Ukrainian Power Grid -- Cyber Attack is a Wake-Up Call for All of us

"On December 23, 2015, the Ukrainian Kyivoblenergo, a regional electricity distribution company, reported service outages due to a third party’s illegal entry into the company’s computer and SCADA systems. ... the strongest capability of the attackers was not in their choice of tools or in their expertise, but in their capability to perform long‐term reconnaissance operations required to learn the environment and execute a highly synchronized, multistage, multisite attack. ..."

Click HERE for an interesting Report that provides "important details surrounding the attack, offering lessons learned, and recommending approaches to help the ICS community repel similar attacks."

This and other attacks are Wake-Up Calls for Everybody! We should be aware that to some extent this trend will impact us all one way or the other - sooner or later.

One thing is sure: The future secure delivery of electric power will require more resources and smart people!!

RWE sieht in Steuerungsboxen eine Chance Geld zu verdienen

Im aktuellen Beitrag "Klassische Vollversorger sind chancenlos“ in den VDI-Nachrichten (Seite 21) vom 11.03.2016 wird berichtet:

"... Teriums aktuelle Erkenntnis lautet: „Klassische Vollversorger sind chancenlos auf dem Energiemarkt.“ Die Stromversorgung werde dezentraler und komplexer. So will RWE vom reinen Versorger zum Umsorger werden. Angebote wie Steuerungsboxen für das Energie erzeugende Eigenheim sollen Gewinne bescheren. ..."

Click HIER um den gesamten Beitrag zu lesen.

Eine wesentliche Voraussetzung dazu wäre, dass alle Steuerungsboxen (oder Steuerboxen) eine einheitliche Sprache sprechen und IEC 61850 anwenden.

Stromnetz Berlin - Goes Digital with various approaches

The distribution operator "Stromnetz Berlin" with some 2.4 Million customers and 350.000 house service connections operates the following networks and applies various communication solutions:

110 kV Network: 
- 80 Substations with 600 switch gears
- all switch gears remote controllable
- communication infrastructure: fiber optic

10 kV Network:
- 10,700 Distribution stations with 23,000 switch gears
- 10 per cent of switchgears remote controllable
- expandable to 100 per cent
- communication infrastructure: land line, TETRA Radio

0,4 kV Network:
- 15,000 cable distributor boxes
- 96,000 feeders
- 1 per cent of switch gears remote controllable
- expandable to 100 per cent
- communication infrastructure: pager (e*nergy - based on e*message)

The protocols used are likely quite different - I guess.
Click HERE to download a presentation from "Stromnetz Berlin" [German only]
Click HERE for the presentation material (14 slide presentations) of a recent conference [German only]

Smart Meter Rollout UND intelligentes Einspeisemanagement

"Der vorliegende Entwurf eines Gesetzes zur Digitalisierung der Energiewende greift nach
Expertenmeinung zu kurz. Bevor ein Smart Meter Rollout gestartet wird, muss ein
einheitlicher Schnittstellenstandard festgelegt werden, um beispielsweise flächendeckend
Wechselrichter und Speicher ansteuern und vernetzen zu können.

So lautet das Fazit des 23. Fachgesprächs der Clearingstelle EEG zu „Technische Einrichtungen
zur Einspeiseregelung – Einspeisemanagement und Direktvermarktung“ am 8. März in Berlin.
Branchenvertreter und Experten wiesen darauf hin, dass das Gesetz zur Digitalisierung der
Energiewende, das derzeit im parlamentarischen Verfahren ist, deutlich zu kurz greift. „Es darf
nicht nur darum gehen die Zähler auszuwechseln, was wir brauchen ist eine echte Digitalisierung mit Standards, die ein intelligentes Einspeisemanagement erlauben“, unterstrich Professor Gerd Heilscher von der Hochschule Ulm. ...
Als positives Beispiel verwies Heilscher auf die USA, wo seit kurzem nur noch PV-Wechselrichter mit dem Kommunikationsstandard Sunspec in öffentliche Gebäude eingebaut werden dürfen.
Entsprechend müsse auch hierzulande ein einheitliches Übertragungsprotokoll beispielsweise auf Basis des IEC 61850 eingeführt werden."

Click HIER für den kompletten Beitrag.

Several new CDVs (related to power systems) available for public commenting

IEC TC 118 has just published the following two CDV documents:

118/55/CDVIEC 62746-10-1 Ed.1: Systems interface between customer energy management system and the power management system -
Part 10-1: Open automated demand response

118/56/CDVIEC 62939-3 Ed.1: Smart grid user interface -
Part 3: Energy interoperation services

The system committee Smart Energy has published:

SyCSmartEnergy/28/CDV
IEC 62559-3/Ed1: Use case methodology -
Part 3: Definition of use case template artefacts into an XML serialized format

These CDVs are available for public comments according to IEC.

