NEW version of the Famous Whitepaper Requirements for Secure Control and Telecommunication Systems

The Austrian, German, and Swiss Utilities have published (with the support of Dr. Stephan Beirer and Marl Joos (GAI NetConsult GmbH, Berlin/Germany)) the Version 3.0 of the famous 

Whitepaper Requirements for Secure Control and Telecommunication Systems

The English version (pdf, 88 pages) could be downloaded HERE.

Die deutsche Version (pdf, 92 Seiten) kann HIER heruntergeladen werden.

It is highly recommended to read, understand, and implement the recommendations! They reflect the latest experiences and need in our highly interconnected electric power world!

Today I will focus on two issues: the first is discussed in the Whitepaper, the second is discussed in a paper from AXPRO in Switzerland.

The Whitepaper says on page 46 (bzw Seite 47 in der deutschen Version):

"In line with the given technical capabilities, standardised IEC protocols should be used across the board. The private range of these communication protocols should only be used where necessary for technological reasons. Without additional measures, the standard protocols IEC 60870-5-101/104 and IEC 61850 offer no secure integrity protection, authentication or encryption. In such cases, the available extensions according to IEC 62351 should be used. Potential limitations, e.g. in terms of performance and error diagnostics as well as the necessary key management infrastructure and processes should be considered.

For communication across zone boundaries, protocol breaks should be provided, e.g. through application layer gateways or by converting to a different protocol, to reduce potential vulnerabilities and weak points."

I fully agree with this last sentence. This brings me to the second issue: 

The Swiss utility AXPRO published a great paper with the title: OT-Security im Unterwerk  ... means in substations ... the paper is in English. You can download it HERE.

On page 3 you can find this:

Geräte diversifizieren

"Die klassischen Ansätze der Literatur geben einen Überblick über Lösungen. Dies beginnt bei gängigen Konzepten zur Ersatzteilhaltung und setzt sich bei der technischen Redundanz von Komponenten fort. Die zusätzlichen Komponenten halten den Betrieb bei einem Ausfall aufrecht – zumindest einen Minimalbetrieb. Die eingesetzten Geräte und Systeme können zudem mit unter-schiedlichen Komponenten diversifiziert werden, beispielsweise durch Geräte unterschiedlicher Hersteller, Gerätefamilien mit signifikanten Unterschieden sowie Kommunikationsvarianten. Eine einzelne Schwachstelle kann somit nie die Funktion des Gesamtsystems gefährden. Die Diversität stellt eine Hürde dar, die ein Angreifer überwinden muss. Allerdings muss auch beachtet und akzeptiert werden, dass durch eine grössere Diversität ein Mehraufwand für den Betrieb und somit zusätzliche Kosten entstehen."

They are obviously following the recommendation of the Whitepaper!! Thanks. The statement in the last sentence is important to understand: The implementation and application of many security measures needs peopleware and reasonable budgets!

I have discussed peopleware many times for years ... it seems to be more important than ever ... see also my latest discussion on people ...

Be aware: The most secure communication is the one that is not implemented or implemented but not in use!

Holistic Engineering and IEC Standards

One of the most crucial challenges in Electric Power Systems in the future is the fact that multiple aspects like planning, design, configuration, data acquisition, operation, protection, error detection, maintenance, ... security, ... at several layers (process, asset management, ...) are so co-joined with each other and interdependent.

Is this new? No! Some 400 years (!) ago, Rene Descartes was recommending to apply a holistic approach for all sciences ... he did not know the huge interconnected Power systems in Europe, China, USA, ... here is what he has written [extended by myself]:



I highly recommend to educate young people in a way that they get a holistic understanding of the many aspects of the electric power system ... focusing on one or two aspects may cause at the end of the day many problems. The main aspect still is to understand the physics of such a huge system. Any programmer of software impacting the safety of the power delivery system should be educated in physics and especially electrical systems. So, understanding MMS, IEC 61850 or OPC UA is good - BUT engineers should understand the process (electrical system) they are manipulating with some lines of code. Engineers should also be trained thoroughly in the many aspects.

