Remote 2009 Conference & Expo, October 29-30, 2009 - San Antonio (TX)

The Remote 2009 Conference and Expo will focus on the leading advancements for the monitoring and management of distributed equipment and facilities, remote assets, automated process & system controls and device networks. Large-scale users and industry experts will speak on SCADA, remote networking technology, security (cyber and physical), control, automation, onsite and back-up power, M2M, emerging wireless technology, telemetry and condition monitoring.

IEC 61850 will be discussed in a paper from Prosoft Technology, Inc. Click HERE for the conference program.

There will also be a 2 day workshop on IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, DNP3 ... crucial building blocks also for smart grids. Click HERE for the program of the workshop.

IEEE 1588 - Precision Clock Synchronization realized in Hirschmann Ethernet Switches

Hirschmann (Neckartenzlingen, Germany - a leader in Industrial Ethernet) claims to be one of first vendors that has implemented IEEE 1588 Precision Clock Synchronization.

Accurate time information is crucial for distributed automation systems in factories and power systems. The Precision Time Protocol (PTP) defined in IEEE 1588, supports synchronization of distributed clocks with an accuracy of less than 1 microsecond in an Ethernet networks.

Click HERE [pdf, 800KB, 20 pages] for a very helpful White Paper from Hirschmann that explains the synchronization basics ... in case you want to understand how IEEE 1588 functions.

The definition of a specific profile for power system (IEC 61850, especially IEC 61850-9-2) is currently under discussion and is expected to be available by end of 2009.

Click HERE [pdf] for a nice presentation by SEL (January 2008)

Click HERE [pdf] for a further reading on Why do we need time in Power Systems?

U.S. 2010 Energy and Water Appropriations: some $27 billion

According to a recent press release of the U.S. Committee on Appropriations the U.S. Department of Energy will have some $27 billion funding for 2010: "The Energy and Water Appropriations Bill is a key part of ongoing efforts to meet the infrastructure needs of the country and, after years of neglect, addressing the inadequacies of our national energy policies. This bill invests in new technologies, scientific research, and conservation efforts that will provide long term solutions to our energy needs and create jobs. ... And it continues to invest in the development of a new “smart grid” to ensure electricity delivery and energy reliability."

Excerpt of the Summary:

Total funding: DEPARTMENT OF ENERGY = $26.9 billion !!

- Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy: $2.25 billion

- Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability : $208 million:

• Smart Grid Technologies: $62.9 million, $30 million above 2009, for smart grid research and
  development.
• Energy Storage: $15 million, more than triple 2009, for research and development of grid-connected
  energy storage technologies.
• Cyber Security: $46.5 million for energy delivery cyber security, an increase of $34.5 million from
  2009, to develop secure grid technologies as cyber attacks increase worldwide and the grid becomes
  increasingly network-connected.
• Clean Energy Transmission and Reliability: $42 million to increase the efficiency of the grid and
  enable the widespread deployment of clean, domestic renewable energy.

- ...

Click HERE for the complete official Summary.

What is your Government providing? The German Government funds many projects. E.g., the E-Energy projects ... project budgets of some € 140 million for a 4-year term ... some € 35 million per year.

Click HERE for executive information on the E-Energy projects.

First German Offshore Wind Turbine - with IEC 61400-25

EWE, E.ON and Vattenfall have successfully completed the construction of the first wind turbine for the alpha ventus offshore wind farm in the North Sea ... using IEC 61400-25. The 5-megawatt turbine is located 45 kilometres north of the island of Borkum. A total of 12 turbines are scheduled to be in running by year's end.

Click HERE for more details on the offshore park (press release).

The communication with the turbines uses the new standard IEC 61400-25.

Click HERE for some details on the communication with IEC 61400-25 from a SCADA viewpoint.

Click HERE for a description of Beckhoff PLC supporting IEC 61400-25 for Wind Turbines in alpha ventus (GERMAN only).

German contribution to Smart Grids: E-Energy Flyer in German, English and Japanese

Several German E-Energy projects focus on ICT-based energy system of the future Smart Grid ... by spending an overall budget of some € 140 million for a 4-year term.

