Status of IEC 61400-25 Communications for Wind Turbines

The IEC TC 88 JWG 25 has published several draft documents for the second edition of IEC 61400-25:

• Part 25-1: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -Overall description of principles and models
• Part 25-2: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -Information models
• Part 25-3: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -Information exchange models
• Part 25-4: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -Mapping to communication profile
• Part 25-5: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -Conformance testing
• Part 25-6: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants -Logical node classes and data classes for condition monitoring

Here are the latest news on IEC 61400-25:

1. New Convenor

Dr Nicholas Etherden from Vattenfall, Sweden is the new Convenor of IEC TC 88 JWG 25 (following Anders Johnsson, Vattenfall).

2. Status of Edition 2 of the different parts

IEC 61400-25-1 CDV in November 2015.

88/539/FDIS
IEC 61400-25-2 Ed.2: Wind turbines - Part 25-2: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Information models
Approved

88/540/FDIS
IEC 61400-25-3 Ed.2: Wind turbines - Part 25-3: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Information exchange models
Approved

88/536/CDV
IEC 61400-25-4 Ed.2: Wind turbines - Part 25-4: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Mapping to communication profile
Approved

IEC 61400-25-5 CDV End of 2015.

IEC 61400-25-6 CDV End of 2015.

88/549/NP(Mai 2015)
Wind turbines - Part 25-41: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Mapping to communication profile based on IEC 62541 (OPC UA) (proposed IEC TS 61400-25-41)
Rejected
2015-10-09: The NP was finally accepted due to a late appointment of two additional exerts from two additional countries.
Project title: IEC 61400-25-41 TS Ed.1

The standard series IEC 61400-25 offers five different Mappings. The Mapping according to IEC 61850-8-1 (MMS) is the most important mapping when it comes to implementations and applications.

IEC 61400-25 - Poster from REpower at AWEA Windpower 2013

REpower is presenting an excellent poster about the application of IEC 61400-25 at the AWEA Windpower conference in Chicago (IL) in May 2013.

The poster concludes:

IEC 61400-25 is a new standard for Wind Turbine communications. It can
facilitate and simplify the integration of new wind projects in a multiple-vendor,
multiple-system industry.
From the experience of the author of this article, the adoption of IEC 61400-
25 by customers in new projects in the last year has been 100%. All new
projects with REpower turbines in North America selected this interface.
The most benefit will be made once a critical mass of manufacturers, wind
farms owners, and equipment providers will use and support it.
This communication standard is needed for the wind industry to become
more efficient and competitive with traditional power sources.

Downlad the IEC 61400-25 poster [pdf, 370 KB]

… more to come.

Gezielte Kostensenkung in Offshore-Windparks durch IEC 61400-25

BTC (eine100%-Tochter der EWE) hat auf der Husum WindEnergy 2012 über den Einsatz von (unter anderem) IEC 61400-25 berichtet.

Titel der Präsentation: Gezielte Kostensenkung in der Betriebsphase von Offshore- Windparks durch IT-Unterstützung

IEC 61400-25 liefert einen Beitrag zur Kostensenkung:

“Um die Werte über unterschiedliche Anlagen und Parks hinweg vergleichbar zu machen, werden die Daten auf Kanäle eines harmonisierten Datenmodells gemappt, das nach IEC 61400-25 aufgebaut ist.”

A typical model for the WGEN (Wind Generator) is depicted in the following figure:

This model (from IEC 61400-25-2, and extended by the vendor) is completely defined by an SCL file (excerpt for Speed and Temperature):

Download der gesamten Präsentation von BTC [pdf].

110 Young People attended the Shanghai IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 Workshop

The workshop on IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 organized by the State Energy Smart Grid R&D Center (Shanghai) hosted at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Monday, 05 September 2011, was very successful.

The 110 young attendees from 37 organizations came to the event to get up-to-date information about the standards, market acceptance, challenges with the new standards, experience, and implementation hints.

One of the students of the workshop and the teacher at the entrance:

The 110 attendees (mostly young people):

Professor Peichao Zhang and his colleague Professor Dong Liu organized the event:

Click HERE for the program of the event.

According to a report given during the IEC TC 57 Plenary meeting in Shanghai (6.-7. September 2011), one substation per day and one wind power turbine per hour are installed in China. So, there is a huge demand for solutions according to IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25.

The young people are eager to learn how to use the standards for the various products and applications. The workshop has helped them a lot to get the basics of the standard.

