this Blog to get information on the two new powerful LINUX based embedded controllers with IEC 61850. Product announcements will be released this summer (2011). More to come.

Last but not least: There is still confusion what the Edition 1 and Edition 2 of IEC 61850 mean.

Click HERE to read what Edition 1 and Edition 2 means.

Use of IEC 61400-25 to secure access to key O&M data

Vattenfall (one of the big European power utilities) plans to use IEC 61400-25 (an extension of IEC 61850) for operational and maintenance (service) applications.

Here is the conclusion of the paper:
”The IEC 61400-25 series of standards provides the means to get open and easy access to key O&M data [operation and maintenance data]. This data is a necessity for making the evaluations and analysis needed to improve operation and maintenance of the wind power plants. The paper has shown how the standard can be implemented and what benefits are associated with its use.
The standard does not restrict nor mandate specific customer-supplier roles, but provides a solution that supports the whole range of business cases where the different actors can cooperate. Both the customer and the supplier can benefit from IEC 61400-25 through decreased costs for data access and system integration. Time and money can instead be put on the development of applications, functions and methods that increase the performance of the wind turbines.
Vattenfall considers standards such as IEC 61400-25 to be an important part in the development of the wind power business. The IEC 61400-25 series of standards is therefore part of Vattenfall technical requirements for future procurements.”

The same is true for any other energy resource feeding electric energy into the grid – at any voltage level. The renewable resources and – more general – distributed energy resources (DER) are key for the future electric power delivery system. A government funded project in Germany (EUMONIS: Innovationsallianz zur Entwicklung einer Software- und Systemplattform für Energie- und Umweltmonitoringsysteme) is looking for accessing, storing and using information from the sheer unlimited number of power resources in the near future: PV, CHP, hydro, wind, flying wheels, … One objective is to have information about the status and availability of the resource in a central database, in order to operate and maintain the “distributed Power Plant”. This seems to be one of the crucial challenges in the years to come.

Click HERE to access the complete Vattenfall paper [pdf].
Click HERE for the website of EUMONIS [German].

Did you know that IEC 61400-25 covers also Condition Monitoring needs?

Wind turbines - Part 25-6: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Logical node classes and data classes for condition monitoring

Click HERE for the preview of part IEC 61400-25-6

Remote Service Forum und IEC 61850

Das 19. Remote Service Forum findet vom 6.-7. Juli 2011 bei der IHK Karlsruhe unter dem Titel “Von der Technologie zu neuen Dienstleistungen” statt. Neue Dienstleistungen im Bereich der erneuerbaren Energien und intelligenten Energieversorgungs-Netze sind unumgänglich, um die Flut der Informationen zum Überwachen, Steuern und Regeln des Energieflusses zu beherrschen. Industrielle Kommunikationsnetze (Feldbusse) sind kaum als Basis geeignet, weil es zu viele gibt: mehrere hundert!

In der elektrischen Energieversorung haben sich die Normen IEC 60870-5-10x (Telecontrol), IEC 60870-6 TASE.2 (Inter-control center communication), IEC 61850 (substation automation and protection, DER, Hydro power plant monitoring and control), IEC 61400-25 (monitoring and control of wind turbines), und IEC 61131-3 (open PLC programming language) durchgesetzt.

Herr Dipl.-Ing. Karlheinz Schwarz (SCC) wird am 7.Juli 2011 einen Vortrag unter dem Titel “Genormter Remote-Zugriff auf Informationen elektrotechnischer Erzeugungs-und Verteilungsanlagen mit IEC 61850” halten.

NettedAutomation GmbH wird in der begleitenden Ausstellung über die neuesten Trends bei der Realisierung von IEC 61850 basierten Komponenten berichten und Realisierungsmöglichkeiten für embedded controller und vieles mehr vorstellen.

HIER klicken, um das Programm und die Anmeldeinformationen herunterzuladen.

Developers Workshop for IEC 61850 at Myong Ji University, Yongin (RP of Korea) was successful

A successful Developers Workshop for IEC 61850 Client/Server and Publisher/Subscriber Applications was conducted at the Myong Ji University, Yongin/Korea, on 11 March 2011.

The interest was beyond expectations: 45 experts from all over of the RP of Korea attended the Workshop:
 

The attendees followed the instructions of Karlheinz Schwarz, who used the black board to explain the approach of IEC 61850 and the use of the simple API (Application Program Interface):

He explained the use of the API for different architectures (HW and SW) ... questions were discussed in English and Korean:

Professor Hyuk Soo Jang from the Myong Ji University (left) helped to explain the API in Korean.

The attendees used the PCs of the lab and partly their own notebooks to run the API evaluation software. They exercised to configure the IEC 61850 server and to check the effect of SCL file modifications ... a great tool to work with.

After the workshop attendees told me that they have learned a lot about the standard, the stack software, the API, how easy it is to develop applications, and how to use the Beck Chip (with IEC 61850 @ Chip) in many different architectures. One crucial result was, that they figured out that the Beck Chip is a complete PC or PLC that can be used to implement applications (in C, C++ or IEC 61131-3) using IEC 61850 API. The Chip is much more than just a communication chip!!

