IEC 61850-7-1 CDV Amendment 1 available for comments

The Amendment 1 of IEC 61850-7-1 is now available for comments and voting:

Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 7-1: Basic communication structure – Principles and models

IEC TC 57 just published the document 57/2035/CDV.

Ballot closes 2018-12-28.

The CDV is publicly available for comments for everybody:

Click HERE for Public CDV Commenting - you just need to register.

Please note the following:

The distributed CDV reflects the amendment 1 (corrections and extensions) to IEC 61850-7-1 Ed2.

A second document (called consolidated edition 2.1) incorporates the amendment 1 (120 pages) and the existing Ed2. The consolidated edition (195 pages) is circulated as 57/2036/INF (unfortunately not publicly available).
After the CDV/FDIS approval process the consolidated version will be published together with the amendment 1 under reference IEC 61850-7-1 Ed2.1.

The version 2.1 will introduce the latest modelling extensions.

The new version of IEC 61850-7-1 will be one of the most crucial documents of the standard series IEC 61850. As the editor of edition 1 I see that most of the content of the version 1 is still the basic information presented in this part 7-1 😊

This document shows also that the standard series is growing and getting quite complex ... for simple applications you need to understand what is mandatory and what is optional!

Draft TR IEC 61850-90-6 for Distribution Automation Published

IEC TC 57 WG 17 just published the 277 page (!) draft TR 57/1929/DTR:

IEC 61850-90-6: Use of IEC 61850 for Distribution Automation Systems

Commenting period and ballot closes 2017-12-01.

This technical report provides basic aspects that need to be considered when using IEC 61850 for information exchange between systems and components within MV network automation. In particular, the report:

• Defines use cases for typical DA applications that require information exchange between two or more components/systems
• Provides modelling of components commonly used in DA applications
• Proposes new logical nodes and the extensions to the existing logical nodes that can be used in typical DA applications.
• Provides guidelines for the communication architecture and services to be used in DA applications
• Provides configuration methods for IEDs to be used in DA systems.

Basic function for which models will be selected or defined cover:

• Fault Passage Indication and report
• FLISR (Fault Location, Isolation and Service Restoration)
• VVC (Voltage and Var Control)
• Anti-Islanding Protection Based on Communications
• Automatic Switch Transfer
• Monitoring Energy Flow
• Environment Situation Awareness

A Distribution Automation System (DAS) can have up to tens of thousands of IEDs spreading
over a wide area distribution network.

Multiple new Logical Node Classes and extensions for existing LNs are proposed:



This draft is very detailed and easy to read.

How to Model Thousands of Measurement Signals?

The standard series IEC 61850 was originally developed for high voltage substation automation and protection ... with well defined logical nodes and data objects representing the most crucial signals like status (CSWI.stVal), 3-phase electrical measurements (MMXU.V.phsA ...), temperature supervision (STMP.Tmp, STMP.Alm, ...) and many other signals.
Several applications require huge number of values, e.g.,

1. Logs (hundreds of status changes over a long period)
2. Power Quality measurements (hundreds of values of min, max, ...)
3. Temperature (hundreds or thousands of raw measured or processed values)

The corresponding logical nodes and communication service models would end-up in a lot of overhead in the modelling or in the communication.
I have discussed the first two bullets already inside the standardization groups ... more details may be discussed in a future blog post.
Today, I will discuss the third issue: huge amount of temperature values.
First of all, there are two models for temperature: TTMP (Transducer for a single sensor value) and STMP (Supervision of a single temperature value) with the following excerpt of details:

TTMP.TmpSv.instMag and TTMP.TmpSv.q are the two mandatory data attributes.

STMP.Tmp.mag.f, STMP.Tmp.mag.q, STMP.Tmp.mag.t (Tmp is optional)

STMP.Alm.stVal, STMP.Alm.q, STMP.Alm.t (Alm is optional)

STMP.Trip.stVal, STMP.Trip.q, STMP.Trip.t (Trip is optional)

Second, If you want to communicate just hundreds of temperature values, I would model this application as follows (SIUnits and sample rate ... may be modeled as well):

[Sure, I am aware that multiple instances of TmpSv are not yet standardized ... I would not care a lot at the moment ... it will come anyway. If not, define an extended Data Object TmpSamp with multiplicity 0..*]

TTMP1.

