Tissue Database for IEC 60870-5 is now online

The industry asked for another tissue database for IEC standards. The other day the new tissue database for IEC 60870-5 went online:

https://iec60870-5.tissue-db.com/default.mspx

IEC 60870-5: "Telecontrol equipment and systems" ... a well known standard used in many applications globally.

Some discussion can be found here (60870-5, comparison with other solutions): 

https://blog.nettedautomation.com/search?q=60870-5

https://blog.nettedautomation.com/search?q=comparison

IEC 60870-5-1:1990
IEC 60870-5-2:1992
IEC 60870-5-3:1992
IEC 60870-5-4:1993
IEC 60870-5-5:1995
IEC 60870-5-6:2006
IEC TS 60870-5-7:2013
IEC 60870-5-101:2003+AMD1:2015 CSV
IEC 60870-5-102:1996
IEC 60870-5-103:1997
IEC 60870-5-104:2006+AMD1:2016 CSV
IEC TS 60870-5-601:2015
IEC TS 60870-5-604:2016 RLV

IXXAT Smart Grid Gateway With NEW Possibilities

IXXAT (HMS) has offered their Smart Grid Gateways for some time. Click HERE for some blog posts that give you a good overview of the possibilities so far (HERE for HMS or HERE for Beck).
The other day IXXAT has published an extended range of possibilities to share information between many different communication solutions in almost ALL automation applications:

SG-gateway IO
SG-gateway M-Bus Master
SG-gateway EtherNet/IP
SG-gateway PROFIBUS
SG-gateway PROFINET

New:

SG-gateway Media Converter
SG-gateway Switch

All types support as well:

Modbus-RTU master/slave via RS232/485
Modbus-TCP master/slave
DHCP server, SNTP, Network trace (pcap), SNMPv2c
OPC-UA server
MQTT
Codesys network variables

Optional:

IEC 60870-5-104 client/server with redundancy (Norwegian User Convention)
IEC 60871-5-101 master/slave
IEC 61850 client/server (both roles and GOOSE pub/sub are supported simultaneous)
IEC 61850 GOOSE publisher/subscriber
Outstation DNP3
Hardware versions with 3G or 4G modem

Click HERE to visit the IXXAT website for an overview (German).
Click HERE to download a new 12 page pdf bochure (German).

IEC 61850 Products at CIRED June 3-6, 2019 - Madrid (Spain)

3-6 June 2019, Madrid, Spain

SystemCORP will participate together with Advantech in the CIRED Exhibition in Madrid, Spain. It promotes the SystemCORP ADH Software, a flexible and complete data communication and process automation package, fully integrated in Advantech data gateways.

Based on a distributed real-time database and application management system almost any SCADA communication protocol can now be used as client or server on Advantech modules. SystemCORP offers most commonly used communication protocols such as IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5, DNP3, Modbus and JSON/MQTT as part of a standard communication library for SCADA and Cloud integration. An integrated IEC 61131 compliant programmable logic controller (PLC) extends the capability of the ADH as a true virtual SMART Grid device ready to be installed in distribution automation and smart gird projects.

For application configuration, the eNode Designer, IEC 61850 ICD Designer and IED Configurator tools simplify system engineering and result in reduction of project costs and implementation time. No special tools are required for establishing secure communication with cloud applications.

To know more visit our booth no H1/G2 at the IFEMA North Convention Centre. Address: IFEMA, Av. Partenón, Nº 5, 28042 Madrid, Spain. Entrance is free.

