IEC 61850 at DistribuTech 2009, San Diego

Several paper presentation are scheduled for the DistribuTech 09 conference in San Diego, 03.-05. February 2009

List of IEC 61850 related papers

Meet the IEC 61850 experts at the UCAIug booth #447

See you there.

CIM Standard Edition 2 - FDIS ballot started

IEC 61970-301 Ed.2: Energy management system application program interface (EMS-API) - Part 301: Common information model (CIM) base

The FDIS ballot on the second edition just started.

Ballot closes on 2009-03-20

The second edition contains several changes from the first edition:

• First edition Annex A which contained the description of the CIM UML model is now a part of the main body
• A new Annex A was added providing a model of a circuit breaker in the CIM as an example of how the CIM can be used to model network devices
• The naming hierarchy was changed.
• ModelingAuthority and ModelingAuthoritySet classes were added to represent ownership of models.
• A new schedules data model was added to replace the use of the curve model for time series data.
• The measurement value attributes were sub-typed into classes Analog, Discrete and Accumulator.
• The class naming was renamed to IdentifiedObject.
• Many editorial corrections, including several cardinality and attribute changes to resolve issues submitted on the first edition.

IEC 61850-7-420 (DER) passed the final Vote

The Standards series IEC 61850 has a new part:

IEC 61850-7-420 Ed.1: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation - Part 7-420: Basic communication structure - Distributed energy resources logical nodes

The FDIS vote for this part passed on 2009-01-09.

The International Standard IEC 61850-7-420 will be available very soon.

The standard covers the following energy resources:

• Reciprocating engine
• Fuel cell
• Photovoltaic system (PV)
• Combined heat and power (CHP)

Resources for hydro power and wind power are defined in

• IEC 61850-7-410 and
• IEC 61400-25

An overview of the parts can be found here [PDF, 450 KB]

CEPSI 2009 Papers now online

The papers of the oral presentations given at the CEPSI 2008 conference are available on the web:

Two papers on IEC 61850 from Karlheinz Schwarz

General entry

One-day special course on IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5, DNP3, CIM, Security, … in Mexico City

NEW: Details in Spanish!!

Please find the details and registration information for the One-day special event on IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5, DNP3, CIM, Security, in Mexico City on 27. January 2009 below.

NettedAutomation GmbH and ASOCIACIÓN DE NORMALIZACIÓN Y CERTIFICACIÓN, A.C. (ANCE, A.C.), Mexico City, offer you the following service for a special introduction and update on the standards IEC 61850, IEC 6087-5, DNP3, CIM, Security, and other standards.

The objective of the one-day event is to give an Overview and Update on the current standardization efforts within IEC TC 57 and TC 88 and to present the experience of users, vendors, and system integrators made since 2005 - for applications inside and outside the utility industry.

Proposed Program
Standard series presented and discussed are:

• IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems for power automation
• IEC 61400-25 Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants
• IEC 60870-5 Profiles 101/104 and DNP3
• IEC 62351 Data and Communication Security and NERC CIP
• IEEE 1686 Substation IEDs Cyber Security Capabilities
• IEC 61968 CIM - Energy management system application program interface

Questions like the following will be discussed:

• When will the 2nd Edition of IEC 61850 be available?
• Do utilities really get what they are looking for?
• Is the sustainable interoperability of substation IEDs already reached?
• Turn-key versus "home-made" automation systems!?
• What is the status of the harmonization of CIM & IEC 61850?
• Is the security standard available? and implemented?
• What is the relation between IEC 62351 and NERC's CIP?
• What is IEEE 1686?
• What about multivendor projects for IEC 61850?
• What tools for IEC 61850 are available?
• What's going on in North America?
• What is the future of IEC 60870-5-101/104 and DNP3?

Complete offer [pdf, 650 KB]
Program only [pdf]
Registration only [pdf]

Updated "Single page introduction on IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25"

The standard series IEC 61850 „Communication networks and systems in substations“ and IEC 61400-25 „Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants“ provide perfect support for sustainable interoperability of intelligent devices of any kind for electric Power Systems (Generation, Transmission, and Distribution for HV, MV, and LV, … ):

• Standard Information Models,
• Standard Information Exchange Methods,
• Standard Protocol Mappings, and
• Standard System Configuration Language (SCL)

An updated "Single page introduction" provides you with some basics.

Enjoy.

Substation Automation Handbook - a must to read

Substation Automation Systems (SAS) are key for future power systems performing all the tasks in substations like data acquisition from the power grid via the switchgear and the activation of changes by commands to switchgear like circuit breakers, isolators, transformers, ... protection, condition monitoring etc. These many functions are realized by intelligent electronic devices (IED).