Preview IEC 61400-25-6 FDIS

Please find the preview of the FDIS IEC 61500-25-6: Wind turbines –
Part 25-6: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants –
Logical node classes and data classes for condition monitoring

This part defines further information models for IEC 61850 respectively for IEC 61400-25.

Click HERE for the preview.

IEC 61400-25-6 FDIS Ballot

The last step towards another International Standard for Information models (Logical Nodes; these LNs can be implemented using IEC 61850 compliant stacks) will start August 13, 2010:

IEC 61400-25-6 Ed.1
Wind Turbines - Part 25-6: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Logical node classes and data classes for condition monitoring
(88/377/FDIS)

The ballot is open from August 13 to October 15, 2010.

This part of the IEC 61400-25 series specifies the information models related to condition monitoring for wind power plants and the information exchange of data values related to these models.

Condition monitoring is mainly based on the following kinds of information:

• Time waveform records (samples) of a specific time interval to be exchanged in real-time or by files for analysis (e.g. acceleration, position detection, speed, stress detection).
• Status information and measurements (synchronized with the waveform records) representing the Turbine Operation Conditions.
• Results of Time waveform record analysis of vibration data (scalar values, array values, statistical values, historical (statistical) values, counters and status information).
• Results of analysis for example oil debris.

Contact your national IEC TC 88 committee to receive a copy.
Click HERE to visit the TC 88 website with links to national committees.

How to extend Models of IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25?

Very often you can hear that IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 could be applied for new use cases only if new Logical Nodes would be standardized - which may take several years. Waiting years for new models is not what many companies and groups are looking for. Why to wait for years?

IEC 61850 has implemented a rule on how to extend and define new models: Name Space concept. This concept allows for defining extensions and new models (Logical Nodes, Data Objects, Common Data Classes).

Click HERE for an example of an extended Model: an new Logical Node (links to the next blog posting).

Adoption and Update of Wind Power Plant Communications Standard 61400-25

The NIST PAP 16 team (Wind Plant Communication) will gather use cases and requirements from wind industry stakeholders with a focus on those requirements associated with integrating bulk wind assets into wind plant operation and utility command and control systems. Special attention will be given to those use cases and requirements that differ from those developed by the IEC TC 88 61400-25 working group to quickly identify the gaps that are preventing ubiquitous application of the standard in the US. The PAP Team will seek out recent ARRA funding awardees involved in wind plant projects to ensure that their requirements are discovered and they are made aware of the existing portfolio of standards available.

The PAP 16 team will provide specific recommendations to the IEC TC 88 working group responsible for maintaining the 61400-25 standard to address the gaps identified.

Click HERE for the PAP Proposal [WORD document].

The standard IEC 61400-25-2 (Wind) mainly extends the information models of IEC 61850-7-4, 7-410 (DER) and 7-420 (Hydro). All objects of all four standards build a huge set of standard information models. ALL models ca be used on generic IEC 61850-8-1 compliant communication stacks. Even new models not yet standardized but defined by anybody (!) can be configured and run on compliant communication stacks - the extended models just have to follow the well defined name space concept.

So, if you need a Logical Node, e.g., LN FIZL = Fizzli Puzzli, for your Puzzli application: just define the Data Objects you need: Fipu1, Fipu2, ... of common data class SPS (single point status) ... and you are done. Define the corresponding SCL file and run it with a communication stack. You need to know what the LN and its Data Objects mean - and you have to bind it to your Puzzli application. Here is how a client sees the corresponding server:

The value of the name space of the LN nameplate FIPU1.EX.LPL.LnNs is "NIST-PAP16_2010-06-26_Fizzli-Puzzli-LN" - indicates that this is a standard conformant Extension (Functional Constraint FC=EX).