For any more information please check the event website: http://www.cired2019.org/

IEC TS 62351-5 ED2 - Security for IEC 60870-5 and derivatives

IEC TC 57 just published a new proposal to revise TR IEC 62351-5 and convert it into a standard:

57/2000/DC

Proposed revision of IEC TS 62351-5 ED2 and transformation of the TS into an IS (Power systems management and associated information exchange - Data and communications security - Part 5: Security for IEC 60870-5 and derivatives)

Excerpt from the background:

"... Since IEC TS 62351-5 was first published, IEC 60870-5-7 has been published defining specific security requirements for IEC 60870-5 protocols based on IEC TS 62351-5, while similar specific security requirements have been defined for IEEE Std. 1815 (DNP3). In addition, implementations have been undertaken by vendors. As a result, some issues with IEC TS 62351-5 were identified. At the same time, the security requirements for IEC 60870-5 have matured since these specifications were released as a Technical Specification. At this time, it is important to update these security requirements and convert them into an International Standard in order to ensure that implementations of IEC 60870-5 can include the appropriate security measures. ..."

Comments are expected by 2018-07-20 at the latest.

Comparison of IEC 60870-5-10x, DNP3, and IEC 60870-6-TASE.2 with IEC 61850

In 2008 I published the 3rd version of the document:

Comparison of IEC 60870-5-101/-103/-104, DNP3, and IEC 60870-6-TASE.2 with IEC 61850

This is really the most downloaded document since then - and still in 2017!

Click HERE for getting a copy.

It is interesting that so many people are still interested to see the difference between IEC 61850 and the other IEC TC 57 standard series.

Now, in 2017 we have learned that IEC 61850 goes far beyond the other standard series.

The RTU standards like 104 or DNP3 are still in widespread use. Utilities are expecting that many vendors of RTUs will start to discontinue to supporting these standards.
That is one of many reasons why more utilities are starting to get involved in understanding IEC 61850.

CD published: Conformance Test Cases for the IEC 62351-5

IEC TC 57 just published a 110 page crucial document on security testing (57/1852/CD):

IEC TS 62351 - Data and communications security -
Part 100-1: Conformance test cases for the IEC 62351-5 and its companion standards for secure data exchange communication interfaces

Comments are welcome by 2017-06-09

The scope is to specify common available procedures and definitions for conformance and/or interoperability testing of the IEC/TS 62351-5 (Security for IEC 60870-5 and derivatives), the IEC/TS 60870-5-7 and also their recommendations over the IEC 62351-3 for profiles including TCP/IP. These are the security extensions for IEC 60870-5 and derivatives to enable unambiguous and standardised evaluation of IEC/TS 62351-5 and its companion standards protocol implementations.

Read One of the Best Papers on IEC 61850 ever Published

Eric A. Udren (a friend of mine) from Quanta Technology, LLC of Raleigh, North Carolina has written one of the best papers on the application of IEC 61850 in general and in the USA I ever read:

What Drives the Business Case for IEC 61850?

published in the December 2016 issue of the PAC World magazine.

This paper summarizes the experience of more than 10 years with the application of the standard series IEC 61850. It is a very easy to read and understand summary of the content of my training courses. After more than 230 training courses I conducted globally since 2003 and more than 4,200 experts educated in these courses I fully agree with the crucial recommendations of the paper:

Eric states at the very beginning (3rd sentence!): " ... one must first understand that IEC 61850 is not just a communications protocol." Well said. He lists many crucial facets.

The main part of Eric's conclusion is [highlights are added by myself]:

"The following action items can help the utility to achieve technical success and lowest life cycle costs:

• Develop requirements for and relationships with product vendors, who must commit to support interoperable and sustainable products and designs over the service life of the PAC design.
• Apply the sustainable design principles of the previous sections. If some of these seem unfamiliar, get expert help from vendors and from vendor-independent industry experts with experience in PAC system design and integration.
• Create strong, rigid design standards; develop broadly useable documentation for new PAC design features like network configuration, data flows, and GOOSE messaging connections of functional points.
• Set up rigid documentation and configuration management systems. With IEC 61850, much of the PAC design is no longer evident in the physical installation – this managed design information is the only tool to maintain the system.
• Create a development laboratory to validate the performance of the design. Keep the laboratory throughout the installation life to train personnel, to troubleshoot bugs that arise in the field, and to test new product or firmware insertions in the existing design before authorizing those for field use.
• Develop and run training programs for field maintenance personnel, including hands-on participation and feedback during the design and laboratory test phases.
• Develop and run training programs for other enterprise stakeholders, including system planning, capital planning, purchasing, and operations teams.
• After the pilot or trial phase, plan a crisp organizational transition to the new design at the fastest sustainable rate."