The Substation Automation Handbook (approx. 400 pages) written by well experienced experts provides comprehensive knowledge of all aspects of the application of modern IEDs for SAS.

This book is a MUST to read by engineers involved (one way or the other) in Substation Automation.

Read more ...

Devices from multiple vendors for wind power plant substation

24 devices from 9 different product platforms provided by 6 individual vendors (SEL, GE, RuggedCom, Siemens, ZIV, and Team Arteche) have been tested and approved for a crucial CFE substation connecting a wind farm to the grid. Comisión Federal de Electricidad (CFE) is Mexico’s national utility and major provider of electric power

Considering the international scope of the La Venta II transmission, protection, and control system CFE decided to use the IEC 61850 standard. IEC 61850 provides methods of developing the best engineering practices for substation protection, integration, control, monitoring, metering, and testing.

Read complete report from SEL [pdf].

Implementations of IEC 61400-25-6

Questions: I work at xx unit of utility-industry in xxx and help some energy companies with their future IT support for the handling of wind power production.
This also leads to some help with the requirements of the position before the contracts. I have a long background from both SCADA and maintenance systems.
Saw on the Internet that you are the project manager for IEC 61400-25-6 for Condition Monitoring and want to ask a few questions I hope you will be friendly to answer.

Question 1: What is the status of the expanded standard for Condition Monitoring IEC 61400-25-6?

The project team TC 88 PT is preparing the so-called FDIS document (final draft international standard). We have our next meeting scheduled for next week at DS in Copenhagen.

I hope that we reach the standard in June or so.

Question 2: How far has the commercial deployment come?

The part 25-6 uses parts 25-2 (many information models for WPP - some can be used for condition monitoring) and 25-4 (service mappings) and IEC 61850. The core software to be implemented is according to IEC 61850 ... IEC 61850 is widely deployed for substation automation systems. Most of the software etc can be re-used for 25 and 25-6.

IEC 61400-25 support is offered by e.g. Beckhoff:

http://iec61850-news.blogspot.com/search?q=beckhoff

and by Bachmann:

http://iec61850-news.blogspot.com/2008/07/bachmann-electronic-mms-server-for-wind.html

Question 3: Which vendors have implemented server and client?

Servers: see above.

Clients are available from various vendors: ABB, Siemens, ...

http://iec61850-news.blogspot.com/search?q=siemens

Question 3: Are there any deployed system? Operating Experience?

A lot with IEC 61850!! Siemens reported that they have installed 50.000+ devices and 1.000+ systems.

Most of these experiences could be applied for wind power applications and especially for condition monitoring.

There is a lot of very good experience!

CIM and Multispeak announced collaboration

The MultiSpeak Initiative and International Electrotechnical Commission’s TC 57 Working Group 14 (WG14) announced to collaborate on the development of two new international integration standards to improve data exchange among electric utilities. The two groups seem to have understood that seamless standards are crucial for the future.

Read the press release [pdf].

New website for UCA International Users Group

The UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) has a new website.

The UCAIug is a not-for-profit corporation focused on assisting users and vendors in the deployment of standards for real-time applications for several industries with related requirements. The UCAIug as well as its member groups (CIMug, Open Smart Grid, and IEC 61850) draws its membership from utility user and supplier companies.

USE61400-25 User Group Website online

The USE61400-25 user group's website is online.

The users group has the main objective to simplify the application of the International Standard IEC 61400-25 and to support users implementing the standard within the wind power industry.

The IEC standard series 61400-25 provides a solution for access to wind power plant information with standardized data names and semantic. It gives possibilities to procure monitoring and control solutions as separate parts, and to use a single system to store, analyze and present wind power information. In addition the standard opens up for control and monitoring of information from different wind turbine vendors in a homogeneous manner - to provide interoperable intelligent devices.

The use of a standard communication solution are beneficial for all parties - vendors, system integrators as well as the customer ...

Read more:

Access the Users Group's website

One page introduction to IEC 61400-25 / IEC 61850

Happy New Year 2009

I wish you all the best for the New Year 2009 and renew my commitment to provide you with news and up-to-date information on IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, IEC 60870-5, IEC 60870-6, IEC 61499, ...

May every day in the New Year bring peace, health, happiness and good cheer to You and Your family.

I look forward to another successful year of standardization and application of standards. Enjoy the nature in winter time:

SEL has enhanced the support for IEC 61850 in 2008

SEL is now supporting IEC 61850 as Significant Substation and RTU Standard ... SEL as one of the world leading supplier of protection IEDs is providing a wide range of IEC 61850 compliant devices and tools.

A new brochure provides many links to a wide range of applications of IEC 61850 with various SEL products:

"Combine IEC 61850 technology, Ethernet networking, and SEL high reliability to perform station computing and protection, automation, and control for distance, current differential, distribution, transformer, bus, motor, and bay control applications."

