Substation to Control Center Communication: IEC 61850-90-2 TR Approved

The draft Technical Report for Substation to Control Center Communication has been approved by 100 %:

IEC 61850-90-2 TR:
Communication networks and systems for power utility automation - Part 90-2: Using IEC 61850 for the communication between substations and control centres

The final Technical Report will be published in December 2015. It provides a comprehensive overview of the different aspects that need to be considered while using IEC 61850 for information exchange between substations and control or maintenance centres or other system level applications. In particular, this technical report:

• defines use cases and communication requirements that require an information exchange between substations and control or maintenance centres
• describes the usage of the configuration language of IEC 61850‑6
• gives guidelines for the selection of communication services and architectures compatible with IEC 61850
• describes the engineering workflow
• introduces the use of a Proxy/Gateway concept
• describes the links regarding the Specific Communication Service Mapping (SCSM)

The wait for the application of IEC 61850 for information exchange between substations and control centers is over – starting in 2016, there is no excuse any more.

The scope of the TR is quite limited: Substation (only!) to control centers. The future energy delivery system (in which power is one aspect only) will build a hierarchy of aggregated information systems. There will be several layers of information management systems. This is required because of the use of IEC 61850 from power distribution all the way up to the transmission system operator. Information needs to be aggregated because of the sheer unlimited amount of information generated and consumed in the system.

It is likely that the TR 90-2 will be used for other vertical information flows between aggregation points and higher level systems. A subset of the TR 90-2 may be used for information exchange between a control center and a wind power plant.

The restricted scope in the TR 61850-90-2 is just toner on paper – like in almost all IEC 61850 parts. A server in the sense of IEC 61850 can expose any data from any application. IEC 61850 relies on ISO 9506 (MMS – Manufacturing Message Specification). As the name says: MMS (and IEC 61850) can be used for manufacturing and many other domains.

The main scope of IEC 61850 is constrained by the title: “… for power utility automation”. From a technical point of view we could leave only “… automation”:

“Communication networks and systems for automation” – BUT this would never be accepted by the IEC officials. Automation as such is not the scope of IEC TC 57.

MMS is not restricted to “Manufacturing” and IEC 61850 is not restricted to “power utility automation”.

German Standardization Roadmap Industrie 4.0 (Version 2)

Several groups within Germany have written a 70+ page Standardization Roadmap Industrie 4.0 (Version 2, Oct 2015). The document lists a lot of topics relevant for standardization related to the future industrial automation. It contains a lot of issues that “should” or “must” be considered in the standardization of the future.

I was a bit surprised that the industrial automation world seems to lack of many basic standards that would support interoperability and inter-workability. Guess the authors have understood that the myriad of fieldbusses seems not to solve the needs for the future automation process – fieldbusses lead to many islands that can not talk together.

The power world has decided already some 20 years ago to build the foundation of interoperable systems based on a well defined huge “dictionary” of semantic terms (the hundreds of logical nodes for almost all power domains).

With IEC 61850 we change from “bits” to “well defined terms and messages”:

All the messages exchanged could be based on a well standardized semantic, like the temperature supervision model “STMP”: Trip =  “STMP1.Trip.stVal” or the current temperature = “STMP1.Tmp.mag.i”.

The various layers are shown in the following figure:

These values can be reported by a DataSet and a GOOSE message (in real-time … in some 3 to 5 msec):

The smart grid efforts within IEC are tremendously supported by IEC TC 57 … especially with the standards series IEC 61850. This series is part of the “IEC smart grid standards roadmap”.

This roadmap has really attracted the Industrie 4.0 supporters! They write in their roadmap:

“Empfehlung, eine Normenlandkarte (standardisation map) für Industrie 4.0/Smart manufacturing elektronisch zu beschreiben. Die Normenlandkarte wird ein im Vergleich zum Smart Grid Mapping Tool (http://smartgridstandardsmap.com) äquivalentes elektronisches Werkzeug darstellen.”

They recommend to “copy” the “IEC smart grid standards roadmap” and name it “IEC Industry 4.0 / Smart Manufacturing Roadmap).

Click HERE to see the IEC smart grid standards roadmap.

Click HERE to access the Standardization Roadmap Industrie 4.0 (Version 2, Oct 2015, German only).