Unfortunately there is quite often little budget for comprehensive training in several aspects. Ask your management for more training - better:more hands-on training!!

When management thinks 100 trainees can do work of 3 fully qualified senior developers

A senior developer sent me the following link with the subject:

When management thinks 100 trainees can do work of 3 fully qualified senior developers

https://youtu.be/JeB19gvJcxs

This statement and clip is very very true - in my training business I have experienced that in some cases training (regards IEC 61850 and other subjects) had to be paid by the attendee itself ... using annual vocation! Unbelievable!
This understanding is widespread in the utility domain, too ... students are hired (for low wages) to investigate and figure out how new technologies (especially digitalization) could be used ...
Hope you like the clip.

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.

Should Power Grids Put Their Critical Digital Systems Off?

Power delivery systems worldwide are under heavy stress: physical stress and stress caused by shareholders and hackers and ... The stress is heavy often due to very limited resources that hinder engineers to improve the system very much.

Some people believe that the solution may be lying in going back to the Old Days! They want to spend USD 10.000.000+ for studying to go ,Back to analog and non-digital control systems, purpose-built control systems, and physical controls. Who has said this? ... some 20 years ago? No: this month!

The motto of some US congress man seems to be: Get rid of state-of-the-art technology.

A corresponding bill was assigned to a congressional committee on June 6, 2016:
Click HERE for more details.
Click HERE to download the text of the bill [pdf].

Click HERE for a discussion published under nextgov.com.

Does this mean the end of digital protection and automation systems? The end of communication according to IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5, DNP3, Modbus, ...?

What is needed? More well educated engineers that can use the digital technology in a way that the power delivery system can be managed securely and that become able to understand how the technology can be applied in order to re-start the power delivery system after a blackout.

I would like to see 10 per cent of the budget (USD 1.000.000) spent into education for protection, automation, SCADA and communications engineers. Have you ever tried to get approval for attending a training course for advanced protection, automation, SCADA, and communications like IEC 61850, or ...??

My experience after I run more than 230 courses worldwide and educated more than 4.100 engineers is this: many engineers that have asked me for a quote to conduct an in-house course or attending a public course had to give up due to budget restrictions!!

The other USD 10.000.000 could be spent for improving the digital based equipment as Cris Thomas, a security expert (see link to nextgov.com above), said: "Instead of spending two years and $10 million exploring ways to downgrade critical systems with even more outdated tech, we should instead invest that time and money into transforming security for the technology currently in place, and into building next-generation security features directly into future technology."

If utilities want to change the way the run their assets the management and stake holders should listen to the engineers!! And follow their recommendations! This is even more crucial in case of implementing more physical control done by human beings!

Badly educated engineers could do more harm than well operating machines.

Whatever we want to do to "ruggedize" our power delivery system, we need more well educated and experienced engineers. Retiring senior engineers with 52 years (to reduce costs) is not a real option! Or? We need you all! And we need young people to study electric power systems and information technology.

Click HERE for some additional discussion by myself (German version).

IEC 61850 – Is Interoperability of Devices reached?

Increased and Sustainable Interoperability of intelligent devices in the power delivery domain is one of the crucial objectives of IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 (Wind Power). Interoperability is reached to a quite high degree – sure, there are a few examples where we see some challenges to improve one or the other technical problem!
My personal experience is that there is still some room for improvements – in the standard series IEC61850 and IEC 61400-25 and in the implementations and use of various vendors’ devices. One reason that causes headaches is linked to the many options in the standards. Vendors very often interpret the mandatory (m) and optional (o) designation as m=minimum, o=oops there is something we can ignore. Users often expect that they can decide to use mandatory and optional definitions – they expect that vendors have to implement almost all options.
There is – of course – a huge lack of understanding what and how to implement IEC 61850 and how to use standard compliant devices; and to figure out what goes wrong. Education of vendors and users is one of the most highly recommended actions to improve interoperability!
The other day I was called to help solving a six months’ discussion between two vendors of IEC 61850 compliant products, a third vendor using their devices, the project management and the user.

