2017 2nd International Conference on Computer, Network Security and Communication Engineering (CNSCE 2017)

ISBN: 978-1-60595-439-4

Development of IEC 61850 and Its Application

Yong ZHANG1, Ying ZHANG2, Xiao-lin MU2, Xian-hui LEI2, Feng LI2,
Jia ZHOU2, Li XU2, Yun-xing GAO2 and Xiang-zhi LIU3,*
1
State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company, Jinan 250001, China
2
State Grid Shandong Electric Power Company, Taian Power Supply Company,
Taian 271000, China
3
Shandong Computer Science Center (National Supercomputer Center in Jinan), Shandong
Provincial Key Laboratory of Computer Networks, Jinan 250014, China
*Corresponding author

Keywords: IEC 61850, Smart grids, Substation system, Application prospect.

Abstract. IEC 61850 is a standard protocol for communications within the substation system. In
order to realize a functional complement and satisfy the expansion of its application in smart grids,
modifications of its first edition are presented as the second edition of IEC 61850 of which the
application area has been extended outwards substations, and all respects of power utility
automation are covered. IEC 61850 has gradually served as a significant basic standard in the
construction of smart grid and evolved into a huge technology system. This paper firstly analyzes
the modified technical features of IEC 61850 Ed 2.0. And then the research and development of its
application are also provided to gain an all-round understanding of the up-to-date utilization of this
standard. Finally, the prospects of its application in smart grid are given.

Introduction
Smart grid is a kind of power system which incorporates the state of the art in communication
and information technology in order to achieve enhanced operational monitoring, control,
intelligence, and connectivity. International standard IEC 61850, which is first presented by
Working Group 10 (WG10) of Technical Commission 57 in 2004, represents one the of the smart
grid automation pillars by introducing standardized communication principles and semantic
description of controlled systems. As a result, IEC 61850 can effectively promote the
interoperability between different Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) from various vendors in the
substation automation of smart grid. With its outstanding performance in interoperability, openness
and expandability, IEC 61850 has gradually become a significant component in smart grid
communication system.
The first edition of IEC 61850 is a complex set consists of 14 different components which
provide detailed specifications, such as terms, device models and abstract communication service
interfaces, for communication networks and systems in substations. However, specific regulations
of the communication mode among different substations as well as that between substation and
control center are not illuminated clearly. In order to further elucidate technical standards and
broaden the application domains, since 2007, WG10 released the second edition of IEC 61850,
namely IEC 61850 Ed2. The revised IEC 61850 supplemented the information modeling and
communication mapping mechanism in clean energy and other fields as well as related peripheral
specifications [1]. In this edition, its application area has been extended outwards substations, and
all respects of power utility automation are covered, promoting the application development based
on IEC 61850 in the research and construction of smart grids.
The paper is organized as follows. Section II presents the system architecture of IEC 61850 Ed2
and its significant optimization compared with the former edition. Section III summarizes the latest
progress in its research and application in terms of different domains. Section IV discusses the
development prospect of IEC 61850 and its application to gain an all-round understanding of it.

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Structure of IEC 61850
IEC 61850 provides standardized work-frame for integration of the specific communication
requirements for substations, functional characteristic, structure of the data packages in the devices,
unifying the names of data packages, how applications interact with and control the devices, and
conduct standardized tests [1]. It is structured in 10 parts, and their relation is illustrated in Figure.
1.

Figure 1. Standardized IEC 61850 structure.