TmpSv1.instMag and TmpSv1.q
TmpSv2.instMag and TmpSv2.q
TmpSv3.instMag and TmpSv3.q
...
TmpSv100.instMag and TmpSv100.q

DataSet="DsTTMP1"

FCDA=TmpSv1.instMag
FCDA=TmpSv2.instMag
FCDA=TmpSv3.instMag
...
FCDA=TmpSv100.instMag

Unbuffered Report CB="UnbTTMP1

Data Set="DsTTMP1" 
trigger option: integrity period 
period: 1 h or ...

----------------------------------------------

TTMP2.

TmpSv1.instMag and TmpSv1.q
TmpSv2.instMag and TmpSv2.q
TmpSv3.instMag and TmpSv3.q
...
TmpSv100.instMag and TmpSv100.q

DataSet="DsTTMP2"

FCDA=TmpSv1.instMag
FCDA=TmpSv2.instMag
FCDA=TmpSv3.instMag
...
FCDA=TmpSv100.instMag

Unbuffered Report CB="UnbTTMP2

Data Set="DsTTMP2" 
trigger option: integrity period 
period: 1 h or ...

---------------------------------------------

TTMP3.

TmpSv1.instMag and TmpSv1.q
TmpSv2.instMag and TmpSv2.q
TmpSv3.instMag and TmpSv3.q
...
TmpSv100.instMag and TmpSv100.q

DataSet="DsTTMP3"

FCDA=TmpSv1.instMag
FCDA=TmpSv2.instMag
FCDA=TmpSv3.instMag
...
FCDA=TmpSv100.instMag

Unbuffered Report CB="UnbTTMP3

Data Set="DsTTMP3" 
trigger option: integrity period 
period: 1 h or ...

---------------------------------------------

Third, If you want to use hundreds of temperature values AND alarms AND trips etc. then STMP would be the right choice. The above modeling approach would be the same.
In addition to the data sets for the measured values, you may also configure data sets for the quality "q", and configure report control blocks with trigger option "data change". You may also add the quality into the other FCDAs ... depending on how crucial the quality is for the client application.

First Draft on how to use IEC 61850 models in substations (IEC 61850-7-500)

IEC TC 57 has recently published a first Draft IEC TR 61850-7-500 – Use of logical nodes for modelling applications and related concepts and guidelines for substations (57/1371/DC). The document comprises almost 60 pages.

Comments are requested by 2013-07-12 at the latest.

The technical report is intended to provide guidelines and explanations, how the logical nodes defined in IEC 61850-7-4 shall be combined and used to model applications from substation automation domain.

A crucial goal is to show the most common application of Logical Nodes in
modelling simple and complex functions, to improve common understanding in modelling and data exchange, and finally to lead to implementations which keep at least interoperability.

For those people that are interested in process bus applications, it is highly recommended that you review that document!

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

Update on: How to define New Data Objects in IEC 61850?

The post dated January 15, 2012, on “How to define New Data Objects in IEC 61850?” has been updated and enhanced to help you to understand the model extensions. It contains also to older links …

Click HERE for the updated post.

Modeling Circuit Breakers for Single and Three Phases

Models for switchgear are defined in IEC 61850-7-4 Edition 2. The model defines several aspects like controlling and monitoring of real circuit breaker switchgear:

XCBR excerpt of model:

XCBR represents usually one (1 phase) circuit breaker. In some special cases it may represent all three (3 phase) circuit breaker. If you want to trip all three CBs of a 3-phase system, you have to define an instance 1 for that purpose: e.g., All_XCBR1.

In case you want to model the case to trip a single phase CB, you have to model 3 instances of XCBR, e.g., A_XCBR1, B_XCBR2, C-XCBR3.

The data object XCBR.SumSwARs represents the “Sum of switched amperes, resettable”. What to do when you want to model the SumSwARs of all three phases?

