Neues vom Verein VHPready – E-World Messeerfahrung

Sie finden auf der Website von VHPready sehr interessante Berichte zur Messe E-World und Beiträge:

- das White Paper zu VHPready 4.0

- ein Résumé zum E-world Messeauftritt des Industrieforums

- die Presseinformationen zur E-world

- die Vortragsfolien zu einem VHPready-Vortrag im „Energy Transition“ Forum der E-world

- eine Veröffentlichung in den „Energie & Management Powernews“, in der LichtBlick und Fraunhofer FOKUS zu Wort kommen.

Weiterhin ist die Kurzdarstellung der VHPready Services GmbH (i.G.) inzwischen auch auf Englisch verfügbar.

Einige Aussagen von Besuchern auf dem Messestand:

„Angesichts der vielen auf der Messe gezeigten Szenarien Virtueller Kraftwerke wird die Dringlichkeit von Standardisierung deutlich.“

„Wir haben uns beim Messerundgang schon gewundert, wie die vielen proprietären Lösungen zusammenspielen sollen. Endlich haben wir jemanden gefunden, der sich um die Standardisierung der Kommunikation kümmert!“

„Endlich ein Standard, der auf praktischen Erfahrungen beruht und nicht von anwendungsfernen Technokraten gemacht wurde.“

„Sehr gut, dass Ihr von Beginn an international denkt!“

IEC 61850: Protection and SCADA Seminars (updated)

The IEC 61850 applied for several years to many new substation designs all over the world. During the seminar, truly experienced and vendor independent engineers will help you to see and understand how use the core parts of the IEC 61850 standard are applied in substation design, monitoring, protection and control applications.

Attendees will learn from a senior protection engineer, how the protection system will improve and understand the crucial lessons learned since the first projects with IEC 61850 in 2004.

Seminar contents:

IEC 61850 Introduction (Edition 1, 2, and 2.1) and experience after 10 years in operation. Where are we today?

Return of experience, applications and practical demonstrations: Protection and Control in Substation Automation, Engineering and Configuration, Maintenance, Monitoring and SCADA system, Specification of the IEC 61850 protection and control system.

Through the practical demonstrations you will learn: To handle IEC 61850 relay protections from different vendors and their software tools; to be able to efficiently manage flexibility in engineering and interoperability. To use the state of the art IEC 61850 testing tools and equipment to efficiently detect the technical problems and work-out their solutions. To understand SCL files, setup clients and servers for MMS communication to SCADA and RTU Systems All the presentations are supported by practical examples or demonstrations.

The following 3 days special training courses are offered by FMTP (Uppsala, Sweden) and NettedAutomation:

Hong Kong
27-29 April 2015
Details and registration

Berlin (Germany)
05-07 May 2015
Details and registration

Bratislava (Slovakia)
18-20 May 2015
Details and registration

Brussels (Belgium)
08-10 June 2015
Details and registration

I look forward to seeing you there.

VHPready Signal MMXU1.TotW.instMag – versus IOA 113

Signals configured in IEC 61850 and configured in IEC 60870-5-104 look quite different.

The following figure shows the same signal (Current electric Power – Aktuell erzeugte elektrische Leistung) in IEC 61850 (left) and IEC 60870-5-104 (right):

The IEC 61850 model exposes the value, quaity and timestamp as well as the semantic (TotalWatt). The total watt of what? Of the “Current electric Power – Aktuell erzeigte elektrische Leistung” as described in the DC (description of the signal).

On the other side we have the information object address (IOA = 113) that carries the same value in IEC 60870-5-104. What does the value 3456 mean? No idea in IEC 60870-5-104. You have to know upfront what 113 means. IEC 61850 stores the meaning in the device (model).

In the above case we see also the IOA=113 in the description (DC) of the IEC 61850 model. It is a text string attached to the DC attribute.

IEC 61850 Series is Growing to a Total of 45 Parts

IEC 61850 (Communication networks and systems for power utility automation) is a unique standards series providing a consistent set of standards, draft standards and other IEC publications.

A total of 45 parts cover many application domains in the Power Delivery System. An additional five (5) parts are published under the number IEC 61400-25 (extensions of IEC 61850 for Wind Power).

