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IEC 61850 : Impact on Substation Automation Products and Architectures

L. HOSSENLOPP E. GUIMOND
AREVA T&D SNC-LAVALIN
France Canada

SUMMARY

IEC 61850 is a new communication standard made of approximately 1000 pages and
published in 2004. Several benefits are expected from this standard for the engineering,
operation and maintenance of electrical substations. The aim of this paper is to analyze the
example of one of the initial projects developed accord ing to the IEC 61850-8-1 standard and
have a look on what this is practically changing in term of products and architecture of the
substation automation system. The example is then generalized with the observations made on
other projects in order to outline some general guidelines when using this technology.

KEYWORDS

IEC 61850, Architecture, Distributed-function

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1. Introduction

IEC 61850 is a new communication standard made of approximately 1000 pages and
published in 2004. Several benefits are expected from this standard for the engineering,
operation and maintenance of electrical substations (for instance see [1]). The aim of this
paper is to analyze the example of one of the initial projects developed according to the IEC
61850-8-1 standard and have a look on what this is practically changing in term of products
and architecture of the substation automation system. The example is then generalized with
the observations made on other projects in order to outline some general guidelines when
using this technology.

2. Example description

The project in example consisted in a new 400kV GIS substation connected to a combined
cycle power plant on one side and to the Algerian transmission grid on the other side.

2.1. Requirements

The specification asked for a fully digital Substation Automation System highly available.
The use of distributed protection and control system was thus required, with an IEC 61850-8-
1 communication backbone interconnecting the different bay panels.

The figure 1 represents the electrical single line diagram of the installation (4 generators and 2
feeders). In addition to the base protection and control functions the need was to have some
advanced monitoring of the GIS, distributed interlocking, remote retrieval of disturbance
records, remote setting of IEDs, network synchronization of all IEDs within ± 1ms, multiple
operator interfaces with full redundancy, meter interface, etc.

Some of the constraints and challenges included:

- Use and integrate qualified protection relays.
- Link with the Power Plant control system by a fully redundant IEC 60870-5-104 link.
- Engineer the project within 6 months from order to Factory Acceptance Tests, this was
completed in January/February 2005.

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 Figure 1: Single line diagram screen hard copy

2.2. Products

The system is made of IEDs from five different suppliers with different communication
capabilities. The requirement for qualified protection and metering IEDs has lead to the use of
legacy communication protocols for some of the products since they were not available on
IEC 61850 when the project started. The table 1 shows the various communications involved.
The bay computer is acting as a proxy enabling to “view” the slave IEDs as if being part of
the IEC 61850 network.

Product Protocol & Product role

Bay computer IEC 61850 in server, publisher and subscriber
roles, IEC 60870-5-103 and MODBUS in a
master role
Protection relays IEC 60870-5-103 or MODBUS in a slave role
GIS condition monitoring MODBUS in a slave role
Meters MODBUS in a slave role
Graphical User Interface IEC 61850 in a client role
Engineering Station with GUI IEC 61850 in a client role
Gateway to Power Station IEC 61850 in a client role, IEC 60870-5-104 in
a slave role
Gateway to National Dispatch IEC 61850 in a client role, IEC 60870-5-101 in
Center a slave role

Table 1: Key products involved and their communication protocols.

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 2.3. Physical architecture

Graphical User Interface Gateway (redundant)

(x3)
Engineering Station Redundant Optical ETHERNET
with GUI (x3) 1 ms switch-over

GPS/IRIG-B
Bay Computer Bay Computer
Etc
Relays . Relays

MODBUS
IEC 60870-5-103
Meter Meter

Figure 2: System physical architecture

The physical architecture (see figure 2) consists in an optical Ethernet loop interconnecting
the various bay panels, Graphical User Interfaces (GUI) , Gateways to the Power Station
control system and Remote Dispatch Centre and Engineering stations. Each bay is made of a
bay computer connected on the IEC61850 loop and to the IEDs by standard and legacy
communication protocols (IEC 60870-5-103, MODBUS).

The absence of common modes between bays insure that a single failure will not prevent the
control of more than one bay. The split between the GUI, gateway and bay computer front
face LCD insures a very high availability of the control function.

Hot redundancy applies on:

- The Ethernet loop. Reconfiguration time is insured within less than 1 ms if the loop is
broken at any point.
- Time synchronization with a GPS connected to two different bay computers.
- Gateway. Each gateway uses independent Ethernet cards for IEC61850 and IEC 60870-5-
104 networks with distinct IP addresses ensuring complete isolation of the two networks. .
- Graphical user Interface. This consists in a redundant server in charge of managing a real
time database and archives, and 3 clients able to display consistent screens.