I hope that they will “copy” more than just a roadmap … refer to IEC 61850 some time down the road.

By the way: HMS is bridging the semantic-less fieldbusses to the semantic defined in IEC 61850 …

http://www.hms-networks.com/about/labs/smart-grid/labline-sg

The Energy Lab 2.0 in Karlsruhe (Germany)

Karlsruhe (Germany, the hometown of Karlheinz Schwarz) is known (among others) for supporting the German Energiewende: The KIT and NettedAutomation GmbH

NettedAutomation is deeply involved in the dissemination of IEC 61850 all over the world. Now I see big investments in Energy related R&D projects in Germany. One of the most crucial activities is the new “Energy Lab 2.0” in Karlsruhe.

Energy Lab 2.0 – The Smart Energiewende Platform
New Research Facility Links Producers with Storage Systems and Consumers –
Investment Totaling EUR 22 Million

“ … The project is embedded in the overall energy strategy of the Helmholtz Association. For the Energy Lab 2.0, the partners plan to build a simulation and control center and a network of energy technology facilities on KIT Campus North, an electrolysis test center at Forschungszentrum Jülich, and a facility for testing power-to-heat concepts at the German Aerospace Center, Stuttgart, by 2018.
The energy platform will link characteristic components for power, heat, and synthesis gas production with various energy storage technologies and consumers. For this purpose, large facilities existing at KIT will be integrated into the Energy Lab 2.0: The solar power storage park, the bioliq pilot facility, and selected energy consumers on KIT Campus North. Electrical, electrochemical, and chemical storage systems as well as a load- and fuel-flexible gas turbine with
current generator will be newly constructed and are planned to complement the network. A simulation and control center at KIT will integrate all network components of KIT and the partners in a smart energy system using information and communication technologies.
This infrastructure facility is the first of its type in Europe. …”

More to come. Stay tuned.

Click HERE for a more comprehensive description [pdf].

IEC 61850 Testlabs Accredited by the UCAIUG

As per October 2015 the following tester are offering Conformance Tests for products implementing IEC 61850:

For further details on the companies or on IEC 61850 testing capability visit:
www.ucaiug.org Testing/ UCAIug Testing Quality Assurance Program.
The approved testers are listed in the directory: UCAIug IEC 61850 Approved Testers

Almost 600 Certificates have been issued by the UCAIUG Users Group.

IEC 62351-12: Resilience and security recommendations for power systems with DER systems

IEC TC 57 has published an important 100+ pages document that cares about the resilience and recovery of power system build on a high penetration of DER systems.

IEC 62351-12 TR (57/1637/DTR):
Power systems management and associated information exchange –
Data and communications security –
Part 12: Resilience and security recommendations for power systems with Distributed Energy Resources (DER) cyber-physical systems

Voting closes 2015-12-25

“ … This document discusses cyber security recommendations and engineering/operational strategies for improving the resilience of power systems with interconnected Distributed Energy Resources (DER) systems. It covers the resilience requirements for the many different stakeholders of these dispersed cyber-physical generation and storage devices, with the goal of enhancing the safety, reliability, power quality, and other operational aspects of power systems, particularly those with high penetrations of DER systems.

In the energy sector, two key phrases are becoming the focus of international and national policies: “grid resilience” and “cyber security of the cyber-physical grid”. Grid resilience responds to the overarching concern: "The critical infrastructure, the Smart Electric Grid, must be resilient - to be protected against both physical and cyber problems when possible, but also to cope with and recover from the inevitable disruptive event, no matter what the cause of that problem is - cyber, physical, malicious, or inadvertent."
“Grid resilience … includes hardening, advanced capabilities, and recovery/reconstitution. Although most attention is placed on best practices for hardening, resilience strategies must also consideroptions to improve grid flexibility and control.” Resilience of the grid is often associated with making the grid able to withstand and recover from severe weather and other physical events, but resilience should also include the ability of the cyber-physical grid to withstand and recover from malicious and inadvertent cyber events. ...”

Two of the most crucial challenges of the future of our power systems (electric, gas, and heat) are the understanding of (1) the power system AND (2) the automation and communication infrastructure. This requires solid and comprehensive education of the engineers – junior and senior. Unfortunately a lot of engineers show a lag in understanding new and existing technologies.