I saw this model the other day: extended data objects:SumSwARs1, SumSwARs2, SumSwARs3 … for Phase A, B, and C in a single XCBR instance:

From a general modeling point of view this could be done (it is not wrong!) – But it is highly recommended not to do! Since a XCBR is usually representing a single CB then we need 1 instance per phase. A_XCBR1 would represent the sum of switched amperes of Phase A. The All-XCBR1 (see above) could represent the sum of switched amperes of all 3 CBs.

SystemCorp’s IEC 61850 SCL ICD Designer available for Online Purchase

The “ICD Designer” is SystemCORP Embedded Technology’s Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) Capability Description designer application. This ICD Designer application is used to define and edit substation configuration descriptions for IEC 61850 through a graphical user interface to create an XML formatted file.

Correctly speaking, the “ICD Designer” (as a product name) is a tool that has many functions for creating “IID Documents” – “Instantiated IED Description”. IIDs have been defined in edition 2 of IEC 61850-6 (SCL).

The tools supports also the instance specific binding of the model to the real world data points, e.g., referenced by DNP3 or 101/104 points. The tool uses an XML document with the TypeTemplates. Any extended model can easily be added to that XML document to define your own model. It is really that easy.

Click HERE for an example of the binding (fourth slide).

The full version of the ICD Designer is now available for online purchase.

Click HERE for more information on the product and how to order online.

SCADA Systems Benefit from IEC 61850 - Test it on your own

Survalent Technology (MISSISSAUGA, ON), reported the completion of the Princes' Islands IEC 61850 based SCADA system project for Ayedas Energy Distribution Company that serves more than 1.8 million customers on the Asian side of Istanbul (one of Turkey's largest utilities).

"The project was implemented using IEC 61850 protocol for electrical substation automation, and communicates with 47 SEL protection relays."

""Being able to run our SmartHMI software on the SEL 3354 platform allows customers to take advantage of the features of IEC 61850," states Bijana Dimitrievska, General Manager, Survalent Europe. "IEC 61850 allows protection and control functionality in the substation to be modeled into different logical nodes, and grouped under different logical devices. This saves considerable time in implementing new protection devices because you do not have to map device points to SCADA points as in the case of DNP protocol.""

Click HERE for the complete news release.

Click HERE for an example of a typical logical node (MMXU) for electrical characteristics (current, voltages, frequency, active power, ...).

Following you find a brief tutorial explaining why you could save "considerable time in implementing new devcies".

You can specify a typical LN MMXU type for your project and re-use this type in any protection or control device. A new protection device added in the future will provide the same model!! There is no need for new points mappings. The LN type could formally specified in an SCL DataTypeTemplate (IEC 61850-6).

Here is a special DataTypeTemplate (I just designed for this post) with phase voltages (PhV) and frequency (Hz) only: lnType="MyMMXU-Type_0" (see below):

The logical device "Measurements" uses one or more instances of this lnType:

<LN lnClass="MMXU" inst="1" prefix="" lnType="MyMMXU-Type_0"/>

representing MMXU1 (the first instance). The hierarchical model looks like this:

The same LnType can be used for devices from any vendor ... from a SCADA point of view all measurements (Hz and PhV) of all devices have the same structure and names. The values have to be mapped internally in the devices to the real data values of the devices' applications (encapsulated/hidden).

A SCADA system would need mainly to know the IP address. The LD names and LN instances could figured out by retrieving the self-description from the device. In our example the device would respond: I am a device that contains one LD "Measurements" with a LN "Measurements"; the LN has a DataObject "Hz" and a DataObject "PhV" with "phsA", "phsB" and "phsC".

Or the SACDA system just reads the SCL file to get the model. The SCL document of the model of the IED can be used to simulate this device ...

The IEC 61850 Evaluation Kit provided by SystemCorp could be used to easily implement this (or any other) model, create a server and a client running under Windows. And use the services: GetDaaObjecValues, Reporting, GOOSE ... It is just that easy.