The published documents are really very interesting - I hope that especially the users community will study these documents in due time and provide comments through the public commenting process or through their national committees.

Please take some time to dig into the documents to some degree!

Training in Montreal (Canada): Mastering the complexity of IEC 61850

OPAL-RT TECHNOLOGIES invites you to the very crucial Training:

Mastering the complexity of IEC 61850

Adoption of the IEC 61850 standard in North America is slowly emerging for Transmission and Distribution markets, but an increasing number of implementations is expected, either through new installations or following cost-benefit assessments in modernization projects. Now is a good time to get in touch with the state-of-the-art technologies and standard that will guide present and future SAS design.

During this seminar, truly experienced, vendor independent engineers will help you see and understand how to use the core parts of the IEC 61850 standard applied in substation design, monitoring, protection and control applications. You will learn from senior protection engineers, how the protection system will improve and understand the crucial lessons learned since the first projects with IEC 61850 in 2004, all through interactive training, live demos and hands-on exercises.

Monday, 25 April 2016 at 9:00 AM - Friday, 29 April 2016 at 5:00 PM (EDT)

Le Nordelec - 1751 rue Richardson, Suite 4312 Montréal, QC H3K 1G6 CA

Click HERE for more details and registration information.

See you there.

Draft IEC 62351-13 TR - Guidelines on what security topics should be covered in standards and specifications

IEC TC 57 just published a very interesting draft technical report (57/1678/DTR):
IEC 62351-13 TR: Power systems management and associated information exchange -
Data and communications security -
Part 13: Guidelines on what security topics should be covered in standards and specifications
Voting terminates on 2016-04-15

The draft covers the following topics:


Excerpt from the document:
"1.2 Purpose of this Document
The security requirements for human users and software applications are different from the purely
technical security requirements found in many communication and device standards. For user security standards, more emphasis must be on “policy and procedures” and “roles and authorization” rather than “bits and bytes” cryptographic technologies that should be included in Information and Communications Technology (ICT). In addition, engineering practices and system configurations must be taken into account, since no cryptography can compensate for poor design."

As an excerpt not this single bullet: "Validation of information input for format and reasonability, including that the input is in the correct format, that values are within limits, that the values are not beyond the capabilities of the automation system."

There is always something to better understand!

NEW: 80 Page Report on Centralized Substation Protection And Control

Centralized Substation Protection and Control is quite new compared to the age of the a.c. power system. A couple of experts have published recently a very comprehensive IEEE report on the subject. They are going back into the history and provide an outlook into the advantages that come, e.g., with IEC 61850. IEC 61850 is mentioned almost 50 times ...
Many details are discussed - recommended to be read by non-protection engineers.
Click HERE for downloading the report [pdf].

Click HERE for other related papers for free access at IEEE..

SystemCorp Provides New Release of their famous IEC 61850 DLL

SystemCorp has published a New Release of their famous IEC 61850 DLL (Stack version V2.06.28).
Click HERE for the webpage.
Click HERE for the direct download.

Click HERE for the full release notes.

New Features of the Release V2.06.28

• Added new API IEC61850_ControlTerminateCommand() to manually trigger command termination for the active control the server
• Added support for Integer Controls with Enhanced Security, NOTE: Command Termination for INC controls is the responsibility of the user using the IEC61850_ControlTerminateCommand() API
• Added new API IEC61850_SetOriginator() to set the originator orCat and orIdent for controls on the client
• Added VLAN Tag to the Ethernet Headers for GOOSE and SV on Linux
• Client and servers with GOOSE Subscription can now be recreated without restarting an executable
• Edition 2 mode supports Domain names of length 64 bytes
• Added Support for SCL Type ObjRef 

The new DLL could be used with the current C# client and server demo and evaluation applications:

Click HERE for the demo and evaluation.

Just published: Draft Technical Report IEC 61850-90-17 (Using IEC 61850 to transmit power quality data)

IEC TC 57 just publsihed the Draft Technical report (57/1676/DTR):
IEC 61850-90-17 TR: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 90-17: Using IEC 61850 to transmit power quality data
Voting terminates on 2016-04-08

This document provides
• Guidelines for using of IEC 61850 in the power quality application domain,
• Name space extensions required for power quality function assessment,
• Profile for using IEC 61850 in the specific context of IEC 61000-4-30.
Specific Power Quality requirements that are not 100 % covered by existing Logical
Nodes (LN) or Common Data Classes (CDC) (e.g. LN for continuous power quality recorders,
LN for RVC…) are defined here.
The document defines a lot of configuration values for specific applications. This document helps to increase the interoperability to a high degree.