Initiated by the German Federal Ministry of Economics and Technology (BMWi) and implemented in collaboration with the German Federal Environment Ministry (BMU) the projects will deal with problems of the current German power delivery system. "New integral system solutions are called for, in which information and communication technologies (ICTs) will play a key role.", according to a new 2 page flyer that is available in three languages:

Click HERE for the German version.
Click HERE for the English version.
Click HERE for the Japanese version.
A Chinese version will be available soon.

Click HERE for an example of the use of IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 in an E-Energy projects.

Click HERE for further presentations discussing Smart Grid issues an some IEC Standards supporting Interoperability of devices and systems ... the slides were provided and discussed during the IEC TC 57 WG 17 DER Workshop in Fredericia (Denmark, 2008-02) and HERE for presentations of the Workshop in Oldenburg (Germany, 2007-06).

EPRI Input to U.S. Smart Grid Roadmap open for Comments

The next crucial step towards the U.S. Smart grid Roadmap is the public review and commenting of the EPRI "Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap".

The commenting phase is open until July 30, 2009.

Click HERE for more details on how to comment.

The federal Register Notice announced the availability of the report on June 30.

Click HERE for the federal announcement.

The "Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap (Contract No. SB1341-09-CN-0031—Deliverable 7) prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), June 17, 2009, is available at: www.nist.gov/smartgrid/

I hope that many experts reading this news blog will provide comments on the Report to NIST.

I will provide comments taking my experience in interoperability issues into account.

Click HERE to see my experience profile. If you have any comments you want to share with me, please send a copy of your comments to schwarz@scc-online.de

IEC 61850 - Hands-On Training in Sao Paulo (Brazil) on 19-21 August 2009

The details of the program for the planned NettedAutomation/STRI - vendor independent!! - Hands-On Training on IEC 61850 to be held in Sao Paulo (Brazil) on 19-21 August 2009 are available.

Click HERE to download the program and registration information for the Sao Paulo event [pdf, 650 KB].

Click HERE to see the list of upcoming Training opportunities.

ENTSO-E: European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity

 

The organizations ATSOI, BALTSO, ETSO, NORDEL, UCTE and UKTSOA have been fully integrated into ENTSO-E since July 2009. The ENTSO-E is now fully operational.

The objectives of the new organization is: "Promote the reliable operation, optimal management and sound technical evolution of the European electricity transmission system in order to ensure security of supply and to meet the needs of the Internal Energy Market."

42 TSOs from 34 countries are members in the ENTSO-E.

ENTSO-E – EC Workshop on “Critical Infrastructure Protection” for Transmission Grid

The workshop on Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) for electricity transmission networks was held on 15/16 June 2009 in Cologne, Germany. ENTSO-E and the European Commission jointly organized the workshop. This workshop was an important platform for experts of European TSOs and other organizations involved in security issues.

Click HERE [pdf] to download the agenda and HERE to download the presentations [zip].

CIM Users Group met at UCTE (ENTSO-E)

The CIM Users Group presented and discussed recently in Brussels (Belgium) the current status of IEC 61968 (CIM - Common Information Model) and the application in Europe.

The ENTSO-E reported: "About 70 experts from more than 40 companies worldwide attended the meeting, partly focused on the UCTE CIM profile. UCTE's migration policy towards CIM standards for exchange of operational and planning data is expected to lead to wide-spread adoption of the CIM standard for many additional applications in Europe."

Click HERE to access the presentations of the event.

IEC 61850 - Hands-On Trainings in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo

Dear expert interested in the standard IEC 61850 for Substations and other Power Automation Systems,

NettedAutomation GmbH (Germany) and STRI (Sweden) are proud to announce possibility for two 3-day Hands-On Training sessions in Buenos Aires (12-14 August 2009) and Sao Paulo (19-21 August 2009).

This training has the objective to provide both theory and practice on the application of IEC 61850 in a substation or a smart grid. We cover the planning, design and engineering process for real applications all the way to configuration and testing based on a real multivendor test installation. The 3 day course consists of:

Module 1 gives a level 1 introduction to the IEC 61850 standard together with a summary with real applications and the demonstration of STRI facilities for multivendor interoperability testing.