Click HERE to access the paper for free.

There have been a lot of misleading and strange statements on the benefits of IEC 61850 communicated ... trust the real experts like Eric Udren ...

One of the real show-stoppers of a beneficial application is the lack of education of many engineers. We offer the right experience and knowledge for your people to harvest the benefits of the application of IEC 61850 and other standards:

Click HERE for the latest announcements of courses in German.
Click HERE for the latest announcements of courses in English.

I look forward meeting you in one of the public courses or in an inhouse seminar. Peopleware is one of the most crucial issues in future energy systems.

IEC-61850-Seminare in Deutsch (Mai und Dezember 2017)

NettedAutomation GmbH bietet in 2017 zwei IEC-61850-Seminare zu unschlagbaren Preisen in Karlsruhe an:

09.-12. Mai 2017 
05.-08. Dezember 2017

Die drei (3) Blöcke (1 Tag + 2 Tage + 1 Tag) können einzeln oder in Kombination gebucht werden. Sie entscheiden selbst, ob Sie nur einen Tag von Ihrem Arbeitsplatz fern bleiben möchten oder zwei, drei oder vier. Je nachdem, wieviel Zeit Sie investieren wollen oder können und welchen Bedarf Sie haben.

Lernen Sie, wie über 4.000 Teilnehmer vor Ihnen, was IEC 61850 und andere Normen wie IEC 60870-5-10x oder IEC 62351 (Security) bedeuten. Gewinnen Sie einen Einblick in relevante Realisierungen wie die FNN-Steuerbox oder VHPready, die auf IEC 61850 aufbauen. Verstehen Sie, wie Feldbusse über lostengünstige Gateways in die Anlagen eingebunden werden können.

HIER klicken, um zur Beschreibung und den Anmeldeunterlagen zu gelangen [pdf, 430 KB].

Beachten Sie auch, dass die meisten Seminare als Inhouse-Kurse stattfinden! Falls Sie Interesse an einem Inhouse-Kurs (in deutsch, englisch, italienisch oder schwedisch) haben sollten kontaktieren Sie uns bitte!

Amendment to Power Quality Meter Goes IEC 61850 and IEC 60870-5-104

The recent post "Power Quality Meter Goes IEC 61850 and IEC 60870-5-104" needs some explanation to understand what the Gateway could do.
In the case described in the post, we use one gateway for one power quality meter. Of course this is only one example. A single gateway can acquire signals from many power quality meters from different brands and via different protocols: Modbus I/O, Modbus/TCP, Profibus, ProfiNet, Ethernet/IP, and IEC 61850.
The gateway acts as well as a data concentrator, data manager, or proxy gateway. You may use it for any other signals - outside the power quality application. It may be connected to a substation LAN and tap GOOSE messages flying around.
The nice thing is: It can transform between (almost) ANY protocol without the need that IEC 61850 or IEC 60870-5-10x is integrated directly into the end device like a power quality meter.
In the future we will see more devices that have IEC 61850 integrated into their devices (by using a special piece of hardware or integrated onto the main controller of the device).

New Work Items Proposed within IEC TC 57 (IEC TS 62351-100-1)

57/1747/NP
Power systems management and associated information exchange – Data and communications security – Part 100-1: Conformance test cases for the IEC 62351-5 and its companion standards for secure data exchange communication interfaces (proposed IEC TS 62351-100-1).

The scope is to specify common available procedures and definitions for conformance and/or interoperability testing of the IEC 62351-5, the IEC 60870-5-7 and their recommendations over the IEC 62351-3. These are the security extensions for IEC 60870-5 and derivatives.