Document types of IEC:
IS = Standard
TR = Technical Report
TS = Technical Specification

21 Parts are already officially published. 24 draft parts are under preparation. Several drafts will be officially published in 2015.

The list of all documents:

  

In order to keep the crucial contents (mainly models and services) of these parts consistent, IEC TC 57 WG 10, 17, and 18 have done a tremendous work in converting the crucial contents into UML documents. This allows to extend and maintain the models with support of tools. In future we will see standard documents automatically derived from the UML Models.

Congratulation to all people contributing to this great standard series IEC 61850!

Some 20 years after the IEC TC 57 has decided (in 1995) to write a new standard for substation protection and automation, we see a lot of interest in many different application domains.

In case you need help to understand the many different parts and how they could contribute to solve needs you are faced with today and tomorrow – let me know please.

Even IEC 61850 is a huge Standard Series – it must be accompanied by REAL APPLICATIONS and underlying network infrastructure. The 7 ISO/OSI layers are just a foundation for IEC 61850 – both together are used by applications:

The applications of IEC 61850 can range from a simple polling of a temperature measurement up to comprehensive Schedules to manage distributed energy resources.

By the way: Te cake was very tasty!

Standard IEC 62351-3 “Communication network and system security - Profiles including TCP/IP” published

IEC TC 57 has published the crucial standard for security:

Standard IEC 62351-3
Power systems management and associated information exchange - Data and communications security -
Part 3: Communication network and system security - Profiles including TCP/IP

Partie 3: Sécurité des réseaux et des systèmes de communication – Profils comprenant TCP/IP

This part of IEC 62351 specifies how to secure TCP/IP-based protocols through constraints on the specification of the messages, procedures, and algorithms of Transport Layer Security (TLS) (defined in RFC 5246) so that they are applicable to the telecontrol environment of the IEC. TLS is applied to protect the TCP communication. It is intended that this standard be referenced as a normative part of other IEC standards (e.g., IEC 60870-5, IEC 60870-6, IEC 61850, IEC 61400-25, …) that have the need for providing security for their TCP/IP-based protocol.

Now it is up to the vendors and users to implement this standard or require it, respectively.

There is no accuse anymore that IEC 61850 has no security measures defined in form of a standard that can officially be referenced.

Click HERE for the preview of the new standard.

Visit Booth of VHPready at E-World 2015 in Essen

The industry alliance VHPready e.V. will present the project at the E-World 2015 in

Essen (Gemany)
10. - 12. February 2015
Halle 6, Stand 109

Co-exhibitors are:

• Fraunhofer FOKUS (co-exhibitor)
• Beck IPC GmbH (co-exhibitor)
• SSV Software Systems GmbH (co-exhibitor)
• PHOENIX CONTACT Electronics GmbH (co-exhibitor)

You could see the IEC 61850 (and IEC 60870-5-104) Model of VHPready 3.0 in action … seen through an IEC 61850 Browser:

Have a look at the booth!

HMS: Bridging Fieldbus Communication to Power Automation

HMS (one of the most crucial supporter of field busses for industrial and process Automation) brings the huge installed base of field instrumentation closer to the power automation and vice versa. With the new approach customers can tap and exchange crucial process information with the most successful power communication standards like IEC 60870-5-104 or DNP3 and others.

HMS provides a new family of products for smart grid applications using IEC 60870-5-104, IEC 61850, Modbus, Profibus, Profinet, HART, …: The LABLINE SG gateway family targets Demand Response (networking of industrial electric loads) and Virtual Power Plants (networking of energy resources like biogas plants or combined heat and power units) applications.

NettedAutomation’s Motto since 2000 is: The NET is The Automation. Networking is really crucial – and also to understand what this all means! Do you know how to bridge the gaps between signals communicated with Profibus DP and IEC 60870-5-104? HMS has the solution to bridge almost all gaps between factory and process instrumentation field busses and the power world.

Remote Terminal Unit
The LABLINE SG devices support the communication protocols used in the energy sector, e.g. IEC60870-5-104, DNP3 and IEC61850; as well as protocols supported by the electric equipment in the field, e.g. Modbus or M-Bus. The LABLINE SG gateways can also communicate with industrial fieldbus or industrial Ethernet networks such as Profibus, Profinet or any other industrial network thanks to their Anybus technology.

