What happened today at Hannover Messe?

The second day at the Hannover Messe was a quite interesting one. Many people came by and asked for IEC 61850 to be applied for building SYSTEMS that help to bring together PV Power, storages, Combined Heat and Power, Loads, Heating systems, … The time has come where many more people are looking for support to integrate many of these individual “pieces” into smarter systems!

IEC 61850 is about to play a major role in this regard. Many interested companies showed up and asked for a simple and easy integration of IEC 61850 into their applications (devices) … After a first wave of devices that used IEC 61850 one way or the other (roughly from 2004 to 2012), there is now a new wave coming that requires simple and easy to integrate solutions.

I have heard from several experts that they have tried to use IEC 61850 the recent years – and failed because it was too costly for their applications. Many of them are now back and checking again to get IEC 61850 integrated into their IEDs. Guess they will get what they are looking for. Most of them want just to use IEC 61850 – not struggle with the implementation (integration) of it.

More to come tomorrow and the other days. Many people have reported that IEC 61850 is an issue at many more booths in 2013 than last year.

IEC 61850-Why all the Hype?

A report written by two ABB experts asks “IEC 61850-Why all the Hype?”.

“This question was on the mind of the operations manager of a municipal utility when he visited the ABB Smart Grid Center of Excellence (CoE) in Raleigh, N.C. He was considering developing a smart grid substation standard design using IEC 61850. ... He wanted to determine whether the IEC 61850 standard is all hype or could meet their requirements.”

The report concludes: “Our visitor was satisfied with the performance and ease of access to real-time data enabled by the IEC 61850 architecture. He said that the engineering definition and structure defined in the standard
will simplify engineering and integration for the technical team. He was convinced that building a system on the foundation of the IEC 61850 standard would more than satisfy the goals of increased operational efficiencies, maximized system interoperability and support for implementation of advanced applications, which will ensure long-term system viability.”

Download the report “IEC 61850-Why all the Hype?” [pdf, 168 KB]

IEC 61850 on IPC@CHIP® at Hannover Messe, April 19-23, 2010

Beck IPC (Pohlheim, Germany), SystemCorp (Perth, Australia), and NettedAutomation (Karlsruhe, Germany) will present at the Hannover Messe 2010 (Hannover, Germany) in Hall 27 Booth E51 on 19.-23. April 2010 the IEC 61850 integrated on the IPC@CHIP^®, compact modules and ruggedized IEDs for harsh environments based on IPC@CHIP^®.

The IEC 61850 conformant products shown in Hannover are applicable for many domains of utility automation - to make the power delivery system smarter:

• Smart Automation of Power Generation
  Monitoring, protection and control of process and equipment (reactive power control, condition monitoring of turbines, ...)
• Smart Automation of Power Transmission
  Monitoring, protection and control of process and equipment (interlocking, condition monitoring of transformer and switch gears, ...)
• Smart Automation of Power Distribution
  Monitoring, protection and control of process and equipment (fault location, power restoration, condition monitoring of transformer, ...)
• Smart Automation of Vehicle to Grid
  Monitoring and control of process and equipment (charger station, condition monitoring of charging station, ...)
• Smart Automation of Loads and Generation
  Monitoring and control of process and equipment (load control, active and reactive power control, ...)

Due to the fact that IEC 61850 / IEC 61400-25 define many common aspects of standardized information and information exchange services it is obvious that standard conformant products can be applied in many domains outside the power industry: in gas and oil transmission and distribution networks, and in any other industrial automation domain.

Automation Standard (IEC 61499) meets Power Standard (IEC 61850)

"The first Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies", sponsored by the IEEE Power & Energy Society (PES) and hosted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), was held January 19-21, 2010 in Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA. The Conference was a forum to discuss the state-of-the-art innovations in smart grid technologies.

The paper "Towards the Energy Web via Standards-enabled Smart Grid" presented by Prof. Mihaela Ulieru was a big Blast.