Module 2 gives an independent and more detailed update on the IEC 61850 standard for substation and device modelling as well as communication principles with real examples.

Module 3 provides a IEC 61850 hands-on workshop demonstrating interoperability of protection and control devices from ABB and Siemens as well as testing techniques communicating over a substation Ethernet network.

The program will be similar to the Training session scheduled for Frankfurt (Germany) on October 20-23, 2009 - mainly the Modules 1, 2, and 4a (of the Frankfurt event) will be used for the events in Buenos Aires and Sao Paulo:

Program and registration for the Frankfurt event [pdf]

The training is subject to minimum number of some 10 attendees. As we are traveling to South America for other events, we can offer these training sessions for a high discounted price of EURO 930 per person plus tax.

Please let us know by July 13, 2009 if you are interested to attend. Your feedback is essential in order to run the events.

We are confident, that our experience and service would meet all your expectations! You’d get first-hand, very comprehensive, vendor neutral and up-to-date knowledge, experience, and guidance.

Our experience profile can be found here:
http://nettedautomation.com/download/Netted-Schwarz-Profile-en_2009-01-21.pdf

http://www.stri.se/iec61850

We look forward to greeting you at one of our next training events.

If you are interested in a special in-house training for you and your people, please contact us.

Please feel free to forward this email to any colleagues who you think might be interested in one of the events.

Best Regards,

Karlheinz Schwarz
NettedAutomation GmbH
Im Eichbaeumle 108
76139 Karlsruhe
Germany

Phone +49-721-684844
Fax   +49-721-679387
karlheinz.schwarz@nettedautomation.com
http://www.nettedautomation.com

Nicholas Etherden
STRI AB
Box 707
SE-771 80 Ludvika, Sweden

Phone  +46 (0)240 795 02
Mobile +46 (0)70-6179562
Fax    +46 (0)240 807 66
nicholas.etherden@stri.se
http://stri.se

First Substation with IEC 61850 compliant Devices in Australia

According to ABB, the first substation with IEC 61850 conformant Devices (Protection and Control) has been commissioned in Australia in August 2008. "The system formed part of the $10-million turnkey construction of the Juna Downs 220kV substation, and is part of Rio Tinto Pilbara Iron’s extensive power upgrade in the Pilbara region of WA."

Click HERE to read the news report from ABB.

PAC World Magazine digs into Smart Grid

PACWorld magazine discusses some crucial aspects of the Smart Grid in the Spring 2009 issue. SmartGrids are discussed all over and on all levels: from Presidents to kids in the Kindergarten. Kindergarten in Germany are quite advanced in education of Physics and Technology: Click HERE for a presentation which shows some kids in the Kindergarten trained ... even on Substation Automation in my office (on page 21).

Different people have different opinions what Smartgrids mean - it is not just to safe money. SmartGrids require smart Hardware, smart Software and (in the first place) SMART Peopleware! No smart people - no smart grids.

The latest issue of the PAC World magazine discusses several crucial aspects of the protection of smart grids:

Click HERE to get to the list of contents ... that let you access and download the well written papers and other useful information. Enjoy.

IEC 61850-3 compliant Computer for Substations and Power Plants

Moxa has announced the Moxa's DA-681 x86-based embedded computer line, that has just passed IEC 61850-3 power certification. This specially designed IED (embedded system) is intended for any power automation and substation application that require to be compliant with the IEC 61850-3 standard.

The general purpose IED has six Ethernet Ports and many other serial ports! It runs Embedded Linux, WinCE 6.0, or WinXPe.

Click HERE for more details.

Standard IEC 61850-7-420 (DER) now available

A further part of IEC 61850 "Communication networks and systems for power utility automation" has been published:

Part 7-420: Basic communication structure – Distributed energy resources logical nodes

This standard in conjunction with other standards of the series IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 provide a comprehensive set of standardized means to engineer, monitor, operate and maintain distributed energy systems.