Smart Gateway 
The application logic can be programmed on the device either using a graphical web editor or for more complex applications through the embedded soft-PLC from CODESYS compliant to IEC61131-3 standard.

Click HERE for more details of the new family of products.

More to come.

Seminar Schedule of FMTP and NettedAutomation updated

The need for solid education and hands-on demonstrations and hands-on training is more obvious at the beginning of 2015 than ever before.

FMTP and NettedAutomation have updated their public training courses. The following public courses for the next months are scheduled:

23-25 März	Karlsruhe	Almost Sold Out: 3-tägiges Seminar & Hands-On Training in Deutsch
05-08 May 13-16 Oct	Frankfurt	NEW General Public Courses in ENGLISH
27-29 April	Hong Kong	Special Public Courses in ENGLISH for Protection Engineers and SCADA Applications
18-20 May	Bratislava(Slovakia)	Special Public Courses in ENGLISH for Protection Engineers and SCADA Applications
08-10 June	Brussels (Belgium	Special Public Courses in ENGLISH for Protection Engineers and SCADA Applications

Click HERE for details.

According to the many enquiries FMTP and NettedAutomation received, we are negotiating with several groups all over.

The most efficient courses are in-house training courses – appreciated by many well known international companies all over.

Stay tuned to see updated schedules and news. Or contact us for more information.

IEC 61850 is more than just a “Future Trend”

A manager from a big Asian power utility wrote me the other day:

“Dear Karlheinz,
… because of the schedule of my visit to the CIGRE2014 session at Paris, also an overseas trip for our protection experts to XXXX at Nanjing and YYYY at Tokyo in late September 2014. For one thing that I could learn from both trips, IEC 61850 should no longer be called a "future trend" for the power industry, as it is already the adapted practice everywhere! Just you know it is always not easy to implement new standards in the utilities, especially talking about some well-established ones ...”.

The standard series IEC 61850 is now available for some 10 years. Many manufacturers of automation systems have implemented a reasonable subset of the standards. It’s in use all over. Don’t worry if your management has still to be convinced to implement or use the standards. It takes some time to get there.

It may happen that in some cases you may have to wait for one or two retirements …it’ll come.

Note: Haste produces waste. Take your time – in the meantime get yourself and your people trained to understand what it is all about.

IEC 61850-90-12 “Wide Area Network Engineering Guidelines”

The first draft Technical Report (TR) for the future IEC TR 61850-90-12 has been published the other day (57/1536/DTR):

IEC 61850-90-12 TR: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation - Part 90-12: Wide area network engineering guidelines

Voting on this 202 page draft closes 2015-03-13

Wide area networks comprise in this context optical, radio, power line carrier, copper physical layers, with many topologies like rings, trees, and meshed networks, using different protocols (SDH, IP, MPLS, ...), data traffic (packet switching, TDM), and for a variety of applications (protection, SCADA, voice, video, …) for applications: between substations, between substations and control centers, and between control centers. One crucial aspect relates to protection data transmission via GOOSE, and the multicast data exchange of large amounts of sampled values (SV).

The list of normative references is quite long: some 150 documents are listed. Some examples are:

• IEEE 802.1ag, IEEE standards for local and metropolitan area network; Virtual Bridged Local Area Networks Amendment 5: Connectivity Fault Management)
• IEEE 802.1ah, IEEE standards for local and metropolitan area network; Provider Backbone Bridges
• IEEE 802.1Qay, Provider Backbone Bridge Traffic Engineering
• IEEE 802.1x, Port-based Network Access Control
• ITU-T G.0774-04: Synchronous Digital Hierarchy (SDH) - Management of the sub network connection protection for the network element view.
• RFC 3261, SIP: Session Initiation Protocol
• RFC 3376, Internet Group Management Protocol, Version 3

The list of abbreviations comprises some 300 terms from AAA (Authentication, Authorization and Accounting (security)) to ZBFW (Zone-Based Firewall).

The utilities all over have to get prepared for the huge amount of information to be shared on many different levels from switch gears all the way up to control centers … for many applications. You have to expect that the content of the IEC 61850-90-12 is a MUST reading for utility experts.