The LN instance in SCL notation is:

<LN lnType="FIPU_1" lnClass="FIPU" inst="1">
  <DOI name="LPL">
    <DAI name="lnNs">
      <Val>NIST-PAP16_2010-06-26_Fizzli-Puzzli-LN</Val>
    </DAI>
    <DAI name="vendor">
      <Val>NettedAutomation GmbH</Val>
    </DAI>
    <DAI name="swRev">
      <Val>0.1</Val>
    </DAI>
    <DAI name="d">
      <Val>This is a NIST specific extension of the IEC 61850/61400-25 information model.</Val>
    </DAI>
  </DOI>
</LN>

DataTypeTemplate for new LN class:

<LNodeType id="FIPU_1" lnClass="FIPU">
  <DO name="Fipu1" type="SPS_0" />
  <DO name="Fipu2" type="SPS_0" />
  <DO name="Fipu3" type="SPS_0" />
  <DO name="Fipu4" type="SPS_0" />
  <DO name="LPL" type="LPL_1" />
</LNodeType>

<DOType id="LPL_1" cdc="LPL">
  <DA name="vendor" bType="VisString255" fc="DC" />
  <DA name="swRev" bType="VisString255" fc="DC" />
  <DA name="d" bType="VisString255" fc="DC" />
  <DA name="lnNs" bType="VisString255" fc="EX" />
</DOType>

So, NIST or any other organization can quickly identify the gaps in the information models and define any model that is needed for the application of the standard in the US (!!). Most use cases known so far may be implemented by extending the models or defining new models - private models, models defined by any other organization, or by IEC or ANSI or ...

Analysis of Wind Power Plant Information Flow

A very interesting study of the many information flows in a wind power plant system has been done by a Swedish student:

Master Thesis
REFERENCE ARCHITECTURE FOR WIND POWER INTEGRATION
A wind power plant system structure based on analysis of
wind power plant information flow
By Ivan Löfgren, Stockholm, Sweden 2009

The thesis provides an excellent overview and many useful details on the information flow in wind power plants! It is really worth to read - not only by wind power experts but also by experts of other application domains.

One of his findings are summarized in the following trend statement:

"The current trends in the architecture incorporate the following aspects:

• Standardization for both the communication (TCP/IP protocol), and also for the information models (IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25).
• Existence of a unified information model which allows a common
  language to be used between all the wind power plant components.
• Access from any location to any element of the wind power plant.
• Existence of an element dedicated solely to the management of
  communications

In definitive terms, the new architecture is designed to standardize not only the data access, but also the information from each one of the components that makes up the wind power plant. ..."

Click HERE for the full thesis [pdf].

Congratulation to Ivan Löfgren - he did a great job!!

Click HERE for all information on IEC 61400-25 on this blog.

Siemens to erect 160 wind turbines in a single off-shore park

Siemens reported the other day that they will supply and erect 160 wind turbines each with a capacity of 3.6 megawatts for the Gwynt y Môr project (North Wales coast). Siemens will also provide the connection of the wind turbines to the power grid including substations (offshore transformer platforms).

Click HERE to read the full press release.

The first German off-shore park (Alpha-Ventus) is in operation since Spring 2010. This is just the first step - huge projects are planned. More to come.

Click HERE for a (HUGE) list of planned wind power projects (these are challenges for engineers!).
Click HERE for general information on off-shore wind parks.

Do Wind Turbines change our Climate?

Some 10 years ago when there was not so much to discuss in the electric power industry (the Smart grid was not yet invented) I attended a conference on Electric Power Systems. One of the crucial questions was: Do Wind Power Turbines change our Climate? These questions are still asked - all over and by many experts.

The other day I read in the IEEE Power & Energy Magazine some interesting answers on this question. In the May/June 2010 issue you can read on page 6 (share your thoughts) an answer from NREL: "... it should be kept in mind that our energy mix will never be comprised solely of wind energy, so at even at large but reasonable levels of wind penetration the global impact would not be measurable. These results should not be surprising because fundamentally wind turbines just increase the friction or drag at the bottom of the atmospheric boundary layer much like trees or any other obstruction to the flow. My conclusion is that levels of wind energy amounting to 20–50% of our electricity should not cause any measurable change in global climate."

There is another question: Can you proof that the leaves of a tree are moved by the wind? Or are they generating the wind? Wind turbines may be used to generate wind - once we have too much electric power ... ok, I am kidding.

Click HERE to read the full text in May/June 2010 issue.

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.

IEC 61400-25 AND IEC 61850 for Wind Turbines

The standard IEC 61400-25 (Wind turbines – IEC 61400-25: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants) must be seen in conjunction with IEC 61850. The wind turbine specific information models (Logical Nodes) can be used with IEC 61850 compliant tools and communication stacks. Services like GOOSE and Sampled Values Exchange are NOT referenced in IEC 61400-25 - because the SCADA experts that have defined the standard series some 10 years ago did not see any need to include these services in the list of services to be inherited from IEC 61850.