One of the key issues to understand is the fact that many tools, software and IEDs (like programmable controller, HMI clients, etc.) developed for IEC 61850 can be used for distributed energy applications.

Click HERE for a 12 page preview of the standard including the introduction and table of contents.

You may also re-use the knowledge and experience you obtained by one of our IEC 61850 Training sessions.

Click HERE [pdf] for a list of training modules on IEC 61850 and other Standards.

EPRI Provided Crucial Input to the U.S. Smart Grid Interoperability Roadmap

NIST (U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology) released on June 18, 2009, a report that identifies issues and proposes priorities for developing technical standards and an architecture for a U.S. Smart Grid. The report is out for public review.

The nearly 300-page report, developed and delivered to NIST by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), is now publicly available:

Click HERE to download the Report [pdf, 5,7 MB].

Click HERE for the NIST press release.

A similar report has been written for the German projects "E-Energy" (the report is available in German only!):

Click HERE for more information on the German report.

The report refers to many Standards published by IEC TC 57 (Power System Management) and IEC TC 88 (Wind Power). Even this report is focusing on the U.S. power system, it is applicable for other regions as well. Contributions have come from non-U.S. experts. The IEC standards referenced in the report are TRUE International Standards.

The open review process is quite crucial because the final Roadmap will become a more or less official guideline for the whole power delivery system!

Standards like IEC 61968/70 (CIM), IEC 61850, IEC 62351, IEC 60870-6-TASE2, DNP3, IEC 61588, ... are important parts of the power system and recommended in the report to be included in the Final Roadmap. It could be expected that these standards will need extensions, and new standards may be needed as well.

The standardization work in the years to come requires that all the IEC Standardization groups closely cooperate together and with U.S. and other related standardization groups like IEEE, ISO and others. It could be expected that the resources needed for the global standardization work is at least as high as during the last 10 years.

In addition, there are several crucial regional and national R&D and other Smart Grid related projects going on, just started or planned that have also an influence on the International Standardization. It is highly recommended that the successful cooperation of U.S. activities (UCA 1.0, UCA 2.0) and e.g., the European initiated activities like IEC 61850 and IEC 61400-25 will be continued during the next decade in International Standardization!

The press release states that "NIST will use the EPRI report in drafting the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Framework. The NIST document will describe a high-level architecture, identify an initial set of key standards, and provide a roadmap for developing new or revised standards needed to realize the Smart Grid. Release 1.0 of the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Framework is planned to be available in September. 

A third public EPRI-sponsored Smart Grid interoperability-standards workshop will be held in early August to engage standards-development organizations in responding to unaddressed, high-priority needs identified in the draft standards roadmap.

Ultimately, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) determines whether sufficient consensus has been reached to implement final standards and protocols necessary for Smart Grid functionality and interoperability. NIST’s role is to identify and submit to FERC recommendations for the final product."

2nd IEC 61850 Training Session in Moscow (01.-03. September 2009)

The second comprehensive training on IEC 61850 in Moscow (Russia) will be held from 01.-03. September 2009.

Click HERE [pdf in Russian] for the first announcement and contact details for the course on 01.-03. September .

Click HERE for a brief report on the the first event in March 2009 and HERE for the program of the first event (this is tentatively the program for the next event in September 2009).

RWE and Siemens: IEC 61850 for Power Plant MV Power Supply

RWE Power and Siemens Implement IEC 61850 in a huge medium voltage substation in German Power Plant. IEC 61850 is used to integrate the information of the medium voltage substation (for the power supply of all power needs within the Power Plant) into the power plant control system.

"IEC 61850 is a comprehensive standard that defines the communication platform and the specific requirements for the network structure, network components, data models,
interoperability criteria and the engineering process. Proprietary protocols, specialised bus systems and manufacturer specific solutions are a thing of the past. The new standard offers improved possibilities for the standardisation of E-Technology structures and their integration into the whole process, without being tied to one single manufacturer."

Click HERE for a full paper on the project [the abstract is in English and German; the main body is in German].

Click HERE for a information on ABB's application of IEC 61850 in Power Plants.