It took me (with a helmet and security jacket and security shoes) less than a day on the site (a medium voltage substation in a new coal fired 920 MW power plant) to figure out the reason of a non-interoperable behavior of the power plant control system (IEC 61850 client) that had a problem with one device type. The control system wants to set the TrgOps (trigger options) of the report control blocks in all devices. It sends a SetURCBValues service with the value [x111 11xx]. All but one devices accept this value (even they do not support one of the 5 bits that can be set to 1). One device supports only three out of the five [x100 11xx] – setting 3rd and 4th Bit true is not accepted and causes a negative SetURCBValues message (according to the definition in IEC 61850-7-2).
This minor issue causes a big trouble because the client (power plant control system) cannot set the General Interrogation to true – and cannot use it !!
I expect that this non-conformity will be fixed soon. It is not a big issue – but it caused six months trouble and created a lot of frustrations!
If the right expertise would get involved in such discussions at an early stage it is likely that many of the non-conformities would be solved very soon. Comprehensive education is required when it comes to IEC 61850 – the earlier the better. Be aware: IEC 61850 is not just another protocol.
Some complaints about the many options in the standard series are discussed in a paper published the other day.
“… the world needs — there is a user group already associated with IEC 61850 — is some type of organization that will work through 61850, come up with a subset that eliminates all the options and drive that down to the vendors and say, "here, do this." ”
This is a great approach. The main reason this has not yet been done is mainly the absence of users in the many discussions in the standardization working groups and the UCAIUG (UCA international users group), and in other discussions – and the lack in education of the users community.
Some pressure from the utilities on the vendors community to fix the relatively few known non-conformities in existing devices and tools would help to get rid of a lot of frustrations and to reach a higher level of interoperability. Many users are – not yet – in a position to figure out which device is conformant and which is not! A lot of these issues are independent of the question optional or mandatory and could easily be solved.
Recommendation #1:
People implementing and using the standard need (more) education.
Recommendation #2:
See recommendation #1.
Some discussion on Education.
Read statement of Vattenfall on Education for IEC 61850 [2007!!]

Power Outage in San Diego on September 08, 2011, and Synchrophasors

The other day I reported on standards for synchrophasor measurements. The question was and still is: Could synchrophasor measurements prevent huge black outs? Some say yes – others say maybe or no.

Today it has been reported by Platts (Atlanta) that “The installation of phasor measurement units on part of the power grid affected by the September 8 power outage in Arizona, California and Mexico is aiding the data collection process as entities look into the cause of the outage, the head of the North American Electric Reliability Council said Monday. … Synchrophasors provide precise measurements of critical grid operating data from devices called phasor measurement units, which inform operators of conditions on a real-time basis. The goal of having the units in place is to help operators see conditions deteriorate and take actions to avoid large outages, Paul Barber of the NERC board of trustees said Tuesday.”

Obviously the synchrophasor measurements could not prevent the power outage on September 8, 2011. There needs to be experts to interpret the values!! and understand what to do to stabilize the electric system … or software needs to be written by experts …

What is missing in many organizations to keep control over the electric power delivery system? Peopleware!! Well educated Experts that understand the electrical system !! Measurements are a tool: Even a fool with a tool is a fool. And: A fool with a tool can foul-up a system much faster than a fool without a tool. In this regard, IEC 61850 is also just a tool.

Click HERE for the complete report from today.

Southern California Edison’s Vision for Tomorrow’s Smart Electric Grid – Invest in yourself

In the IEEE power & energy magazine, issue of September/October 2011, you can find very interesting and important statements on the future electric power grid. The current issue provides several papers on power distribution systems. One remarkable paper is “Good Vibrations” (p 22-32) from Robert J. Yinger and Ardalan E. Kamiab (both with Southern California Edison, Westminster, California).

They state at the very beginning that “A smart grid involves adding to
the grid millions of smart electronic devices like phasor measurement
units, fault indicators, meters, and electric vehicle chargers that will send and receive millions of pieces of data per minute to produce actionable information and using that information to enhance the operations and control of the electric system.”

New hardware and software needs to be developed, installed and used – by engineers and programmers that may still be students at a high school. And what about the senior technicians? Are they “open” for “open” systems?