Authors of the paper:
Valeriy Vyatkin, Senior Member, IEEE,
Gulnara Zhabelova, non-member,
Neil Higgins, Member, IEEE,
Mihaela Ulieru, Senior Member, IEEE
Karlheinz Schwarz, Member, IEEE and
Nirmal-Kumar C Nair, Member, IEEE

Abstract -- "In this paper we propose an information and control architecture for Smart Grid based on the combination of upcoming industrial standards and intelligent control methods. We make the case that an incremental approach is required for the transition to the Smart Grid and propose a way of doing that through bringing intelligence down to the level of substation automation devices. The architecture employs two strong international standards, IEC 61850 and IEC 61499, to enrich the applications that can be created using interoperable Smart Grid devices. Interoperability and open configurability - key enablers for efficient application of the revolutionary EnergyWeb ideas – are evident in this architecture.
The utility network is modeled as IEC 61850-compliant logical nodes, embedded in an IEC 61499 distributed automation framework. The system is simulated in an IEC 61499 execution environment combined with Matlab, and is proven to achieve simple fault location and power restoration goals through collaborative behavior."

Some 200 engineers - a forward looking crowd, extremely supportive and especially extremely receptive - were in fact quite enthusiastic of the ideas. The presentation was 'Stellar'! "What a genial idea to merge an automation standard with a power standard" has been the Motto everywhere after the talk.

Click HERE for the presentation.

The topic will also be presented and discussed during the IEEE PES T&D Conference in New Orleans, April 19-22, 2010.

Industrial Plants - Easier Integration of Automation and Electrical Systems

Usually the automation of production processes (DCS - Distributed Control System) and the electrical distribution system in an industrial plant are two - more or less - independent systems. The electric energy is a very crucial raw material that needs be taken into account in the automation system of the production process.

ABB has focused on this integration during last week's Hanover Industrial Fair (HMI, Hanover Germany) pointing to IEC 61850 as an universal integration standard:

Excerpt from the news letter: "... What has been standard in the sector of power generation and supply is now also coming to effect in the process automation sector. The international standard IEC 61850 allows the integration of automation and electrification as well as energy distribution and management, thus providing
operators and other users with essential information on the overall system. If, for example, the targeted productivity of a plant does not tolerate process interruptions, the integrated communication allows to implement optimized failure scenarios for load shedding. The operator can
quickly respond and optimally use the energy available. Particularly for industries with high energy demand, the production capacities can be geared towards optimized consumption – costly peak loads can thus be avoided. ..."

ABB news letter [PDF: English - German]

Power plant projects that use IEC 61850 for system integration ... [PDF: English]

Use of IEC 61850 in Power Plants (hydro, wind, ...) [PDF: English]

NERC refers to IEC 61400-25

The North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) has published a special report “Accommodating High Levels of Variable Generation” on April 16, 2009 . The report discusses the planning and operation of the future power system with high volume of flexible grid resources like wind power or plug-in hybrid electric vehicles. A crucial element in the future power delivery system will be the information and communication technology.

IEC TC 57 and TC 88 have published International Standards for most crucial aspects of future power delivery systems: IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 (extending IEC 61850 for wind power). The NERC report refers to IEC 61400-25 in clause 2.4.3:

"2.4.3. Power Management
For variable generation to provide power plant control capabilities, it must be visible to the system operator and able to respond to dispatch instructions during normal and emergency conditions. Real-time wind turbine power output, availability, and curtailment information is critical to the accuracy of the variable generation plant output forecast, as well as to the reliable
operation of the system. It is critical that the Balancing Area operator have real-time knowledge of the state of the variable generation plant and be able to communicate timely instructions to the plants. In turn, variable generation plant operators need to respond to directives provided by the Balancing Area in a timely manner. The need for this information was clearly illustrated during the restoration of the UCTE system following the disturbance of Nov. 9, 2006 when there was a lack of communications between distribution system operators (DSOs) and transmission system operators (TSOs) delayed the TSO’s ability to restore the bulk power system.

Therefore, as small variable generation facilities grow into significant plants contributing significantly to capacity and energy, balancing areas will require sufficient communications for monitoring and sending dispatch instructions to these facilities. (Foot note: An international standard communications protocol has been prepared, IEC 61400-25, Wind turbines – Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants – Overall description of principles and models, International Electrotechnical Commission, December, 2006).