Ballot closes 2016-09-30

The Complete Content of the IEC 61850 News Blog is now Available as Single PDF Document

For those readers of this IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5/6, DNP3, … news blog that want to get the complete content as a single pdf document, it is just a click away … it contains 1000+ posts from 2008 until 2015-04-28. Once you have downloaded the file you can easily browse the content … search … mark … copy … You will find useful information about the standards, vendors like ABB, HMS, Siemens, or utilities …

Click HERE to download all posts of the IEC 61850 blog in a single pdf [11.3 MB, 766 pages DIN A4]

Enjoy.

In case you have a question, drop us an EMAIL.

IEC 61850: Protection and SCADA Seminars (updated)

The IEC 61850 applied for several years to many new substation designs all over the world. During the seminar, truly experienced and vendor independent engineers will help you to see and understand how use the core parts of the IEC 61850 standard are applied in substation design, monitoring, protection and control applications.

Attendees will learn from a senior protection engineer, how the protection system will improve and understand the crucial lessons learned since the first projects with IEC 61850 in 2004.

Seminar contents:

IEC 61850 Introduction (Edition 1, 2, and 2.1) and experience after 10 years in operation. Where are we today?

Return of experience, applications and practical demonstrations: Protection and Control in Substation Automation, Engineering and Configuration, Maintenance, Monitoring and SCADA system, Specification of the IEC 61850 protection and control system.

Through the practical demonstrations you will learn: To handle IEC 61850 relay protections from different vendors and their software tools; to be able to efficiently manage flexibility in engineering and interoperability. To use the state of the art IEC 61850 testing tools and equipment to efficiently detect the technical problems and work-out their solutions. To understand SCL files, setup clients and servers for MMS communication to SCADA and RTU Systems All the presentations are supported by practical examples or demonstrations.

The following 3 days special training courses are offered by FMTP (Uppsala, Sweden) and NettedAutomation:

Hong Kong
27-29 April 2015
Details and registration

Berlin (Germany)
05-07 May 2015
Details and registration

Bratislava (Slovakia)
18-20 May 2015
Details and registration

Brussels (Belgium)
08-10 June 2015
Details and registration

I look forward to seeing you there.

VHPready Signal MMXU1.TotW.instMag – versus IOA 113

Signals configured in IEC 61850 and configured in IEC 60870-5-104 look quite different.

The following figure shows the same signal (Current electric Power – Aktuell erzeugte elektrische Leistung) in IEC 61850 (left) and IEC 60870-5-104 (right):

The IEC 61850 model exposes the value, quaity and timestamp as well as the semantic (TotalWatt). The total watt of what? Of the “Current electric Power – Aktuell erzeigte elektrische Leistung” as described in the DC (description of the signal).

On the other side we have the information object address (IOA = 113) that carries the same value in IEC 60870-5-104. What does the value 3456 mean? No idea in IEC 60870-5-104. You have to know upfront what 113 means. IEC 61850 stores the meaning in the device (model).

In the above case we see also the IOA=113 in the description (DC) of the IEC 61850 model. It is a text string attached to the DC attribute.

IEC 61850 Series is Growing to a Total of 45 Parts

IEC 61850 (Communication networks and systems for power utility automation) is a unique standards series providing a consistent set of standards, draft standards and other IEC publications.

A total of 45 parts cover many application domains in the Power Delivery System. An additional five (5) parts are published under the number IEC 61400-25 (extensions of IEC 61850 for Wind Power).

Document types of IEC:
IS = Standard
TR = Technical Report
TS = Technical Specification

21 Parts are already officially published. 24 draft parts are under preparation. Several drafts will be officially published in 2015.

The list of all documents:

  

In order to keep the crucial contents (mainly models and services) of these parts consistent, IEC TC 57 WG 10, 17, and 18 have done a tremendous work in converting the crucial contents into UML documents. This allows to extend and maintain the models with support of tools. In future we will see standard documents automatically derived from the UML Models.

Congratulation to all people contributing to this great standard series IEC 61850!