Whatever the mix of renewable power will be – one thing is sure: the future power delivery system needs a lot more information systems for the millions of smart electric devices!! Standards help to keep the cost quite low – by preventing the proliferation of the myriads of vendor specific solutions.

Be aware that standards are just tools – in the hands of people: young and senior experts, and newbies.

For Southern California Edison’s vision standards like IEC 61850 and DNP3 are quite crucial. In order to really benefit from the standards, “one of the challenges facing the utility industry over the next few years is training the necessary workforce for planning, building, operating, and maintaining the smart grid. A large number of new technologies are being applied to the smart grid, including new equipment, state-of-the-art communications technologies, and advanced control capabilities … that can help the entire utility industry prepare the workforce of the future to implement the smart grid … The workforce needs to be trained so that all of these new technologies can be implemented smoothly … Planning for these advanced smart grid systems needs to be done now …”

There is a chance next week (in Nashville, TN, 20-21 September, 2011) to get prepared for the new standards IEC 61850 and DNP3:

Click HERE for the program and further details of event next week.

Invest in becoming a valued power automation professional!

Cisco’s conclusion on FERC’s Non-Ruling on IEC Standards

FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission) decided in July 2011 to not (yet) rule on five Smart Grid standard series suggested by the National Institute of Standards Technology (NIST) / Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). These families of standards defined by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) were nominated by NIST/SGIP for consideration by FERC in rule making in October 2011. These are:

• IEC 61968: Application Integration at Electric Utilities-System Interfaces for Distribution Management
• IEC 61970: Energy management system application program interface
• IEC 61850: Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation
• IEC 60870-6 series: Telecontrol protocols compatible with ISO standards and ITU-T recommendations
• IEC 62351: Power systems management and associated information exchange - data and communications security

Cisco’s position on this FERC non-ruling (according to their website – see below) is:

• "Are the IEC standards really not ready for prime time? This is unlikely because most of these standards are already in use outside North America.
• Is cyber security a solved problem? Not likely, as long as there are hackers in the world, cyber security will be an on-going challenge.
• Is cyber security an intractable problem? Far from it, the public Internet and private Internets (e.g. DoD) can be highly secure networks. And open-standards, community-based security mechanisms are far superior to "security by obscurity", or the status quo in utility networking which largely consists of hundreds of parallel SCADA networks.
• Is greater awareness and education required? Indeed yes. The utility industry and the regulatory commissions need to hear from the Internet community of vendors, service providers, network operators, system admins, and cyber security experts, how packet networks can be made secure.

The FERC non-action is both a temporary setback and a call-to-action for the Smart Grid community. The concerns expressed by FERC and the regulators are genuine and need to be addressed. Unfortunately, the need for standards in transmission and distribution networks can't be put off. Fortunately, the cyber security questions related to the Smart Grid have good answers available from the long experience of the Internet.

Click HERE for the Cisco Developer Network statement on FERC’s non-ruling.

What is true for the security issues (IEC 62351) is true for the other standard families, too! Many engineers need to become aware of the huge challenges by more education and training!!

Investment in peopleware is one of the needed actions to keep the power flowing.

Click HERE for more discussions on peopleware.

Next opportunity in North America:

Nashville (TN, USA)
20.-21. September 2011
Remote Conference
2 day Seminar (conducted by NettedAutomation) on Power System Communication covering IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, DNP3, NIST Interoperability Roadmap, Smart Grids, security standards, ...
http://www.remotemagazine.com/rem-conf11/rem11_workshop.php

Is IEC 61850 Plug&Play or like DNP4.0 or IEC 60870-5-105?

There are many different expectations I heard from protection and control experts all over. Some people guess that IEC 61850 provides Plug&Play capabilities – meaning: Utilities just purchase IEC 61850 IEDs and (all in a sudden) their protection and control systems are up and running! There is a group of other people that expects that IEC 61850 is just another protocol – a bit more than today’s solutions … something like “DNP4.0” or “IEC 60870-5-105” [of course DNP4.0 and 105 are not real!].