The objective of the training was:

Students will learn how to use an API for IEC 61850 (IEC 61400-25) for Client, Server (C/S), Publisher, and Subscriber (P/S) Applications. The API provides an IEC 61850 Stack (included in a Windows DLL) that is used by application software written in C, C++ and C#. Prior to the event, students will receive the DLL and sample executable and source code for the applications. Students that bring their own Notebooks will be trained to modify and extend the application examples. After the training sessions students can continue to write their own application software.

Click HERE for the complete program of the workshop [pdf].

It is planned to repeat this workshop and provide more help for developers of IEC 61850 applications - the open and easy to use IEC 61850 platform is a crucial basis for the fast-to-market innovations of sustainable interoperable applications in the energy market.

It's never been easier or faster to get your applications speak IEC 61850.

Growth of Substation Automation with IEC 61850

There seems to be an ongoing interest in doing market studies in order to figure out what will be the technologies applied in power system automation in the next years or decades. One of the latest is the following report:

"The World Market for Substation Automation and Integration Programs in Electric Utilities: 2011-2013." by Newton-Evans Research Company

Click HERE for a brief news information found on the Newton-Evans website.
Click HERE for some details from the report from Business Wire.

The number of systems installed in the electrical power delivery systems is much bigger than what these kind of studies show. The news reports: "Respondents indicated a total of 1,567 transmission substations and 5,154 distribution substations in operation as of the 4th quarter of 2010. These represent a 9% sample of U.S. and Canadian combined totals of transmission voltage substations and nearly 10% of all distribution voltage substations."

The power market is a global market - the potential market for IEC 61850 is global as well! The numbers of applications is in the Millions! Check what Enel reported during the recent first European IEEE Smart Grid conference in Gothenburg (Sweden): Enel owns over 0.4 MILLION MV/LV Substations! HV and MV network are remotely operated, more than 0.1 MILLION MV substations remote controlled ... There is a potential of 0.3 MILLION LV substations where IEC 61850 one way or the other may be used in the next decade.

One of Enel's project deals with even more potential use cases of IEC 61850:

Active Control of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) connected to the Medium Voltage network: The project will deal with:

• Realizing an advanced control system
• Implementing an “always on” and standard-based communication solution connecting all the relevant nodes in the network, including DER locations.
• Implementing Voltage Control (at all nodes) and Power Flow Control in the MV network.

Click HERE for the complete presentation by Enel.

Take, for example, the number of PV inverter manufactured monthly by one vendor: SMA (Germany):

"On the reporting date, SMA had a maximum annual production capacity of approx. 11 GW worldwide. This corresponds to a doubling in annual production capacity in comparison to the end of 2009. Owing to the better availability of electronic components, SMA was able to utilize almost fully its existing production capacities in the third quarter of 2010 with an inverter output sold of nearly 2.6 GW. In the first nine months, SMA sold inverter output of 5,738 MW in total" ... I guess this means some 500.000 PV Inverters from one manufacturer (assuming average inverter of 20 kW) !!

Click HERE for the SMA news report.

Taking the monitoring, control and automation needs reported by Enel (above) into account means: there is a potential global market of MILLIONS of devices per year that need "standard-based communication". IEC 61850 has almost everything needed.

In this light we have to look at what Newton-Evans figured out:

"Of 5,154 distribution substations in operation at participating utilities, nearly 36% were reported to be without any automation. Just over one-half (52%) of these distribution substations were classified as Stage 1 sites (having some IEDs, RTUs, and two-way communications). About 12% were reported to be “fully automated.”"

When we talk about "standard-based communication", we have to use a wide-angle lens - not a zoom lens to focus on some substations in the U.S. There are definitely a lot more of opportunities globally!

There is a bright future for IEC 61850!

IEC 61400-25-6 has been Approved as International Standard

The 6th part of IEC 61400-25 has been approved as International Standard on October 15, 2010. The final draft (FDIS) has been approved by 100 per cent of the IEC TC 88 national committees. The Standard will be published in some weeks.

IEC 61400-25-6 Ed.1: Wind Turbines - Part 25-6: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Logical node classes and data classes for condition monitoring

The new International Standard defines new information models.

Click HERE for the preview of the FDIS.

European Roadmap - More Euros for Smart Grids

The European Electricity Grid Initiative (EEGI) has published a Roadmap for the years 2010-18 and a Detailed Implementation Plan 2010-12; with proposals how many Euros to spend.

The EEGI has proposed a nine-year European research, development and demonstration (RD&D) program initiated by electricity transmission and distribution network operators to accelerate innovation and the development of the electricity networks of the future in Europe.

The following statement is great: "The proposed RD&D program focuses on system innovation rather than on technology innovation." Yes, the time to develop crucial Technologies was during the years 2000 and 2010. Several basic Technologies like the international communication standards IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, IEC 62351, IEC 61968, and IEC 61970 are published AND IMPLEMENTED in many devices - ready to build SYSTEMS.

The time has come to USE these standards and devices - rather than start again discussing protocols again and again ... like in the nineties ...

Planned investments for monitoring, communication, ... automation are:

Start	Function	Budget
2012	Improved planning, monitoring and control of LV networks	100 M€
2011	Automation and control of MV network	90 M€
2012	Integrated Communication Solutions	50 M€
2011	Joint Task force on IT system protocols and standards (DSO driven)	19 M€

Click HERE to download the Roadmap.