Some 20 years after the IEC TC 57 has decided (in 1995) to write a new standard for substation protection and automation, we see a lot of interest in many different application domains.

In case you need help to understand the many different parts and how they could contribute to solve needs you are faced with today and tomorrow – let me know please.

Even IEC 61850 is a huge Standard Series – it must be accompanied by REAL APPLICATIONS and underlying network infrastructure. The 7 ISO/OSI layers are just a foundation for IEC 61850 – both together are used by applications:

The applications of IEC 61850 can range from a simple polling of a temperature measurement up to comprehensive Schedules to manage distributed energy resources.

By the way: Te cake was very tasty!

Standard IEC 62351-3 “Communication network and system security - Profiles including TCP/IP” published

IEC TC 57 has published the crucial standard for security:

Standard IEC 62351-3
Power systems management and associated information exchange - Data and communications security -
Part 3: Communication network and system security - Profiles including TCP/IP

Partie 3: Sécurité des réseaux et des systèmes de communication – Profils comprenant TCP/IP

This part of IEC 62351 specifies how to secure TCP/IP-based protocols through constraints on the specification of the messages, procedures, and algorithms of Transport Layer Security (TLS) (defined in RFC 5246) so that they are applicable to the telecontrol environment of the IEC. TLS is applied to protect the TCP communication. It is intended that this standard be referenced as a normative part of other IEC standards (e.g., IEC 60870-5, IEC 60870-6, IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, …) that have the need for providing security for their TCP/IP-based protocol.

Now it is up to the vendors and users to implement this standard or require it, respectively.

There is no accuse anymore that IEC 61850 has no security measures defined in form of a standard that can officially be referenced.

Click HERE for the preview of the new standard.

HMS: Bridging Fieldbus Communication to Power Automation

HMS (one of the most crucial supporter of field busses for industrial and process Automation) brings the huge installed base of field instrumentation closer to the power automation and vice versa. With the new approach customers can tap and exchange crucial process information with the most successful power communication standards like IEC 60870-5-104 or DNP3 and others.

HMS provides a new family of products for smart grid applications using IEC 60870-5-104, IEC 61850, Modbus, Profibus, Profinet, HART, …: The LABLINE SG gateway family targets Demand Response (networking of industrial electric loads) and Virtual Power Plants (networking of energy resources like biogas plants or combined heat and power units) applications.

NettedAutomation’s Motto since 2000 is: The NET is The Automation. Networking is really crucial – and also to understand what this all means! Do you know how to bridge the gaps between signals communicated with Profibus DP and IEC 60870-5-104? HMS has the solution to bridge almost all gaps between factory and process instrumentation field busses and the power world.

Remote Terminal Unit
The LABLINE SG devices support the communication protocols used in the energy sector, e.g. IEC60870-5-104, DNP3 and IEC61850; as well as protocols supported by the electric equipment in the field, e.g. Modbus or M-Bus. The LABLINE SG gateways can also communicate with industrial fieldbus or industrial Ethernet networks such as Profibus, Profinet or any other industrial network thanks to their Anybus technology.

Smart Gateway 
The application logic can be programmed on the device either using a graphical web editor or for more complex applications through the embedded soft-PLC from CODESYS compliant to IEC61131-3 standard.

Click HERE for more details of the new family of products.

More to come.

How to Generate IEC 61850 IED Models?

IEC 61850-6 (SCL – System Configuration Language) supports the design, engineering and configuration of systems … systems composed of many IEDs (Intelligent Electronic Devices). One key question is: How can I define a model of an IED?

Big vendors like ABB, GE, Siemens, … have their own vendor-specific tools. What’s about third-party tools? Or even freely available tools?

The following tools may be used for free (with some restrictions):

IEDmodeler from RedWind:

IED Modeler is a tool free for use as long as you have an access to the internet and accept their license … The program is free of charge for non-profit purposes including teaching and research at universities, colleges and other educational institutions, research at non-profit research institutions, and personal non-profit purposes.