This document will serve as a very helpful Guideline in the Power Quality Domain.
Power Quality devices produce huge amounts of values .. these must be communicated with a variety of services: Read, Report, Log, or Files like COMTRADE, PQDIF, or COMFEDE. This TR discusses these for the various applications.

New Version of IED Model Designer: IDCDesigner from SystemCorp

Please note that SystemCorp has released Version 2.0.24 of their ICDDesigner.
The version that can be downloaded runs for six (6) month.

Installer / update:

http://licenses.systemcorp.com.au/downloads/ICDDesignerSetupV2.00.024.exe

Standalone version:

http://licenses.systemcorp.com.au/downloads/ICDDesignerStandaloneV2.00.024.zip

Enjoy.

Communication Network Interdependencies in Smart Grids: A comprehensive Study

Communication network interdependencies in smart grids is a crucial issue to be discussed in the context of the European Market.The European Union Agency for Network and Information Security (ENISA) has just published a comprehensive report on the above issue.

The main concerns that were expressed by the 20+ experts involved can be sorted into two main categories, technical recommendations (1./2.) and organizational recommendations (3.):

1. Regarding smart grid devices, these devices are now exposed to different networks, and therefore their periodic update becomes essential in order to ensure that they are protected against the latest threats that appear. Furthermore, these devices should also implement by default security measures to protect them (such as authentication, encryption or frame counters), as implementing such measures in the deployment phase is much more costly and does not reach the same level of security.
2. Regarding the communications interdependencies, the main concern is with the protocols used on the smart grids. There is an urgent need to harmonize the current situation by establishing common interconnection protocols to be used by all devices, and ensure that these protocols implement by default enough security measures to protect the data whilst it is in transit (such as encryption or mutual authentication).
3. Finally there is the need to align policies, standards and regulations across EU Member States to ensure the overall security of smart grids. This is now even more important due to the risk that cascading failures can cause; as smart grid communication networks are no longer limited by physical or geographical barriers, and an attack on one country could translate into another.

Recommendation 2 states: Manufacturers and vendors should foster intercommunication protocol compatibility between devices from different manufacturers and vendors. Currently, many manufacturers and vendors, due to the lack of standards, make use of their own proprietary protocols and communication systems for the intercommunication between their devices. 

The experts state: There are several common technologies and protocols that are used for the intercommunication between these devices and the rest of the transmission grid network. One of the most relevant ones is the IEC 61850 protocol family, which is applicable to this grid section. 

Ok! I fully agree with these statements!

Click HERE for the full report [pdf, 50+ pages].

XML Documents and Pretty Print with Notepad++

Dear All,

I guess you have seen this kind of XML documents quite often in conjunction with SCL Documents:

One way is to use the online tool "Pretty Print".

There is a more convenient way: Use the "Pretty Print" Plugin tool that comes with Notepad++ (you have to install it with the Plugin Manager):

This will result in a Pretty Clean XML Document:

Wow!

Enjoy the plugin!

Mapping of IEC 61850-7-x to XMPP: Nice Paper in PACWorld Magazine

The XMPP technology (Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol) has been selected as the communication solution to address the Smart Grid specific challenges and use cases, which deviate from a typical substation automation use case.

The additional mapping will be published as IEC 61850-8-2.

A nice overview can be found in a paper published recently in the PACWorld magazine:

Click HERE for the full paper.

Note that from a message encoding point of view the MMS-ASN.1-BER messages are mapped directly to ASN.1-XER coded messages. The ASN.1 Tag numbers are mapped to XML Element names. The whole message schema is the same in both mappings.

HMS Updated their Web Pages for IEC 61850, IEC 60870-5-104, ... Anybus SG-gateways

The Anybus® SG-gateway™ family is designed to specifically target 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.

Remote Terminal Unit
The SG-gateways support the communication protocols used in the energy sector, e.g. IEC 60870-5-104, DNP3 and IEC 61850; as well as protocols supported by the electric equipment in the field, e.g. Modbus or M-Bus. In addition, thanks to the built-in Anybus CompactCom interface, they can also communicate with fieldbus or industrial Ethernet networks such as Profibus, Profinet, EtherNet/IP or any other industrial network.

The new Web pages provide all information needed to build a information infrastructure for Smart Grid for a smarter power network for the future.

Click HERE to visit the Anybus Web site.
Click HERE for a great news post at the Anybus Web site.

HMS will demonstrate VHPready products during the E-World Exhibition.
Click HERE for more information.

Discrepancy in GPS Timing of 13 Microseconds

Power Delivery systems rely to some degree on Time Synchronization based on global positioning system (GPS).