2.4. Logical architecture

The logical architecture describes the communication flows between the various devices. It
differs from the physical architecture since the Ethernet backbone might contains several
flows in parallel to achieve the necessary features and performance.

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 GUI GUI
Client Client
Gateway T104/T101
5
Main
IEC 61850 Client
GUI Server Main GUI Server Back-up 2 Gateway T104/T101 Back-up
IEC 61850 Client IEC 61850 Client IEC 61850 Client
6

1
Engineering
station Bay Bay Bay
7
computer computer computer

Legacy 3
IED
4
Legacy
IED

Figure 3: : System logical architecture

The various data flows are illustrated on figure 3 and more specifically:

1. The GUI (Graphical User Interface) has a client-server relationship (IEC 61850) with
each bay computer. It is retrieving the process values and sending controls.
2. The Gateway is a client (IEC 61850) of each bay computer. The client is retrieving the
process values and sending controls.
3. Each bay computer has peer-to-peer communication (IEC 61850) with the other bay
computers, both as data subscriber (from the other) and data provider (to the others),
one of the applications being the distributed interlocking. Two bay computers also acts
as redundant SNTP servers for time synchronization among the system.
4. The bay computer has a master-slave relation (MODBUS, IEC 60870-5-103) with
each IED and acts as a proxy for their data.
5. The GUI is itself organized as a client-server (based on OPC protocol) in order to
avoid loading each server when new visualization screen are added.
6. There is a specific mechanism to manage the hot redundancy of the GUI.
7. One of the engineering stations is a client (IEC 61850) retrieving the disturbance
records and downloading the IEC 61850 devices databases (the database range from
the Input-Output wiring to the GUI pictures and include all automation and
communication parameters). A second client (TCP/IP) is managing the setting of the
IEDs encapsulating over a TCP socket the setting messages traditionally send over an
RS232 link.

2.5. Distributed functions

The logical architecture supports a series of distributed functions, i.e. functions executed
through the cooperation of several devices exchanging messages over the IEC 61850
backbone. Such functions are not standard since the IEC 61850 is excluding the formal
description of functions.

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So me functions are relatively trivial, for instance the retrieval of binary events between a
server and the GUI that will directly use a single communication service of the standard (the
report function). Some are more complex since involving a sequence of interactions between
different devices.

A typical example is the capability to insure that no more than one switchgear control will be
executed simultaneously. This is essential in order to guarantee the security of the substation
operation and might occurs due to the multiple control points. Such function is generally
associated with the pure interlock function checking the respect of electrical rules only.

The algorithm used to achieve the function is illustrated on figure 4: upon the reception of a
“selection” message, the device that will normally later execute the control (upon reception of
the “execute” message) will check that no other device has been selected too. It will send a
GOOSE message (to all other devices) asking to lock their controls for a while and set up a
timer. If at the end of the timer it has not received a GOOSE message from another device
asking to lock its controls then the uniqueness of control is insured: the device have received
the selection request can proceed to the selection acknowledgement and wait for the execution
message. If a GOOSE has been received then there is an attempt for two simultaneous
controls and they will both be discarded.

Selection
Selection confirmed
received Timer

Lock Time
GOOSE
published

Figure 4: Insuring control uniqueness

3. Generalization

This section discusses the generalization of the various topics covered in the example based
on the observations made on other projects.

3.1. Products

3.1.1. IEC 61850 implementation

Products possibly used in an IEC 61850 projects, whether IED or GUI, fall in one of the three
following categories: IEC 61850 is natively built, IEC 61850 is provided through an
additional protocol converter (whether a board for IED or a gateway for GUI), IEC 61850 is
not provided. When IEC 61850 is natively built cost and reliability are optimized (less
hardware and software) and engineering is simplified (less addresses conversion). This is
valid for recent devices that have been designed with the Ethernet communication in mind in
order to provide the correct computing communication power. This corresponds to a yet
limited proportion of the products but is likely to become the state of the art. The use of proxy

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devices in order to interconnect non IEC 61850 devices is also expected to remain a long term
requirement.