Click HERE for more information.

ICD Designer from SystemCorp:

The ICD Designer can be used to model IEDs according to Edition 1 and Edition 2 of the core parts of IEC 61850. In addition to modeling IEDs it can be used to bind Models to real applications: bind the “XCBR2.Pos.stVal” to a specific memory location or to a Modbus Coil:

The “Pos.stVal” can be bound to a Modbus Slave:

This binding allows automatic configuration of the IEC 61850 Stack/API and binding to the corresponding Modbus device at address 321.

Other bindings are supported: DNP3, IEC 60870-5-104, …

The ICD Designer can be used to simplify the application of the SystemCorp IEC 61850 Stack/API.

Click HERE for more information on the ICD Designer. The ICD Designer can – of course – also be used for creating CID Files.

HMS offers IEC 60870-5-104 and IEC 61850 Gateway

HMS is a well known company in the world of communication solutions for any kind of Automation in factories, chemical plants, ... HMS is active in more than 50 countries, with some 350 employees, with the head office in Halmstad (Sweden).

HMS has understood the importance of the standards IEC 60870-5-104 and IEC 61850: Their latest offering are new Gateways under the Product line LABLINE SG. The new products are applicable in any Smart Grid application like Photo Voltaic, Wind Power, CHP, Backup Power, Metering, Power Quality, … and beyond:

Click HERE for more information in German and English.

Deutsche Verteilnetzstudie veröffentlicht – mit Hinweisen auf IEC 61850

Das Bundesministeriums für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) hat heute (12. September 2014) die Verteilnetzstudie „Moderne Verteilernetze für Deutschland“ der Öffentlichkeit vorgestellt. Die Studie wurde Ende 2012 vom Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie (BMWi) in Auftrag gegeben.

Im Koalitionsvertrag der 18. Legislaturperiode „Deutschlands Zukunft gestalten“ wird die vorliegende Studie als Datenbasis für Entscheidungen zu notwendigen Weiterentwicklungen der Anreizregulierung bezeichnet.

Hier klicken, um zur Downloadseite zu gelangen.

“Rainer Baake, Staatssekretär im Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Energie, hierzu: "Der Umbau unserer Energieversorgung hin zu mehr erneuerbaren Energien erhöht zweifelsfrei den Investitionsbedarf in die Verteilernetze.
Allerdings macht die Studie zugleich deutlich, dass mit den nun gesetzlich verankerten Ausbaukorridoren des EEG 2014 und einem dadurch besser planbaren Erneuerbaren-Ausbau die Kosteneffizienz des Aus- und Umbaus der Verteilernetze erheblich verbessert wird. Es kommt nun darauf an, das enorme Einsparpotenzial, das der Einsatz intelligenter Methoden bei der Netzplanung und intelligenter Technik im Netzbetrieb bietet, zu nutzen. Die Weiterentwicklung des Regulierungsrahmens ist in der 10-Punkte-Energie-Agenda daher bereits angelegt, und das setzen wir jetzt um."

Die Gutachter kommen in der Studie unter anderem zu dem Ergebnis, dass neue innovative Planungsgrundsätze und neue Technologien, wie beispielsweise regelbare Ortstransformatoren, zentrale Elemente für eine effiziente Integration der erneuerbaren Energien bilden und die Kosteneffizienz des Aus- und Umbaus der Verteilernetze erhöhen.

Die Studie wurde erstellt von einem Gutachterkonsortium bestehend aus dem Institut und Lehrstuhl für Elektrische Anlagen und Energiewirtschaft (IAEW) der RWTH Aachen, dem Oldenburger Institut für Informatik (OFFIS) sowie dem Beratungsunternehmen E-Bridge Consulting GmbH.”

Das wesentliche Ergebnis ist die Forderung, bis zu etwa 40.000 regelbare Ortsnetztransformatoren zu installieren und für weitgehend alle Einspeisungen aus Erneuerbaren Energien-Anlagen für wenige Stunden des Jahres gezielt Abregelungen zuzulassen.