A time spike in the global positioning system which rippled through the world on January 28, 2016 was caused by a satellite launched in 1990 failing and triggering a software bug!

Although the timing anomaly measured just microseconds, it could have caused significant navigation errors, Richard Easther, head of the University of Auckland's physics department said.
"The rule of thumb is that for every nanosecond of error, you could be out by as much as a foot," Easther said.

"An error of 13 microseconds or 13,000 nanoseconds works out as just under four kilometres."

What would that error mean for Sampled Values? The 13 microseconds are equivalent  to a difference in the angle of 0.234 degrees in a 50 Hz AC system. This seems not to be very critical. But who knows what happens next.

Be aware that our future power system will rely more and more on GPS or other central time sources. So, the power infrastructure does rely on the GPS (or other means) - which by nature does on the power infrastructure. Everything seems to be highly interconnected.

IEC Committee Draft (CD) 61850-7-420 Ed. 2.0 just published

IEC TC 57 has just published the 57/1655/CD:

IEC CD 61850-7-420 Ed. 2.0: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation -
Part 7-420: Basic communication structure - Distributed energy resources logical nodes

Commenting closes 2016-04-08.

Attention is drawn to document 57/1658/DC which is circulated in parallel and which reflects a draft IEC TR 61850-7-520 and which contains the main guidelines on how to use the data models contained in the present CD.
.
Since both documents are closely linked IEC national committees are invited to develop their comments in parallel on the present CD and on 57/1658/DC.

The major technical changes with regard to the previous edition are as follows:

• Corrections and clarifications according to information letter "IEC 61850-technical issues by the IEC TC 57” (see document 57/963/INF, 2008-07-18);
• Extensions regarding IEC 61850-90-7 (object models for converters in distributed energy resources (DER) systems);
• Some logical nodes in IEC 61850-7-420:2009 that were not specific to distributed energy resources have been transferred to IEC 61850-7-4 Ed. 2.1 and have been removed from this edition of IEC 61850-7-420 (see also Annex A);
• The definitions of logical nodes in this edition of IEC 61850-7-420 have been updated using the table format introduced in IEC 61850-7-4 Ed. 2.1;
• Most of the modelling examples and background information that was included in IEC 61850-7-420:2009 has been transferred to IEC 61850-7-520

This CD is not available publicly as a CDV. The CDV may be available later this year. 

Stay tuned to this blog.

IEC CDV 61850-7-4 Ed.2.0 Amendment 1 just pulished

IEC TC 57 has just published a 269 page CDV that reflects the first amendment to IEC 61850-7-4 Ed.2.0:

IEC 61850-7-4 Ed.2.0 Amd.1: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation –
Part 7-4: Basic communication structure – Compatible logical node classes and data object classes

Everybody can read the CDV and comment online (see details below).

The commenting period closes 2016-04-15.

Compared to the second edition, this first revision of the second edition:

• Provides clarifications and corrections to the second edition of IEC 61850-7-4, based on the tissues = { 650, 671, 672, 674, 675, 676, 677, 679, 680, 682, 683, 685, 686, 689, 693, 694, 695, 696, 712, 713, 714, 715, 716, 722, 724, 725, 726, 727, 732, 734, 735, 736, 742, 743, 744, 748, 749, 772, 773, 774, 775, 776, 800, 802, 808, 819, 830, 831, 835, 838, 842, 843, 844, 849, 871, 877, 878, 879, 881, 882, 902, 908, 909, 910, 911, 912, 913, 920, 928, 932, 933, 937, 939, 940, 952, 967, 991, 1007, 1029, 1044, 1046, 1071, 1075, 1076, 1077, 1081, 1086, 1117, 1119, 1128, 1137, 1139, 1176, 1177, 1190, 1191, 1203, 1205, 1229, 1235, 1236, 1244, 1250, 1256, 1258, 1259, ... }
• Adds to each functional LN group a parent abstract Logical node where the functional nodes are children from (full object oriented model). Since all abstract LNs are in together in a common clause, the relative position of the functional LNs is not changed within their clause
• Adds new abbreviated terms
• Has extension of the list of abbreviate terms to be used for object names
• Has more precise combination rules for abbreviated terms to object names
• Has extensions by new logical nodes mainly from power quality domains and others
• Has corrections of editorial errors.

Please note that this CDV is available to the public for comments (yes: everybody can sign in and get access for personal comments!!):

Click HERE to register for public access and comments.

This allows everybody to ready the content and comment online.

Click HERE to visit the Tissue Database.

This CDV is the result of several years of key editors to reach a very high level of completeness and consistency of the information models throughout the various domains.

Note that the final result will be a new edition of 7-4: Edition 2.1 !! (not 3.0).

Congratulation to the editors for this great work!!