If you want to expose emulated or real voltage values through IEC 61850 you have just to emulate them in your server application or bind them to real values you have on your PC. The application software of the kit comes in exe and source code ... you can start right away to get your data exposed in IEC 61850. For six months FREE evaluation. The kit has two clients (C and C#) and a server (C).

Click HERE for a link to download the evaluation kit. Enjoy!

Click HERE for a comprehensive set of slides on the IEC 61850 Evaluation Kit with step by step explanation on how to use the various tools [pdf, 2 MB]

IEC 61850 provides a lot for the Smart Electrification

The recently published IEC white paper :

Coping with the Energy Challenge
The IEC’s role from 2010 to 2030
Smart electrification – The key to energy efficiency

discusses the need of standards! No surprise, or?

Click HERE to download the white paper [pdf, 1,9 MB]

The paper concludes on page 51:

"The standards should cover connection (especially of fluctuating sources), stability, “intelligence” (required functions of the IT applications controlling the grid), and minimum systemic efficiency as well as how to measure it. Aspects to deal with include balancing demand and generation, power quality, harmonic current emissions, voltage flicker, voltage fluctuation and islanding prevention. The standards should allow for the necessary differences in approach and choices made in different countries; thus some of the resulting publications may be non-normative.
In order to facilitate implementation, the MSB [IEC Market Strategy Board] further recommends the IEC and cooperating organizations to organize a public symposium on what the necessary standards and other IEC publications on the “smart grid” should contain."

The paper states at very beginning:

"As the first IEC President, Lord Kelvin, always said: “If you cannot measure it, you cannot improve it!”. This statement is especially true here: without measurement you can’t credibly demonstrate energy efficiency improvements. The IEC provides and will continue to provide many of the measuring standards that are the basis for benchmarking, energy audits and compliance assessments."

The edition 2 of IEC 61850-7-4 (Information models) covers already many models of these measurements:

5.10 Logical nodes for metering and measurement LN Group: M
5.10.2 LN: Environmental information Name: MENV
5.10.3 LN: Flicker measurement name Name: MFLK
5.10.4 LN: Harmonics or interharmonics Name: MHAI
5.10.5 LN: Non-phase-related harmonics or interharmonics Name: MHAN
5.10.6 LN: Hydrological information Name: MHYD
5.10.7 LN: DC measurement Name: MMDC
5.10.8 LN: Meteorological information Name: MMET
5.10.9 LN: Metering Name: MMTN
5.10.10 LN: Metering Name: MMTR
5.10.11 LN: Non-phase-related measurement Name: MMXN
5.10.12 LN: Measurement Name: MMXU
5.10.13 LN: Sequence and imbalance Name: MSQI
5.10.14 LN: Metering statistics Name: MSTA

5.12 Logical nodes for power quality events LN Group: Q
5.12.2 LN: Frequency variation Name: QFVR
5.12.3 LN: Current transient Name: QITR
5.12.4 LN: Current unbalance variation Name: QIUB
5.12.5 LN: Voltage transient Name: QVTR
5.12.6 LN: Voltage unbalance variation Name: QVUB
5.12.7 LN: Voltage variation Name: QVVR

Click HERE for the preview of IEC 61850-7-4 (first 20 pages) to see the complete list of Logical Nodes defined.

If there is any (measurement) information found in real electrical system not yet modeled and standardized, you can define extension according to well defined extension rules in IEC 61850-7-1 (name space concept).

There is no need to define another series of (information models and information exchange) standards for electrical grids.

IEC 61850-7-3 published as International Standard

The second edition of IEC 61850-7-3 Ed.2 has been published early December 2010:

Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 7-3: Basic communication structure – Common data classes

The second edition replaces the first edition, published in 2003.

The second edition:

• defines new common data classes used for new standards defining object models for other domains based on IEC 61850 and for the representation of statistical and historical data, and
• provides clarifications and corrections to the first edition of IEC 61850-7-3.

Click HERE for the preview of the standard (first 20 pages).

IEC 61850 also for industrial applications?!