You could find a report that shows the importance of this part to a large utility:

Click HERE for a 200 page report: Faramarz Maghsoodlou and Jean Raymond, “Cisco and Hydro-Québec Use cases proposal for IEC 61850-90-12, August 2014.”

The DTR contains further implemented use cases.

Objectives of IETF EMAN – Energy Management Working Group

The IETF Energy Management (EMAN) defines an Energy Management Framework for Networked Devices. Networked Devices could comprise many different devices: Router, Switch, Battery, Printer, … by the way: the variety of monitoring, control, protection and automation devices in power systems could be understood a “Networked Devices”. So: the scope of IETF EMAN could be quite wide. Yes!

A new document provides the “Applicability Statement” from the IETF viewpoint.

It lists several use-cases for identifying requirements for the framework and MIBs. Further, it describes the relationship of the EMAN framework to relevant other energy monitoring standards and architectures.

One thing is sure: Electrical Power is one of the crucial issues to be dealt with in 2015 and beyond!

Click HERE for the “Applicability Statement”.

On my radar screen I see a lot more IEC 61850 applications that hid the street in 2015! Wherever there is a need to unify the information exchange of crucial information about the electrical system and related information IEC 61850 has them (almost) all standardized.

Please note: The many international standards setting organizations are more or less all independent – this means, every group can define a standard for energy management … There is one big difference between the various standards available today: IEC 61850 has been defined internationally by experienced senior Electrical Engineers.

Seminar on IEC 61850 for Protection Engineers in Brussels – English and French speaking

Please note for the Seminar scheduled for 16-18 February 2015 in Brussels (Belgium): 

NEW SERVICE: Both English and French speaking – Presentations in English and Question/Answers in English and French. We have a native French speaking expert present (Romain Douib, FMTP).

Click HERE for the course details.

Cyber Security in Industrial Automation – Huge list of Links to Crucial Resources

How do you feel at the end of 2014? Save and Secure? Hope you are really doing well.

In case you have some spare time during the days off from the office, here is a huge list of Links that lead to crucial papers, presentations, reports, recommendations, … in the domain of cyber security for industrial automation systems … applicable in most power delivery domain.

Click HERE for the huge list.

Warning: The list comprises several 100 links! More than what you can chew in two weeks!

In case you need to secure your device or system applied in power systems: Contact an expert for power system security …

In case you don’t want to spent days in browsing trough 100 thousand pages … here is what you may do instead: Study the most common requirement document applied in the German utility industry:

BDEW Whitepaper on Security in Power Systems

The well-accepted dual-language BDEW Whitepaper
- Requirements for Secure Control and Telecommunication Systems
- Anforderungen an sichere Steuerungs- und Telekommunikationssysteme

is now available: Download Security Whitepaper [pdf].

… this document can also be used to learn German ;-)

What to do in case of a blackout? Belgium seems to be prepared

What would you do when lights are OFF during Christmas? How would you get prepared for a brownout or a blackout? Hm …

In Belgium people are informed officially to look at the four color “energy traffic light”:

DE

Normale Situation (OK)

Risiko einer Stromknappheit (Risk of shortage)

Risiko einer Abschaltung (Risk of load shedding)

Abschaltung angekündigt (Load shedding planned)

FR

Situation normale

Risque de pénurie

Risque de délestage

Délestage annoncé

NL

Normale situatie

Risico op stroomtekort

Risico op afschakeling

Afschakeling aangekondigd

The color of the traffic light at the moment and many tips and hints are posted on the Website: OFF-ON.

Would the website be ON or OFF in case of a blackout?!

The Motto could be summarized: Switch more often OFF to stay ON … save energy to keep power flowing.

I wish you light during the year-end season … and in 2015.