From a technical and implementation point of view there is no reason to not use these real-time services for wind power applications. Any IEC 61850 compliant implementation of GOOSE and SV could be used to exchange any data object of IEC 61400-25-2 (Wind turbine LNs). The missing reference of GOOSE and SV in IEC 61400-25 has already been used to state that IEC 61400-25 would not support real-time services (I guess this is an excuse in order to propose a non-IEC61850 solution for real-time applications, e.g., a fieldbus).  The statement is - from a document point of view - true, but the fact is, that GOOSE and SV as specified in IEC 61850 can be understood as an integral part of IEC 61400-25. That is the benefit of the fact that IEC 61400 builds on IEC 61850 - most of the IEC 61850 definitions, implementations, and tools can be used also for wind power plants - without any change!

On the other side: The additional communication stacks (mappings) defined in IEC 61400-25-4 may are usually not implemented in substation IEDs. The stacks specified in this part of IEC 61400-25 comprise:

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

Click HERE for more details on mappings in IEC 61400-25-4.
Click HERE for a General Electric paper that discusses the application of SV realtime communication in wind power parks.

See you in two weeks: IEC 61850 - Enterprise Information and Asset Management at DistribuTech 2010

Three case studies explore experiences in planning, architecting and implementing innovative applications that leverage power system automation and control infrastructure and data to extend benefits beyond the control room.

DistribuTech 2010, Wednesday, March 24, 9:30 a.m.

Enterprise Information and Asset Management   (Room 19)

Conquering Organizational, Business Process and IT Challenges

Author(s):

• Al Mithani, DMS Project Manager, BC Hydro
• Bob Uluski, Executive Advisor, Quanta Technology

Distribution Substation Transformer Monitoring and Diagnostics at AEP
Author(s):

• Paul Thomas, AEP Ohio gridSMARTSM Deployment Project Manager, American Electric Power
• Byron Flynn, Technical Director, GE Energy
• Leon White, Monitoring & Diagnostics Sales Manager, GE Energy

Monitoring of Power System and Communication Infrastructures Based on IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25
Author(s):

• Karlheinz Schwarz, Owner, SCC (Schwarz Consulting Company)

Click HERE for the paper abstract.

See you in Room 19 on Wednesday, March 24, 9:30 a.m.

3 day IEC 61850 Seminar and Hands-on Training in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro

STRI and Nettedautomation GmbH have posted the program and registration information for the 3 day Seminar/Hands-on Training with real protection and control IEDs and test sets:

Buenos Aires (Argentina), 26.-28. April 2010
Rio de Janeiro (Brazil), 28.-30. April 2010

Click HERE for the program and registration information [pdf] ... see you there.

Active and Reactive Power Control with IEC 61400-25-2

The focus of the IEC 61400-25 series is on the communications between wind power plant components such as wind turbines and actors such as SCADA systems. IEC 61400-25-2 specifies the information model of devices and functions related to wind power plant applications. These models extend IEC 61850-7-x models. Almost all definitions, hardware and software solutions available for IEC 61850 can be used for IEC 61400-25-2. In particular, IEC 61400-25-2 specifies the compatible logical node names, and data names for communication between wind power plant components.

The standard IEC 61400-25-2 defines a comprehensive list of information models (Logical Nodes) for wind turbines, e.g.:

• WTUR - Wind turbine general information
• WROT - Wind turbine rotor information
• WTRM - Wind turbine transmission information
• WGEN - Wind turbine generator information
• WCNV - Wind turbine converter information
• WTRF - Wind turbine transformer information
• WNAC - Wind turbine nacelle information
• WYAW - Wind turbine yawing information
• WTOW - Wind turbine tower information

The most crucial Logical Nodes are likely the

• WAPC - Wind power plant active power control information
• WRPC - Wind power plant reactive power control information

These models describe the "interface" between a complete park and the grid operator for control purposes. These Logical Nodes can be used for other power resources like CHP, PV, ... The German EEG (Erneuerbare-Energien-Gesetz) accelerates the application of IEC 61400-25 tremendously, because the Grid Operator needs more information about the park and he needs to control the whole power system in cases of faults and critical conditions - wind power plants and other resources are an integrated part of the whole system. These resources cannot be treated just as negative loads.