IEC 61850 is much more than DNP3.0 and IEC 60870-5-104, and it does NOT provide Plug&Play. Building substation protection and control systems requires to understand the applications (the many protection and protection related requirements) and to find a way how to apply IEC 61850 compliant IEDs and tools to solve their many needs.

IEC 61850 is a suite of tools that can be used to solve application needs. How to use the tools and when, is NOT defined in the standard! Utilities have to find their (step by step) way to get started with IEC 61850 based solutions. It is important to get started – don’t wait until IEC 61850 solves all your needs and problems. This will never happen!

Some US experts have discussed in 2005 or early 2006 what IEC 61850 provides and what needs to be done to apply the standard and standard based solutions. They show that IEC 61850 has an impact on many aspects in system design and deployment.

IEC 61850
A Practical Application Primer for Protection Engineers
Bogdan Kasztenny, James Whatley, Eric A. Udren, John Burger, Dale Finney, Mark Adamiak

Click HERE for the 43 page paper – worth to read.

My hope is that readers of the paper (hopefully readers from the utilities – or students finishing their education soon) understand that IEC 61850 requires utility people that are well educated in IEC 61850 – in order to understand what the big vendors have commissioned and how to use the various features of the new design.

Today I received an email from one the international biggest transmission utilities asking for help in better understanding what is needed and what has been commissioned:

“Karlheinz, …. As you probably know, there are more and more digital substations in XXX, provided by XXX and XXX for the time being. Even if our contracts does not specify explicitly the use of 61850, they are based on this standard. Today, these substations can be viewed as black boxes, without really taking into consideration the advantages of new digital technologies. …”

One of the crucial needs is: MORE EDUCATION FOR UTILITY EXPERTS!! I have met many utility people that were responsible for the substations based on IEC 61850 – but DID NOT any clue how to use IEC 61850 build in functions.

IEC 61850 has a crucial impact on the WHOLE system and the engineers that build systems.

Finally, SCADA applications (to get status changes, limit violations, measurements, statistical information, historical information, …) can apply IEC 61850 right away with commercially available Off-The-Shelf (COTS) solutions like the well appreciated Windows DLL for IEC 61850 (applicable for servers, clients, publishers, and subscribers).

Click HERE for a Windows DLL evaluation kit with an C# application example including source code of the client and server applications (that use the DLL).

E3 Group for Studies on IEC 61850 Went Public

I have reported earlier on the very appreciated “Teamwork” of Spanish utilities in working together to reach a higher level of interoperability in IEC 61850 multivendor projects.

Their objective is (from their website):

• Share information among companies and walk together through IEC 61850
• Generate a minimum common specification (available for download at the Documents page) of an IEC 61850 substation automation system (SAS) that should be valid for the companies in the group
• Lead the technological gap between now-available IEC 61850 systems and the desired final picture
• Improve efficiency and optimise IEC 61850 deployment

The E3 group went public:

Click HERE for their group Website.

Tutorial of the 5 IEC 61850 Gurus in Sydney was very successful

After the Meeting of the IEC TC 57 WG 10 (Core IEC 61850) in Noosa (Queensland, Australia) four IEC 61850 Gurus of the Working Group 10 went down to Sydney to meet another IEC 61850 Guru to conduct a 3 day Tutorial and hands-on Training on 07.-09. March 2011.

The tutorial was a great Success! 48 attendees from 15 Utilities (!!) and 5 from 4 other companies attended the four half-day sessions in four parallel streams from Monday noon-time to Wednesday noon-time.

After this event it is likely that Australian utility engineers are ahead of the market - in most countries utility engineers are - more or less - watching the vendors commissioning and "turning on" TURN-KEY substation automation systems in their substations!! Usually - to my observation and experience - utility engineers have NO IDEA what they got delivered. Australian utilities are quite serious in getting deeply involved in specification, engineering, system integration, ...

More to come.

Some photos from the WG 10 meeting and from the event in Sydney:

Professor Valeriy Vyatkin (Auckland) presents IEC 61499 ...