IEC Smart Grid Standards Map

IEC has spent some time to list the relevant standards for the many areas of Smart(er) Grids:

http://smartgridstandardsmap.com/

When you browse this site, you may wonder to see a list of 301 standards and other official specifications. There are many areas that are related to the 50 Hz or 60 Hz 3-phase electrical power systems:

• Advanced distribution management system
• Advanced metering infrastructure
• Asset management and condition monitoring system
• Blackout prevention system
• Clock reference system
• Communication network
• Communication network management system
• Data modelling
• Demand response / Load management
• Distributed energy resources operation system
• Distribution automation system
• E-mobility system
• EMC & Power quality
• Electric Storage system
• Energy management system
• FACTS for grids
• Generation management system
• Industrial automation system
• Market place systems
• Meter-related back-office systems
• Security
• Smart home and building automation system
• Substation automation system
• Weather forecast

The home page states: “Easily and instantly identify the standards that are needed for any part of the Smart Grid – no need to be a standards expert”. Hm, really? There may be no need to be an expert browsing the site – BUT if you are not an expert in standards like IEC 60870-5-10x, CIM, IEC 61400-25, IEC 61850,  IEC 62351, … then you need to talk an EXPERT. We are here to help you!

Fortunately, when it comes to information exchange, the many parts of IEC 61850 are the most crucial standards you will find in the list of the 301 standards:

IEC 61850-6 IEC 61850-7-1  IEC 61850-7-2 IEC 61850-7-3 IEC 61850-7-4 IEC 61850-7-410 IEC 61850-7-420 IEC 61850-8-1 IEC 61850-8-2 IEC 61850-80-1 IEC 61850-80-4 IEC 61850-9-2 IEC 61850-90-1 IEC 61850-90-10

IEC 61850-90-11 IEC 61850-90-12 IEC 61850-90-13 IEC 61850-90-14 IEC 61850-90-15 IEC 61850-90-2 IEC 61850-90-3 IEC 61850-90-4 IEC 61850-90-5 IEC 61850-90-6 IEC 61850-90-7 IEC 61850-90-8 IEC 61850-90-9

I guess, even IEC has not fully understood the impact of IEC 61850 on the power delivery system: So, why is IEC 61850-90-3 missing in the list of standards relevant for cable?

Here is an overview (from draft IEC 61850-90-3) on cable monitoring:

It is impossible to list IEC 61850 in any application domain. The model (LN – Logical Node) STMP (temperature supervision) could be used allover – where ever a temperature is measured. Modeling the temperature in a green house and communication the value with IEC 61850 does not require to list IEC 61850 as a standard for green houses … ;-)

IEC 61850 is a common standard that covers specific and general models and services.

To understand the impact of IEC 61850: you have to be an expert or you have to ask an expert.

2014 comes to a close – wish you the best for 2015

Impressions from Prague (CZ), 2014-12-09 … after the second day of our training course:

 

… we saw many happy people there … enjoying the nice place and the peace.

As 2014 comes to a close, I want to say "Thank You!" for choosing our services, and for the cooperation this year.

I wish you and your family a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year 2015 … living in peace and harmony! 

I look forward to see you next year.

Best Regards,
Karlheinz Schwarz

IEC 61850 in Hydro Power Plants (additional information)

Recently I have reported about an example of the use of IEC 61850 in hydro power plant.

As I said then: “Be sure: More to come.” has become true. Additional information can be found here:

Efacec IEC 61850 automation system is in operation since 2013:

Document 1 (Products)
Document 2 (Projects)
Document 3 (Why IEC 61850?)

Founded in 1948, but with a century-long history, Efacec is the largest Group in the electric field financed by Portuguese capital. It employs over 3900 people and is present in more than 65 countries, in five continents.

Other vendors will follow soon.

NettedAutomation’s regular IEC 61850 Courses extended to 2 + 2 Days

NettedAutomation GmbH has updated the course agenda early 2014. For 2015 the training will be upgraded: using real devices and solutions (including protection relays and testing equipment) to work with during the public 2+2 days general training course.

Reorganized, extended and improved program for the 2 +2 days course:

• 1 1/2 days Introduction and Basics
• 1/2 day Hands-on training on SCL

Hands-on training group 1 (SCADA):

• 1 day Configuring and using Server devices for monitoring and control
• 1 day Configuring and using Client devices for IEC 61850 and gateways

Hands-on training group 2 (Protection; parallel to group 1) - by Andrea Bonetti (FMTP):

• 2 days Impact of IEC 61850 on Protection (using real protection relays, ...

The next courses are scheduled for

05.-08. May 2015 Frankfurt (Germany)
13.-16. October 2014 Frankfurt (Germany)

Click HERE for details, program and registration information.