Natürlich gehen fast alle Maßnahmen mit einer deutlichen Zunahme an intelligenten Steuerungen und Kommunikationslösungen einher. Als wesentliche Kommunikationslösungen werden solche empfohlen, die auf IEC 61850-7-420, IEC 60870-5 und IEC 61969 (CIM) basieren. VHPready (als ein Anwender der IEC 61850-7-420) wird lobend erwähnt:

“Die bisherigen Lösungen für das Erzeugungsmanagement sind seit 2006 in Form der Normung der IEC 61850-7-420 zur Kommunikation mit dezentralen Erzeugern in Demoprojekten und verschiedenen Projekten und Initiativen wie VHPready vorangetrieben worden. Produkte von namhaften Herstellern sind bereits im Einsatz.”

Ein interessanter Aspekt ist die Interpretation des Berichts durch den VKU (Verband kommunaler Unternehmen): “… Hingegen kann durch die Steuerung der Verbraucherlast der durch den EE‐Zubau verursachte Netzausbau nicht nennenswert reduziert werden. Der VKU wertet dies als eine klare Absage an den Rollout von Smart Metern in Haushalten.”

Cyber Security in Industrial Control Systems – Is this enough?

Cyber security is more than a hype. Is this enough to reach a secure and stable power system? No!

I found a very good documentation on cyber security measure:

Since February 2013, industrial stakeholders (final users, vendors, integrators, professional organizations, etc.) and French governmental entities have been working together on elaborating concrete and practical proposals to improve the cyber security of critical infrastructures.

The first results of this working group are the following two documents:

• The first document describes a classification method for industrial control systems and the key measures to improve their cyber security.
• The second one gives a more in-depth description of applicable cyber security measures.

Click HERE for the website with the links to the two documents. Nice reading!

These measures (comparable to those listed by many other organizations and groups) will help to improve the cyber security of critical infrastructures. No question.

Do these measures help to keep the power flowing, help to keep a stable and highly available power system? To some extend these measures solve mainly issues that are caused by new control system solutions based on standards like Ethernet and TCP/IP.

But: What’s about the power system stability? Let’s assume that we have a 100 per cent cyber secure ICS managing the power generation, transmission, distribution, storages, and loads. This “secure” systems may be used in many different ways – taking the physical laws seriously into account or ignoring some basic requirements to keep the power system stable.

One very critical impact on the electrical system is the change of power flow. Each change (more or less generation or load) has to be controlled in a bunch of close loop control systems. If the amount of change in a short time (within seconds) is too high, then the systems is likely to black-out.

A highly secure ICS may be used to configure schedules for feeding power into the power system (generator or storage) or drawing power from the system. The power flow change caused by schedules may exceed the maximum value that can be automatically managed by primary power control systems … risking a power outage.

Who is now responsible that the maximum allowable power flow change in an interconnected power system will be taken into account when we have millions of such schedules? Maybe too may schedules are configured to draw power or feed in starting at 14:00 h today. As a consequence the power flow change could be far beyond the maximum amount that can automatically be managed by the primary power control system (as we have them today in all systems).

Cyber security of ICS is one aspect – system stability of the power system is another. Secure ICS’s are important. A high level of power systems stability is more important and requires secure information and communication systems AND the need of understanding of the power system physics. 

We have to make sure that any new ICS approach does not allow a huge sudden power flow change! This is true also for all solutions based on standards like IEC 60870-5-10x, DNP3, IEC 61850, or …

These standards would allow to disseminate immediate control commands or specify schedules.

WHO is in charge to have the big picture in mind – to configure power systems in a way that they do not blackout because of commands and settings communicated by highly secure ICS’s? The power system could not differentiate if these commands or settings are intended or caused by hackers.

It is highly recommended to keep an eye on the power system physics and prevent any ICS action (secure or insecure) to danger the stability of the power system!