A more delicate question concerns the management of the link redundancy. This is not
defined by the standard and several solutions are currently proposed. The reconfiguration
performance in case of a failure of the main link is the key issue: few solutions enable to stay
compatible with the “4 ms” transfer time (traditional reference when assessing performance
for substation communications) between IEDs. For instance the fast spanning tree is an
algorithm defined by the IEEE 803.2w standard to reach real time performance, however its
current implementation does not respect this constraint with a typical architecture made of a
ring with 20 different switches.

3.1.2. Other protocols

While IEC 61850 is an extremely powerful communication standard it is still (and will
remain) complemented by other protocols sharing the Ethernet link. For instance performing
the detailed setting of a device is likely to use a TCP/IP socket to transparently transport what
used to be mapped on an RS232/485 link coming out of the IED engineering tool. The issue
here is not only the re-use of an existing tool but:
- The amount of private setting data for a given manufacturer. This is not a blocking point
since the standard permits extensions but this is a non trivial job to do for a potential
limited benefit.
- The strength of an engineering tool is to facilitate the interactive setting of a device for
instance by masking non relevant parameters depending on the context. The IEC 61850
does not model the data needed for such operation and there is no plan today to do it.
Worth mentioning is the work made by an IEEE group but solely to define a setting file
format to be transferred to the device.

There are other examples of parallel protocols that will stay: use of the web technology for
remote maintenance, use of a basic protocol for the software downloading (including the IEC
61850 protocol stack itself), etc. Figure 5 is an illustration of the use of a single Ethernet cable
carrying multiple protocols.

100 Mbps/s
IEC 61850 Ethernet

Independent Engineering

Encapsulated Protocols

Web-services, email

Figure 5: One physical cable, mu ltiple protocols

3.1.3. Features

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Features of an IEC 61850 device are the ones normally existing for the device without
communication plus the features linked to the communication capabilities. Some items to be
assessed when selecting a device include:
- Number of simultaneous client-server (resp. publisher-subscriber) relations accepted and
associated performances, in order to be able to build a solid logical architecture.
- Capability to handle efficiently quality bits. A circuit breaker position for instance shall no
longer be only interpreted as open or close but as possibly invalid or in test and this must
be managed at application level when creating some automation logic on the reception of
a GOOSE message.
- Distributed automation configuration capability in term of type of data (binary/analogue),
number of data and data flow (GOOSE, client-server) managed.

3.2. System engineering

3.2.1. Distributed automation

Distributed automation is one of the key expectation of the standard in order to suppress
wiring. The nominal requ irement is generally easily defined (for instance no more than one
control at a time, see section 2 example) but the degraded cases and the exact algorithm
implementation require more engineering.

The IEC 61850 does not standardize the functions in order to foster innovation, and
distributed automation must be engineered on a per project basis. It is likely that some of the
most common schemes (single control at a time, automatic recloser coordination, etc.) will
become a de facto companion standard in order so save engineering cost: this could become a
CIGRE working group agenda.

3.2.2. Logical architecture

A system will usually be more than the plug of a series of boxes on a same network. As
discussed in the former sections the multiplication of the protocols on the same wire (IEC
61850 is only one of them) and the distributed automation challenge (from the degraded case
specification to the IED implementation capabilities) are two examples of what is really
changing compared to the former generation of systems.

The logical architecture is no longer a copy of the physical architecture but a true system
design stage aiming at:
- Defining the a priori dataflow between devices able to cope with the distributed
automation.
- Refining these dataflow and possibly the degraded cases in order to map them onto real
devices capabilities and communication infrastructure.
- Finalizing them to insure the expected system performances (real time response,
redundancy management). This might involve some clustering such as multicastaddresses
definition, VLAN use, decoupling of multiple voltage levels, etc.
- Making sure that testing the proposed scheme is (easily) feasible.
- Defining or insuring security guidelines.
- Eventually defining the devices able to cope with the various constraints and/or checking
a priori that they will be inter-operable and/or defining the migration path for non IEC
61850 devices.
- Reusing proven schemes in order to minimize the costs when applicable.

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 Figure 6: The system architect

This new mission is typically the job of a system architect, see [1].

4. Conclusion

IEC 61850 is a very exciting technology possibly driving a lot of innovations. One needs to
pay attention that this is still a young one (thus theory and reality might differ) and more
importantly that this is only a base for the definition of a system. It will naturally reinforce the
need for a robust system design (architect mission) and the use of more advanced engineering
tools (configuration, simulation).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

[1] IEC 61850: From Paper to Business, Praxis Summer 05, L. Hossenlopp, A. Apostolov
.