In standardized IEC 61850 structure, some files provide common resolution for various domains,
for example, IEC 61850-3 clarifies the general requirements and IEC 61850-7-3 regulates the
common data classes of the communication networks and systems in substations.
Compared with the first edition, in IEC 61850 Ed2, seven other standards and technical
regulations applied to specific domains are supplemented to broaden its application area: (a) 7-410,
hydraulic power plant monitoring and communication control; (b) 7-420, communication system in
distributed energy sources; (c) 7-500, application guiding of logical nodes in substation automation
systems; (d) application guiding of logical nodes in hydraulic power plant; (e) 80-1, information
exchange in IEC 60870-5-101/104 based on public data classes models; (f) 90-1, communication
among substations based on IEC 61850; (g) 90-2, communication between substation and control
center based on IEC 61850 [2].
Development of IEC 61850 Based Application
IEC 61850 was initially designed for substation automation system. For the diverse needs of
different components in smart grid, this standard is gradually complemented and extended in recent
years. Its application domain has expanded to other parts of smart grid, such as power generation,
distribution and utilization, transmission and transformation, dynamic schedule controlling and
information safety in electrical power system.
Substation Automation System. Both editions of IEC 61850 provide the technical regulations
for substation automation system, such as the communication service, service configuration and
consistency testing. For example, in order to satisfy the IEC 62439 standard in high availability
industrial control network, IEC 61850 recommended feasible proposals, including analysis of
networks and substation topology, network delay, IP address programming, etc.
In order to overcome the deficiency of the mapping problem between models in IEC 61850 and
the common manufacturing message specification, a new mapping mechanism of IEC 61850 data
distribution service for smart substation system was proposed [3]. In this research, a novel data
distribution service and fully publish/subscribe based methodology were used to implement the
abstract communication service interface of the IEC 61850, and a real-time communication
simulation system for smart substation was also set up to test real-time performance and reliability
of the proposed method. In these ways, the real project procedure of IEC 61850 in substation
automation system was realized.
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 Power Generation. IEC TC57 WG10 and IEC TC57 WG18 jointly make the international
standard IEC 61850-7-410, which is specified for the hydraulic power plant monitoring. To further
satisfy the distributed energy sources management, IEC 61859-7-420 provides extra logical nodes
to broaden its application such as monitoring and networking for battery, cell controller and power
generating system.
In [4], a new islanding detection technique which relies on the electrical grid communication
system network upon the IEC 61850-7-420 was proposed. The distributed main management
service (DMMS) with the internal islanding detection function is designed, modeled and used to
gather the available information from the microgrid units, update its internal operation that related
to the dynamic behavior of the electrical grid and makes the decisions to detect and prevent the
islanding scenarios. As a result, a high speed communication network for the various manufacturers’
electrical units is acquired.
Power Distribution and Utilization. Different from substation automation system, power
distribution systems are more complex and diverse, of which the communication topological
structure and processing capacity have significant difference. IEC 61850-8-2 supplies the mapping
between Abstract Communication Service Interface (ACSI) and underlying communication
protocols. This mapping mechanism can be easily fulfilled with less resource consumption and
processing load.
With the technical development of electric vehicles and battery energy storage, IEC 61850-90-8
and IEC 61850-90-9 are under drafting to provide regulations for IEC 61850 based application [5].
These complementary and modified documents will further promote the IEC 61850 based
application in power distribution and utilization domain.
Power Transmission and Transformation. IEC 61850-90-3 further broaden the logical nodes
defined in IEC 61850-7-4 Ed2 and regulates the state monitoring and application analysis for
substation primary equipment in power transmission and transformation system. In this technical
documentation, CMD projects for substation primary equipment are analyzed and data modeling
schemes in IEC 61850 are also provided.
In [6], a condition monitoring system for power transmission and transformation Equipment is
designed and described in detail. The system is divided into three levels, namely master layer,
monitoring layer and sensing layer. The functional design of each layer is illustrated and system
flow as well as the feasibility of communication networks is assessed.
Dynamic Schedule Controlling. The application software in dynamic scheduling controlling
system is based on the common information models (CIM) defined by IEC 61970, which makes
regulations in power grid applications. Owing to the architectural difference between CIM and the
models in IEC 61850, the seamless communication is hard to achieve between schedule controlling
system and substations. Nevertheless, IEC 61850-90-2, the technical report drafted by WG10,
provides effective guidance in terms of architecture, service and redundancy in the communication
between schedule controlling system and substations. IEC 61850-90-5 provides a compatible way
to transmit content and communication task which have a compliance with IEEE C37.118 intended
for wide area measurement application.
In [7], an application between smart substations and provincial smart grid schedule controlling
center was implemented, which is based on the IEC 61850/Microsoft Media Server (MMS) protocol.
In this application, the panoramic data visualization modeling and graphics rendering technology
were used to fulfill the automatic modeling between master station and substations. In addition,
based on the mapping technology between SCD and CIM/E, the integrative modeling of models and
graphics between substations and schedule controlling center was also achieved.
Information Safety. In consideration of the communication safety, based on the basic structure
of IEC 61850, IEC 62351 regulates the information safety standards in power systems. All
measures in IEC 62351, such as identification and encryption, have been adopted by IEC TC57
WG10. In further research, the CILO interlocking communication module is given [8]. The safety
expansion for the communication GOOSE message and security GOOSE message is designed
based on IEC 62351-6, which not only meets the demands of real-time communication, but also

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have a high safety degree. In [9], the safety requirement for the communication network is analyzed.
By comparing them with the services of the communication protocol IEC 61850, a conclusion is
made that IEC 61850 can be used for implementing safety-related functions, even if a formal safety
certification mechanism is still missing. Both the IEC 61850 communication protocol itself and
configuration software in IEDs should be certified.

Development Prospect of IEC 61850

The publication and wide utilization of IEC 61850 standards has extremely promoted the
construction of digitized substation in the world. In IEC 61850 Ed2, power quality management is
regulated to provide effective information modelling for the steady, dynamic and transient data of
grid state respectively, which means that multifunctional IEDs will have a wide application prospect
in substations. To satisfy the growing needs for smart grids, the IEC 61850-based digitized
substation will become more highly integrated, informational and intelligent.
As an international standard in automatic control on electrical power system, IEC 61850 has
developed full-fledged mechanism for abstract information models and specific communication
service mapping in the area of monitoring communication among substation and new resources
system. These information models can serve as an important information source for information
sharing and intelligent operation. These protocol stacks defined in IEC 61850 can also satisfy the
communication needs in the further development of smart grids.
IEC 61850 also has great potential in the establishment of seamless communication between
power enterprises. IEC 61850 Ed2 and related standards have covered all parts of power application,
including power generation, power distribution and utilization, power transformation and dynamic
schedule controlling. With its further optimization, IEC 61850 and its derived standards will serve
as an indispensable part in public power utilities.

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