The WAPC (active power control) comprises the following Data Objects:

Status information

• Actual number of wind turbines in operation
• Active Power Limitation Mode Enabled
• Active Power Control Mode Enabled controlling apparent power
• Gradient Function Enabled
• Delta Function Enabled

Measurements

• Wind Power Plant active power output capability
• Wind Power Plant active power output
• Wind Power Plant apparent power
• Wind Power Plant Gradient
• Wind Power Plant active power reserve utilizing the Delta function –
  the difference between active power generation capability and active
  power generated

Control information

• Activate active power control function
• Activate apparent power control function
• Activate gradient control function
• Activate delta control function
• Set reference value for the wind power plant active power output
• Set reference value for the wind power plant apparent power output
• Set reference value for gradient ramping up the wind power plant active power output
• Set reference value for gradient ramping down the wind power plant
  active power output
• Set reference value for the wind power plant active power reserve –
  also named as “spinning reserve”

The information provided by these models is crucial for a future stable power delivery system.

Access to key O&M data by use of IEC 61400-25

Availability of online and historical data is a prerequisite for effective operation and maintenance (O&M) of wind power plants. This is where the standard series IEC 61400-25 "Wind turbines – Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants" comes in. IEC 61400-25 is mainly an extension of the definitions of IEC 61850. A substation does not have a rotor - obviously. So we had to add a model for the rotor with WROT as the standard Logical Node and WROT.RotSpd as the data object for the rotor speed. Where ever a rotor of a wind mill turns it could be modeled as WROT.RotSpd. Since the publication of the standard series there is no need for vendor specific communication solutions and no need for myriads of Excel or Word tables of signal lists that specify the rotor speed with some kind of an index. What does "A2839" mean? May be it is the rotor speed of a turbine running in Buxtehude" - who knows. Of course it takes some time to have the standard implemented ... a couple of IEC 61400-25 conformant products are already available.

According to a presentation at the the European Offshore Wind 2009 Conference & Exhibition, 14 – 16 September, Stockholm (Sweden): "Vattenfall, Statkraft and DONG Energy have all included the IEC 61400-25 series in their requirements specifications. Support for the standard is one of the evaluation criteria for the delivery of new wind power plants."

Click HERE for the poster presented in Stockholm.
Click HERE for a paper on the subject.
Click HERE for a presentation.

RWE awarded Development of IEC 61400-25 for Wind Power Control System

RWE (second biggest German Utility) awarded Mr. Pascal Dresselhaus for the development of an IEC 61400-25 compliant software for a Beckhoff PLC (Programmable Logic Controller). He implemented the mapping to MMS according to IEC 61850-8-1. Mr. Dresselhaus' Diploma-Thesis "Entwicklung einer Bibliothek für die Kommunikation von Windkraftanlagen nach IEC 61400-25" won the highest award! Congratulation!

The development is now available as a Product of Beckhoff.

Click HERE for some information related to the Development (English).
Click HERE for the press release of RWE (German only).
Click HERE for the press release of the Fachhochschule Südwestfalen (German only)

First PLC supporting IEC 61850 in comprehensive Hands-On Training

Beckhoff (Verl, Germany) provides an IEC 61850 compliant Standard PLC with a Server according to IEC 61850 for the comprehensive Hands-On Training in Frankfurt (Germany) on October 20-23, 2009:

The Seminar and Hands-on Training  will cover all crucial aspects of the standards and common IEDs from ABB, Areva, Siemens, Omicron, Megger, ... and Beckhoff.

Click HERE for details of the program.
Click HERE for other training opportunities all over.
Click HERE for more details on the Beckhoff PLC with IEC 61850 support.

Paper on IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 accepted for DistribuTech 2010

The abstract "MONITORING OF POWER SYSTEM AND COMMUNICATION INFRASTRUCTURES BASED ON IEC 61850 AND IEC 61400-25" (by Karlheinz Schwarz) has been accepted for presentation at the DistribuTech 2010 (Tampa, FL, USA).

The focus of the first edition of IEC 61850 was on substation operational aspects (mainly protection and control). Various groups have identified that IEC 61850 is the basis of further applications, e.g., monitoring of functions, processes, primary equipment, and the communication infrastructure in substations and other power system application domains. The second edition and other extensions provide new definitions to keep the high quality and availability of power systems, to reduce commissioning
time and life cycle costs.

Track Assignment: Enterprise Information and Asset Management
Session Assignment: Case Studies of Advanced Applications Extending Benefits of Automation & Control Data
Date: 2010-03-24 (Wednesday)
Time of session: 9:30 AM
Type of Session: paper

Click HERE for the abstract.