Further, Balancing areas and generator owner/operators must ensure procedures, protocols, and communication facilities are in place so dispatch and control instructions can be communicated to the variable generation plant operators in a timely manner. Adequate communication of data from variable generation and enhanced system monitoring is not only a vital reliability requirement, but is also necessary to support the data analysis posed by other recommended NERC and Industry actions."

[Press Release]
[Executive Summary]
[Full Report]

Process and Power Automation use ONE Integration Standard - IEC 61850

Comprehensive automation systems are in use in many application domains like:

• Factories (factory automation),
• Chemical and power plants (process automation),
• Electrical transmission and distribution substations (substation automation)
• ...

Usually these domains have their own solutions - there are many reasons (often historical reasons). They even have their own standardization bodies: Factory automation: ISO TC 184, process automation: IEC TC 65, and substation automation: IEC TC 57.

From a system integration point of view this is non-productive. Very often the electrical system was understood as somehow special - may be because of the danger of dealing with high voltage!!

The above mentioned automation domains need solutions to exchange the huge amount of information for control and monitoring. In the past very often these domains used their own communication solutions. There was no consensus between the different domains to define a seamless solution that makes integration easier - to safe time and money, ...

The first approach to overcome the many proprietary solutions was the project MAP (manufacturing automation protocol) some 25 years ago. It failed - because it was simply to early. Just a few people understood the need of seamless integration. ISO TC 184 has published the system integration standard ISO 9506 (MMS) in 1990 - but it is used since the mid nineties all over in the electric power world: in IEC 60870-6-TASE.2, IEC 61850, and IEC 61400-25.

After the "fieldbus war" we still have the domain specific approaches, solutions and products. The fieldbus discussion has focused too long on the best approach of the field instrumentation - now we have tens of normative fieldbus standards! A seamless solution for system integration was developed by IEC TC 57: IEC 61850 "Communication networks and systems for power utility automation". The restricted scope on power utility automation has been chosen because IEC TC 57 has the scope electric power systems. Most experts outside the "dangerous" electrical world have not (yet) thought to use an "electrical" standard for non-electrical applications.

In fact the solution IEC 61850 can be used in almost all application domains of automation. At least for the three domains: factory automation, process automation, and substation automation. AND: All these application domains use a lot of electric power!! Electric power is one of the most crucial raw material for any application. Any plant manager has to pay more attention to the electric power system!

ABB has realized the crucial integration needs cross several application domains: “We still have separate work spaces for power people and process people, but everyone does more of their work the same way, using the same paradigm. This means more and better optimization, lower total costs and more minimization of risk.” according to Stefan Bollmeyer, ABB fieldbus product manager for its System 800xA. He says also: "Many users have their own department and kingdoms, and they want them to stay just as they are.”

"To help process control and power staffs cooperate on achieving better electrical integration, ABB recommends they adopt a unified integration method based on a single system environment, use a fieldbus network to handle electrification control and management, and use the IEC 61850 standard to tie together process instrumentation, process electrification and power distribution networks." according to a report about ABB's March 23-25, 2009 event in Orlando, Florida (USA). Read Report.

With the Ethernet, TCP/IP and XML based information exchange in most of the application domains it could be expected that IEC 61850 will be used as the standard for seamless information, information exchange and system configuration. The information model of IEC 61850 "MMXU" (electrical measurements) providing objects of three phase AC voltages (PhaseA, PhaseB, PhaseC or PhaseAB, PhaseBC, PhaseCA) or three AC currents (PhaseA, PhaseB, PhaseC) can be used where three phases are installed: in any application domain.

The same AC electrical system can be found in power plants, power transmission and distribution, and any other plant. Some companies have realized that IEC 61850 could be used as the single seamless solution in most application domains. Nobody would come up with a special 5 phase AC system for his application domain! IEC 61850 could play the same standard role as does the three phase seamless AC electrical system - even we have 50 Hz or 60 Hz systems!

IEC 61850 will be accepted some time down the road as the seamless international integration standard like the three phase AC electrical system is the international standard for electric power.