The good news is that – at least in the electric world – we have globally a single standard (IEC 61850) that meets almost all needs and that is accepted and used all over!

Saudi Arabia to Build 50 MW PV Plant

Several companies announced to establish a solar photovoltaic (PV) power plant with a capacity of 50 MW in the city of Saudi Aflaj, which will be the first utility-scale PV plant in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Quite interesting that Saudi Arabia is expecting a growth of energy demand rising by 8 percent annually and is expected to be 120 GW by 2030.

Click HERE for a news report.

During my visit of Dammam (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) this week (training on IEC 61850) I was (by chance) contacted by a senior engineer (involved in gas related automation) who walked by outside our meeting room, stopped, and asked what we were doing. We talked about this and that.

Then he asked me how we can store PV power … this led us to the situation in Germany where we have several MW scale projects that convert PV or Wind Power into gas. He was very impressed that this is happening in big scale.

Sure, we have a lot of renewable power in Germany.

What to do with all the power? Convert to gas! Yes!

Click HERE to a report on the largest system today in Hamburg (1.5 MW).

Click HERE for some explanations of the basics of power-to-gas.

The gas and heat/cooling domains will find that the IEC 61850 can be used for many applications in these areas – to benefit from the standards used in electric power systems.

Click HERE for some discussion of using IEC 61850 (UCA 2.0) for the gas industry.

More to come. Keep tuned to the IEC 61850 blog.

Comprehensive Alarm Model for IEC 61850 to be developed

IEC 61850 defines many Data Objects that could be used as alarm status points. These points can be easily reported (reporting) and stored in a local store (logging). The alarm information can be sent spontaneously to a SCADA system or any other IEC 61850 client. The need of an alarm management system (alarm needs to be confirmed by one or two or all clients, retrieve a list of all active alarms …) was excluded in the first years of the IEC TC 57 WG 10 work (late 90’s). We have decided to come up with some proposals later … the “later” is here (2015).

A new Task Force is proposed to look at the needs and to harmonize the requirements of IEC TC 88 (wind power) with the requirements of alarm handling from other domains to produce a generic solution within the suite of IEC 61850 specifications.

IEC TC 57 invites experts to join the new Task Force (57/1631/DC):

IEC TR 61850-90-18: Communication networks and systems for power utility automation – Part 90-18: Alarm handling in IEC 61850 based systems

If you are interested in supporting that work contact your national TC 57 committee.

The German Energiewende Needs Communication – Government Pushes for Metering Infrastructure

The German government has published a draft that comprises several proposals for new (to be modified existing) laws:

Digitalisierung Energiewende: BMWi eröffnet Konsultation zu intelligenten Messsystemen

Click HERE for the current draft and related information.

The draft talks a lot about remote monitoring and control. E.g., “Zur Gewährleistung der Fernsteuerbarkeit von Anlagen im Sinne des Absatz 1 Nummer 1 Buchstabe b) ist es insbesondere erforderlich, dass neben der Abrufung der Ist-Einspeisung gemäß Absatz 1 Nummer 1 Buchstabe c) auch eine ferngesteuerte Reduzierung der Einspeiseleistung der Anlage über das intelligente Messsystem erfolgen kann …”

IEC 60870-5-104 for Smart Grids by Efen

Data Exchange According to IEC Standards Data communication is the key to long-term grid stability. To this end, EFEN applies IEC standards to ensure the functionality of its products across borders. The Smart Grid Interface complies with IEC 60870-5-104 to ensure that it is not only state-of-the-art today but also in the future.

Click HERE for the brochure by Efen [English]:

Smart Grid Interface: Intelligent energy distribution
for smart energy supply

Click HERE für die Broschüre von Efen [Deutsch]:

Smart Grid Interface: Intelligenz im Energieverteilnetz
für die smarte Energieversorgung

More to come on the IEC TC 57 standards IEC 60870-5-104 and IEC 61850.

If you need to get your information coming from or going to Modbus, Profibus, Profinet, … being communicated through IEC 60870-5-105 and/or IEC 61850 and vice versa – check HERE.

IEC 61400-25-41 Project Finally Approved

Document 88/567/RVN
Wind turbines - Part 25-41: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants - Mapping to communication profile based on IEC 62541 (OPC UA)

This New Work Proposal 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 (Technical Specification)

The focus is intended to be strictly on IEC 61400-25. It will replace the obsolete OPC-XML-DA mapping. No impact on the work on IEC 61850 web technology (Project IEC 61850-8-2) is intended by this NP.