Convenor of WG 10 (Christoph Brunner - one of the 5 IEC 61850 Gurus)

Alex Apostolov (another IEC 61850 Guru) discussing requirements for definition of Logic in IEC 61850

Reflections during the excursion in the Noosa River Everglades

The Gurus (Christoph and Alex) reflecting the quality of the Native GOOSE ... Wine

The other 3 Gurus discuss and enjoy during the reception (from left):
Joerg Reuter, Rod Hughes and Karlheinz Schwarz

Let YOUR Application speak IEC 61850 in hours

IEC 61850 has been implemented in hundreds of devices. The UCA Users Group lists some 181 certified devices with server functionality, 3 certified clients, and 2 Merging units (as per 2011-03-02; UCAIug Testing Quality Assurance Program).

Almost all of these devices provide a certain functionality like protection or control. Usually the devices do not provide a simple API (application program interface) that can easily be used by an application program written by a programmer. There is usually nor access to "IEC 6150 Stack". Some test tools may provide restricted access by manually entering values for a data attribute, or using a configurable simulation or providing a CSV (comma separated values) file for a profile. The evaluation licenses are usually quite restricted.

In contrast to this quite limited access to an API there is a free available server and client DLL (from SystemCorp) that runs for six (6) months. The DLL evaluation package comes with various client and server applications. The applications are provided in exe code and source code (C/C++ and C#). You have FULL control over the functionality YOU want to have for your client and server application.

Click HERE for details.

Any application YOU write could easily speak IEC 61850:

The following example shows the .Net / C# client application provided by NettedAutomation GmbH. The received sequence of values can easily be copied and pasted:

 

e.g., pasted into an Excel table and converted to a diagram:

Whatever you need - JUST program it ... or link the client and server applications to your real applications ... which may also be masters to any communication slaves like DNP.3, IEC 60870-5-101/103/104, Modbus, Profibus, CAN, ... This way you can easily and fast build your own GATEWAY. Just link the DNP.3 or 104 points to the DLL by YOUR IEC 61850 server application that is bound to corresponding Model. See next figure:

It is that easy. Just give it a try.

By the way, the API (and the underlying IEC 61850 stack) is also available on the embedded controller from Beck IPC for simple and FAST TO MARKET applications. All you program in C/C++ on a PC could be done on the Chip platform ... the Chip also supports IEC 61131-3 (CoDeSys) and soon ISaGRAF.

NettedAutomation offers public and in-house training courses using a comprehensive set of crucial evaluation tools - including the one shown here.

Five IEC 61850 Gurus Conduct Tutorial in Sydney, March 07-09

The comprehensive Tutorial with five world renown professionals is filling up very fast - to get a seat register NOW. The IEC 61850 Tutorial is scheduled for Sydney (Australia), 7-9 March 2011.

Click HERE for the program and other details [pdf].
Click HERE for the registration form [word].

Click HERE for additional events ... all over.

NettedAutomation will provide an Evaluation Kit for IEC 61850 clients/server and publisher/subscriber - DLL that runs under Windows. The kit can be used after installation for six months.

By the way, Karlheinz Schwarz is a member of IEC TC 57 WG 10, 17, 18, 19 and IEC TC 88 PT 25, ... he received the IEC 1906 Award for his engagement in bringing IEC 61850 to the wind power industry.

One day "Getting Started Event" on IEC 61850 in Orlando and San Diego end of January 2011

NettedAutomation GmbH /Karlsruhe, Germany) is offering a one day "Getting Started Event" on IEC 61850 and related standards. The program comprises the basics of Edition 1 and 2, an overview on global acceptance and use of the standard, and presentation one of the most efficient and easy to use stack software developed by SystemCorp in Perth (Western Australia).

Dates and Locations:

• Friday, 28. January 2011 in Orlando (Florida)
• Monday, 31. January 2011 in San Diego (California) - just prior to the DistribuTECH 2011

Attendance Fee:

• US$ 295 (including course material, evaluation software, food and beverages).

Students will learn what the standard is all about and how to use the free of charge fully functional evaluation stack software (DLL) for implementing IEC 61850 client/server and publisher/subscriber under Windows. Various application examples written in C, C++ and C# (executable and source code) will be provided to the attendees. This is the FASTEST, EASIEST, and CHEAPEST way to get your devices' data modeled and right away communicated with IEC 61850.