Job Opportunities - IEC 61850 knowledge required

Experience with the International Standard IEC 61850 and other advanced IEC standards is a prerequisite for many open Job Opportunities! The application of IEC 61850 compliant IEDs and Tools is growing very fast all over - also in North America. Join a booming technology.

Here are a few Job Opportunities that require IEC 61850 experience:

• 3G Malaysia ("... Excellent experience in IEC 61850/60870 protocol")
• Virelec ("...Systems Integration (SI) Specialist IEC 60870-5-101/103/104, IEC 61850, TCP/IP ")
• MR Control Systems ("...IEC 60870-5-101, IEC 60870-5-103, IEC 61850, ...")
• SEL ("...Research Engineer – Communications Emphasis ... Experience with various SCADA protocols: IEC 61850, DNP, Modbus, IEC60870")
• Think Energy Group ("...and substation automation protocols such as IEC 61850 and DNP 3.0.")
• The Select Group ("...Understanding of the advantages of modern Substation Automation communication standards and protocols (e.g. IEC 61850, DNP 3.0)")
• ABB ("... Comprehends the benefits of modern Substation Automation communication standards and protocols (e.g. IEC 61850, DNP 3.0)")
• GE ("... Experience in substation automation and IEC 61850")
• Siemens India ("... Experience on IEC 61850 protocol devices")
• SCADA ("... Familiar with typical utility protocols such as IEC 61850, DNP, and Modbus")
• Sinclair Knight Merz (SKM) ("... Knowledge in the related area of substation automation and in particular, the application of IEC 61850, would be highly regarded. ")
• 3G Labs India ("... Looking for IEC professionals (61850/60870) ...Looking for IEC professionals (61850/60870)")
• ...

If you need help from the real experts on IEC 61850 ... to become an expert in the advanced Standards and to get a better job ... check the following training opportunities on IEC 61850 and other Standards. We help you to get the skills required - You’ll get first-hand, comprehensive, up-to-date, vendor neutral knowledge, experience, and guidance:

Training Overview
Training opportunities on IEC 61850
Training Modules on IEC 60870-5, DNP3, ICCP, TASE-2, CIM, ...

IEC 61850 Hands-on Training at STRI was a success

35 power engineers from Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Norway, UK, Holland and New Zealand have been trained on how to use real multivendor IEDs for protection and control of substations. IEDs from ABB, Areva and Siemens as well as test sets from Omicron and Doble have been used to run the training. A second group has run hands-on training in the use of configuration tools.

The next public hands-on training by NettedAutomation and STRI will be held in Frankfurt (Germany) on March 03-06, 2009. Details on next course in Frankfurt

The first Interoperability test at the STRI Independent Interoperability Laboratory for IEC 61850 was performed in the end of November. Customer was Helinks LLC of Switzerland. The test verified the ability of the manufacturer independent Helinks STS configuration tool to act as an independent system configurator tool according to IEC 61850-6.

Various applications of IEC 61850 explained

An explanation of several applications of IEC 61850 can be found in a nice 48 page brochure published by Siemens (in English and Deutsch):

• Switchgear Interlocking with IEC 61850-GOOSE
• Reverse Interlocking Using the GOOSE of IEC 61850
• Beneficial Engineering of IEC 61850 Substation Automation Systems
• Innovative Solutions for Substation Control with IEC 61850
• Seamless Migration
• Ethernet Topologies with IEC 61850
• IEC Interoperability, Conformance and Engineering Experiences
• IEC Browser - A Powerful Test Tool for IEC 61850

IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 for Distributed Power System Automation

Distributed Power Systems need Distributed Power System Automation to reach a high level of an intelligent or smart grid. The standard series IEC 61850 and IEC 61499 (Function Blocks) could benefit from each other and provide the smart framework for distributed automation systems.

Neil Higgins, Valeriy Vyatkin, Nirmal-Kumar C Nair, and Karlheinz Schwarz have written one of the first papers presenting and discussing the use of IEC 61850 AND IEC 61499:

Concept for Intelligent Distributed Power System Automation with IEC 61850 and IEC 61499

Abstract.
This paper presents new approach to power system automation, based on distributed intelligence rather than traditional centralised control. The paper investigates the interplay between two international standards, IEC 61850 and IEC 61499, and proposes away of combining of the application functions of IEC61850-compliant devices with IEC 61499-compliant “gluelogic,” using the communication services of IEC 61850-7-2. The resulting ability to customise control and automation logic will greatly enhance the flexibility and adaptability of automation systems, speeding progress toward the realisation of the Smart Grid concept.

Keywords: Power system automation, IEC 61850, IEC61499, Smart Grid.

pdf of the paper

Website of Valeriy Vyatkin with background information on IEC 61499 etc.