Click HERE for an overview on the IEC 61400-25 series.

IEC 61850 Interoperability Test in Brussels Was a Big Success

The IEC 61850 Interoperability Test in Brussels (Belgium, at ENTSO-E) last week was a big success. The plenary meeting of the IEC TC 57 WG 10, 17 and 18 was informed about the results on Monday, October 05, 2015.

Compared to the previous IOPs in 2011 and 2013 there were more companies attending in 2015: 19/43/49. Total number of vendors that provided products to test was: 14/20/29. The number of people participating grew from 37/93 to 130 !!

Tests covered: SCL, Client/Server, GOOSE, SV, HSR/PRP, and IEEE 1588

For Client/Server 15 issues were found in 2013, in 2015 just 4. No issue was found on GOOSE.

A total of 32 issues need some attention. The issues will be posted to the tissue database if required.

The first tissues have already been posted:

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1445

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1446

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1447

http://tissue.iec61850.com/tissue.mspx?issueid=1448

The IOP at ENTSO-E has shown that IEC 61850 standard parts and products are very stable … there is no need to wait for applying IEC 61850.

The First Official IEC 61850 Edition 2 Client Certificate Goes to? - Siemens

Siemens is the first company in the world to receive an IEC 61850 Edition 2 client certificate, issued by DNV GL on behalf of the UCA International User Group (UCA), for their SICAM PAS/PQS system (basically a PC application that acts as a 61850 client).

Click HERE for the news.

There are other vendors underway to get an IEC 61850 Edition 2 client certificate. TÜV SÜD (Munich) has also been accredited for testing conformance of Edition 2 clients.

More to come. Stay tuned.

Siemens Protection IEDs for DC Traction Power Supply with IEC 61850

Sitras PRO (DC protective unit and controller for DC traction power supply) from Siemens offer a set of well known functions and communication solutions:

Features:

• Complete functionality in a single unit
• Protection
• Measurement
• Control
• Automation
• Flexible adaptation to system requirements
• Standard communication interfaces
• High-performance diagnostics, comprehensive event,
  alarm and measured value memory
  

Protocols:

• PROFIBUS DP
• PROFINET IO
• IEC 61850
• SNTP

Click HERE for more information on Siemens Rail Electrification.

In a press release Siemens announced to use these devices with IEC 61850 for the modernization of traction power supplies for rail rapid transit lines in São Paulo:
Click HERE for a press release (2012).

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 TC 57 Reference Architecture For Power Systems Management And Associated Information Exchange

IEC TC 57 just published a new draft for IEC TR 62357-1 Ed. 2 “Power systems management and associated information exchange – Part 1: Reference architecture” (57/1621/DC)

“The new edition provides updates and defines layered Reference Architecture to help direct longer term goals and activities, specifically to ensure compatibility of all new standards developed in TC57 by benefitting from lessons learned during development of the current standards and their application on actual utility projects as well as through application of other internationally recognized architecture standards.

This edition reflects the progress recently achieved from the international Smart Grids (SG) initiatives and the CIGRE D2.24 large system architecture vision. It also leverage the work done by NIST-SGIP, CEN-CELELEC-ETSI SGCG M490, IEC TC8 Smart Grids Roadmap, and IEC TC8 WG5, WG6, The edition also reflects the most recent editions of the TC 57 standards including IEC 61850 Edition 2 and the IEC 61968, 61970, and 62325 Common Information Model (CIM) standards.”

One of the lessons learned is that the three information models (CIM, IEC 61850 and COSEM) need some additional harmonization – a reasonable level has already be reached.

IEC 61850 has a very broad application domain and has defined many useful information models that can (and will) be “tapped” by COSEM and CIM applications.

One example that shows that IEC 61850 can be used even for schedules (de: Fahrpläne):

These schedules can be mapped from COSEM directly to IEC 61840 logical node FSCH. COSEM may be used for flexible tariffs while IEC 61850 could be used for tariffs as well as for control of switchable equipment like circuit breakers or change settings for loads or generation. The schedule LN is applied in the VHPready 4.0 specification.

More to come soon.