This event is recommended for every person that is interested in IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 ... one way or the other. There is no pre-knowledge needed.

IEC 61850 is THE International Standard series for information modeling, information exchange and system configuration to support Smart(er) Automation. Smart(er) Automation comprises application domain like Power Generation, Power Transmission, Power Distribution, Factory Automation, Building Automation, and many other domains.

The new title of IEC 61850 (Communication networks and systems for power utility automation) is definitely wider than the old (Communication networks and systems in substations). IEC does not allow to use the right title that would really describe its application domain: Communication networks and systems for automation.

All basic concepts of IEC 61850 (and IEC 61400-25) are applicable in any automation system:

• native Ethernet for real-time information exchange (GOOSE) and client/server communication,
• TCP/IP including transport layer security for client/server,
• application messaging according to MMS (Manufacturing Message Specification, ISO 9506),
• XML for describing information objects and system configuration,
• many common information objects and functions like "Temperature Supervision", "PID loop control", "device nameplate", etc

Tentative program:

09:30 – 09:45	Welcome, roll call of attendees, expectations
09:45 – 10:45	Introduction into information modeling, models, information exchange and protocols, configuration language SCL ... IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25
10:45 – 11:00	Coffee break
11:00 - 11:15	The role of the standards in the U.S. NIST SGIP (Smart Grid Interoperability Panel)
11:15 – 12:00	Implementations and global market penetration of IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25
12:00 - 13:00	Lunch break
13:00 – 14:30	Presentation of SystemCorp’s IEC 61850 Stack PIS-10, IEC 61850 DLL running under Windows, integration of the stack on an embedded controller, SCL tools, network analyzers, etc
14:30 – 14:45	Coffee break
14:45 - 16:00	How to model and interface your application data with the PIS-10 stack API? Sample source code in C, C++ and C# (.Net) will be presented and discussed. Application Source code will be provided on a CD ROM.
16:00 – 17:00	Question & Answer Session
17:00	End of the event

The event will be conducted by Mr. Karlheinz Schwarz. He has trained more than 2.200 people, from more than 50 countries and more than 400 companies since 2004 - all over. Recent training sessions: Frankfurt (DE), Sydney (AU), Montreal (CAN), Dallas (US), Gothenburg (SE), Manila (Phil), Stockholm (SE).

Tap the reach experience of Mr. Schwarz. After the event you or your programmer can continue to use the evaluation software for your real applications!

If you are interested to attend, please let us know. I look forward to seeing you in Orlando or San Diego. Visit SystemCorp and NettedAutomation at the DistribuTECH 2011 (San Diego).

Click HERE to contact us for more information on the "Getting Started Events" in Orlando and San Diego.

Slides of IEC 61850/61400-25 Workshop at Hydro Quebec (Canada) available for Download

NettedAutomation GmbH successfully conducted a one day Workshop on IEC 61850 IEC 61400-25 at Hydro Quebec in Montreal (Canada) on Thursday, September 30, 2010

Some feedback:

"Thank you for the opportunity you provided to Canadian experts. I received good comments from attendees and surely, this will help the 61850 cause."

"It was a pleasure meeting you in Montreal. Your workshop made 61850 real for most of us. And I am looking forward to build an installation based on the protocol. As discussed, we are planning to upgrade two of our substations on the campus to be fully compliant with IEC 61850."

Click HERE to download the set of the 100+ slides presented [pdf, 3 MB]. If you have an account please use your email address and password. If you don't, just enter your email address and you will immediately receive an email with the password.

Understanding IEC 61850 Concepts, Basics and Solutions is Crucial for Smart(er) Grids

There is still a lack of understanding of IEC 61850 concepts, basics and solutions. During a September 30th IEC 61850 Workshop at Hydro Quebec in Montreal (Canada) 20+ participants from Canada, USA, Japan, Denmark, South Korea, and Germany received a bunch of useful information with regard to IEC 61850.

Here is some feedback from attendees:

"Thank you for the opportunity you provided to Canadian experts. I received good comments from attendees and surely, this will help the 61850 cause."