Karlheinz Schwarz (SCC) presented IEC 61850 to some 50 experts from the industrial automation domain at the KommA Colloquium in Lemgo (Germany) on Thursday (2010-11-11): 1. Jahreskolloquium „Kommunikation in der Automation (KommA 2010)“ Centrum Industrial IT (CIIT)

The title and paper are in German: "IEC 61850 nur für Schaltanlagen und Smart Grids – oder Kernmodell für die Automatisierung?"

Click HERE for the slides presented (almost all of the 32 slides are in English).

The presentation showed that IEC 61850 has been developed by experts from the electric power domain - especially substation engineers (protection, control, asset management, ...). The standard defines by the end of 2010 many information models that are applicable in any application domain. Example: the Logical Node STMP (Supervision of Temperature, according to IEC 61850-7-4 Ed2). The following excerpts of the presentation show the LN STMP and the implemented subset - check out the Evaluation/Starter Kit and the Beck IPC IEC61850@Chip that use this and other LNs.

The information model offers a build-in supervision functionality. The STMP1.Alm (Alarm) is spontaneously sent to a dedicated client (HMI, SCADA, Gateway, ...) as soon as the TMP value reaches the TmpAlmSpt (Alarm Setpoint Value - configured, programmed or set by a communication service):

The information model and its binding to the real application is described in a SCL file (System Configuration Language, IEC 61850-6). The SCL file is uploaded per FTP to the Beck Chip. After resetting the Chip, the application reads the SCL file, builds the model and binds it to the application.

The API between the IEC 61850 Stack (provided by SystemCorp, Perth, Western Australia) and the application is quite simple:

The underlying layers are presented and discussed during the Hands-on Training offered by NettedAutomation - Training "Made in Germany".

Standard Rules for Extensions of Information Models for IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25

IEC 61850 und IEC 61400-25 define already (or just) some hundreds of Information Models (LNs, Data Objects, and Common Data Classes).

Click HERE for a list of some 285 defined Logical Nodes.

The list will definitely grow while we go. Standards are defined based on consensus of experts and national committees involved. Very often the groups cannot agree on adding some useful information model - so it is often decided to NOT include the model into the standard. In other cases it is decided to just define the model as an optional definition.

A lot of information needed in real systems is not (yet) defined as part of the standards - and may never be standardized.

To allow the users of the standard to use the modeling method, the basic models like types and Common Data Classes, and Data Objects, IEC 61850-7-1 defines a STANDARD Rule on how to cope with needed extensions. The rule is named "Name Space Concept".

The name space concept follows the needs of new models as depicted in the following figure from draft edition 2 of IEC 61850 (edition 1 already defined the name space concept):

The rules defined allows:

1. To extend any existing standardized LN by adding Data Objects from other LN classes or by defining new Data Objects.
2. To extend any existing standardized Data Object by adding Data Attributes or by defining new Common Data Classes.

The following excerpt of Logical Node Name Plate Common Data Class (LPL) shows the corresponding attribute "lnNs" (Logicla Node Name Space). This is used to "tag" an extended Information Model. In this case an extended LN. Extended could mean a new LN or a LN that comprises new Data Objects.

Any Common Data Class has the following attributes:

The "dataNs" is intended to identify (or reference) the extended Data Object.

The complete rules can be found in edition 1 of IEC 61850-7-1 - these rules will be refined in edition 2 which will be published as International Standard later in 2010.

The current rules (edition 1) allow to define any extension needed for the Wind Power application in the US.

There is no need to wait until any future edition of IEC 61400-25-2 or any other standard models are published before people can use these standards in the US (and global wind power market). If models need to be extended this can be done on a user or vendor basis, on a market base (NIST, FERC, NERC, ...), regional base (North America), or a global (UCA International Usersgroup, or IEC standard) base.

It is very likely that the Information Models will grow while the industry goes.

If somebody would wait until ALL his currently needed information (in existing applications) is modeled as LNs, Data Objects and Common Data Classes and is standardized, then he would NEVER START to use the standard.

The crucial benefit of the IEC 61850 based standards is the independence of the models from the communication services, and the independence of the services from the communication protocols:

The Name Space Concept is a very SMART solution to make the grids smarter - in a few steps.

See also the next two blog postings.