IEC 61850 in VHPready 4.0

The Industry Alliance VHPready e.V. publishes version 4.0 of the industry standard VHPready for controlling and interconnecting decentralized energy systems to virtual power plants.

A manufacturer-independent standard, which ensures the interoperability and controllability of system components of virtual power plants, is now available for the first time. 35 member corporations [including NettedAutomation GmbH] are currently actively engaged in the industry alliance to promote the advancement of the international industry standard VHPready. The participation in the open industry alliance “Industrieforum VHPready e.V.” is based on the certainty that only a common standard will allow for a reliable, seamless and economic collaboration of all controllable components as well as their compatibility. The specification VHPready 4.0 is now available to all member corporations.

An extensive data point list constitutes the functional core of VHPready 4.0 and helps integrate different energy systems into virtual power plants using the telecontrol protocols IEC 60870-5-104 or IEC 61850-7-420. In addition to a plant park with a set of different energy systems, this data point list facilitates the integration of combined heat and power units (CHPs), wind and solar plants, heat pumps, batteries, electric heating, boilers and buffer tanks. Data points for meters and external signal contacts are also available.

At the forthcoming VHPready symposium on 12 November 2015 industry alliance members will present the first systems adapted to VHPready 4.0.

Click HERE for the press release.

Click HERE for a Windows Evaluation Version of the VHPready 3.0 Model; with the new icd file specifying the version 4.0 model you can re-use the application. By the way: Most of the Data Objects used in the Evaluation version 3.0 are the same in version 4.0.

The VHPready model and services (IEC 60870-5-104 AND IEC 61850) are also supported by gateways offered by HMS (the company that is one of the very big gateway companies … offering ANYBus ...

IT Staff Needs Education in IEC 61850 and Related Standards

Information Technology (IT) is quite well understood by many (often young) experts. Operations Technology (OT) in the power industry is quite well understood by many (often older) experts with some tens of years experience in the use of hardware, automation and information exchange software.

These days we see the integration of Information Technology into the Operation Technology. The migration happens quite fast … and more and more experienced OP engineers are part of the “aging workforce”. This requires that new staff (IT experts and engineers) in the IT and in the OP world to learn two technologies: “IT”, “OT”, and very crucial: “More IT in OT”.

I found a very nice publication that discusses some of these issues in detail:

Click HERE for the paper “Information Technology (IT) vs Operations Technology (OT): What the C-Suite Needs to Know”

Based on my long-term experience since the early 80s with “More IT in OT” I fully agree with the need of Cross-Department Training and other needs listed in the paper:

“… considerations to improve the IT/OT rift:

• Annual Staff Surveys – to measure cooperation between IT and OT and look at utilization of resources, trust/conflict, clarity of goals and objectives, etc.
• Cross-Department Training – for both technical training but also support values and behaviors expected to foster cooperation and communications
• Cross-Functional Teams – to develop policies, standards, projects, etc. with both IT and OT perspectives
• Reach Over the Wall – encourage the IT and OT teams to reach out to the other technology team and be willing to walk in their shoes. This is also supported by the executive team taking the same actions.”

In some cases of big utilities I see this already happen!

IT and OP people would benefit from our training in IEC 61850 and related standards. Be aware that even a small embedded device could support TCP/IP, higher level protocols like ftp and http(s), IEC 6070-5-104 and IEC 61850, and … it is “IT in OT”.

How do we reach more IT and OT people? Please forward this information to them …

IEC 61850: Five Weeks Left to Register For One Of The Most Crucial Relay and SCADA Training in Karlsruhe (Germany)

Recent courses and discussions with experts reveal that education is THE most crucial activity to securely and reliably apply the Standard Series IEC 61850 in Power Automation Systems.

The training being conducted from 13-16 October 2015 in Karlsruhe (Germany) is just five (5) weeks away. Karlsruhe is a lovely town one hour train trip from Frankfurt International Airport, 30 minutes away from France, 45 minutes to the Black Forest, …

Note that this is much more than introducing IEC 61850 concepts and details – here you learn from two senior protection, automation and communication experts HOW IEC 61850 compliant devices can provide a plus of functionality and reliability. Don’t believe that? Come and see! You will be surprised after the course.

We have several seats available – the course details and registration information can be found HERE.

Click HERE for other courses in English and German.