"It was a pleasure meeting you in Montreal. Your workshop made 61850 real for most of us. And I am looking forward to build an installation based on the protocol. As discussed, we are planning to upgrade two of our substations on the campus to be fully compliant with IEC 61850."

Click HERE to contact me if you are interested in the course material I have provided at the workshop. Please let me know what your needs are.

Free One Day Workshop on IEC 61850 (IEC 61400-25) in Montreal

A free Workshop on IEC 61850 (IEC 61400-25) will be conducted in Montreal (Canada) next week:

Thursday, September 30, 2010; 8:30 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.

The Workshop will take place at Hydro-Québec head office in Montreal.

The workshop will be an open presentation and discussion of crucial aspects of the standard IEC 61850 and especially of IEC 61850-7-420; a demonstration of the latest development of the “IEC61850@CHIP” and first experiences with the small platform especially for PV systems will be given.

08:30 – 09:00	Welcome, roll call of attendees, expectations
09:00 – 09.30	The standardization organizations (IEC TC 57, IEEE, IEC TC 88, …)
09:30 – 10:30	Introduction into information modeling, models, information exchange, configuration language (IEC 61850-7-x and IEC 61400-25)
10:30 – 10:50	Coffee break
10:50 – 11:30	Implementations and market penetration of IEC 61850
11:30 – 12:30	Presentation of SystemCorp’s IEC 61850 Stack PIS-10, integration of the stack on Beck IPC Chip, and demonstration of Development Kit DK61 (HW and SW) and IEC 61850 DLL running on PCs
12:30 – 13:30	Lunch (invited by H-Q)
13:30 – 15:00	Question & Answer Session
15:00	End of workshop

There are a very few seats left.

If you are interested to attend, please let me know as soon as possible (latest by Friday, 24 September 2010) - schwarz@scc-online.de

New Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse Web Portal open

A beta version of the Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse (SGIC) web portal has been posted by The Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute to invite comments and suggestions on usability from both consumers and the smart grid community. The full version of the site will be released this fall. The Virginia Tech Advanced Research Institute (ARI) was awarded a $1.25 million five-year contract by the Department of Energy (DOE) in October 2009 to develop the portal with content assistance from the IEEE PES and the EnerNex Corporation.

There is hope to receive more input from the public ... "Anyone visiting the portal is invited to contact the SGIC with comments and suggestions by clicking on “Contact SGIC Team” in the Contact Us box located at the bottom middle of the home page."

Click HERE to visit the portal.

A very interesting paper provided by NEMA is posted on the portal - worth to read: Click HERE to open the paper.

The paper lists the Factors of Intelligence (see clause 4.2) The most crucial factor seems to be the following:
• Communications – the extent of interaction and exchange of data and control parameters between entities that can help in improving situational awareness, support for industry standard communication protocol.

IEC 61850 Data Acquisition Options - An Overview

IEC 61850 provides several options to access the values of modeled information in sever devices. The following slide lists all options of IEC 61850-7-2 (ACSI - Abstract Communication Service Interface):

Depending on your needs you may use one or the the other option. Reporting is the most elaborated service. The behavior of reporting depends on the configuration of so-called Report Control Blocks. Reporting with Integrity Period set, e.g., to 1 second is more efficient than polling a list of data objects every second! Because polling needs two messages: request with then object references of all data to be polled and response with all values. Reporting with Integrity Period requires a single report with all values every second only. You save 50 per cent of the messages and a lot of processing resources. You can combine integrity period (e.g., 1 minute) with immediate transmissions of changes (events). This would save even more (in case there are events very seldom).

Before you can configure an optimized traffic (messages going back and forth in a Network in real-time or relaxed in seconds) you need to understand your needs - the arrival rate of values and the needs of the applications that access these values. And of course you need to understand the standard and what vendors have implemented. Some applications require information from other devices in the range of a few microseconds - this requires usually GOOSE. The various options serve different requirements with regard to the timeliness. It is easy to fill up the bandwidth of 10 GBit/s with wrong configurations. Monitoring for deadband changes (delta changes) of 0.001 per cent could cause a lot of messages ... ;-)

Smart Grids require smart systems and smart devices - all need smart people!