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IEC 61850 for Power System Communication

Christoph Brunner, Member, IEEE

Abstract--The international standard IEC 61850 has been published between 2003 and 2005. The first use of the standard was for the communication within a substation automation system. In the mean time, the standard is as well used in other domains like as an example, the control of hydro power plants. It is the strategy of the standardization community, that IEC 61850 will in the future provide the basis for collecting all information in the different field devices of a power system. This paper provides an overview on IEC 61850 concepts, its use in the different areas of the power system and an outlook on future develppments related to IEC 61850. Index Terms--IEC 61850, Substations, Protection, Protocols, Power system communication

IEC 61850 defines the communication services that are used, to exchange the information between the IEDs and towards local HMI and control centre. An extensive set of services is defined, that supports event driven information exchange towards the control centre as well as time critical information exchange between the IEDs themselves. These services are using standard Ethernet technology with MMS (Manufacturing message specification) and TCP/IP. II. THE FEATURES OF IEC 61850 A. The object oriented data model IEC 61850 specifies an object oriented and hierarchical data model. The data model is domain specific and includes the semantic. Logical nodes are the core elements of the data model. They represent either the information content of a function internal to the substation automation system (e.g. PDIS, the logical node for a distance protection function) or they represent the information from the external process equipment (e.g. XCBR, the logical node for the interface to a circuit breaker). Figure 2 shows as an example the logical node XCBR with the major information.
XCBR Data Name Mode EEHealth EEName OpCnt Pos BlkOpn BlkCls ChaMotEna

I. INTRODUCTION

n electrical substations, intelligent electronic devices (IED) are used to control and protect the equipment of the substation including the power line leaving the station. In order to perform its operation, information needs to be exchanged between these IEDs and to local HMIs and to the network control centre. While in the past, that information exchange was mainly based on many cables carrying the binary or analogue information, communication networks are used in modern substations. To standardize that information exchange over communication networks and to achieve interoperability between the IEDs, the standard IEC 61850, "Communication networks and systems in substations" has been developed and published between 2003 and 2005. Figure 1 shows a typical configuration of a substation automation system based on IEC 61850.
HMI, Station controller

Common LN Information

Type INC INS DPL INS DPC SPC SPC SPC

Explanation enable / disable ok / warning / alarm Name plate operation counter Position (control / status) Block opening Block closing Charger motor enabled

Controls values

Status information

CBOpCap INS op. capability (o-c...) POWCap INS point on wave capability MaxOpCap INS maximal op. capability TrCoilFail1 TrCoilFail2 HydrLeak SPS Failure of trip coil 1 SPS Failure of trip coil 2 SPS Leakage of hydraulic

Control Center Router

Extension

Serial communication
Bay Controller Relay X1 Relay X2 Bay Controller Relay X1 Relay X2

Figure 2: Example of a logical node

Serial communication
Intelligent Switchgear CT/VT Intelligent Switchgear CT/VT

Figure 1: Typical architecture of an IEC 61850 based substation automation system including process bus Christoph Brunner is with UTInnovation, (christoph.brunner@utinnovation.com) Zug, Switzerland

Logical nodes consist of data and data attributes that are standardised and that represent the information. The information modelled is however not restricted to process information. It includes as well configuration information, name plate and diagnostic information. Name plate and diagnostic information is available both for the software and hardware of the automation system (IED and logical nodes) as well as for the process equipment. The diagnostic information is summarized in a device status information that indicates the health of the device as a green (ok) yellow (warning) red (alarm) indication.

978-1-4244-1904-3/08/$25.00 2008 IEEE

The data model supports self description. This means that a client can browse a device for available data and that the data can be retrieved including the format specification without knowing the device beforehand. In addition, description attributes with an explanation of the semantic of the data can be presented to an operator. Self description as well allows verifying, if a system is configured as expected. B. The configuration language The Substation Configuration Language (SCL), is an XML based file format that can be used to exchange configuration information between tools. Based on a system specification and the device capability description files, the system configuration tool is used to configure the substation. The result is the substation configuration description file that is then used for the IED configuration tools to create the configuration download. With the configuration information available in a standardized file format, it is possible to use that information as well for applications outside the substation. C. The communication technology IEC 61850 is designed to be future proof. The communication services and models are designed in an abstract form in the so called ACSI Abstract Communication Service Interface. These services will then be mapped on existing communication protocols like MMS and TCP/IP over Ethernet. The current mapping that is used in IEC 61850 is shown in Figure 3. Major part of IEC 61850 communications is based on client / server communication. But IEC 61850 supports as well communication methods that can be used for a fast, real time information exchange between IEDs like protection equipment. With that, wires that are used in today's system to implement protection schemes can be replaced with communication links.
Application
ACSI 61850-7-2
Time critical services

A. Control of a circuit breaker The first example deals with the control of a circuit breaker. The elements of the function are shown in Figure 4. In our example, a bay controller IED accesses the circuit breaker through binary outputs that connect to the open and close coil and through binary inputs that connect to the position indication. The operate command is sent from a local HMI of a station controller to the bay controller using an IEC 61850 station bus. Following an operate request, the bay controller checks for interlocking conditions, before the operation is done by activating the open or close coil.
Operate Open / Close

I 0

Station Controller

Bay Controller

Position
Figure 4: Control of a circuit breaker

The data model according to IEC 61850 for that application is shown in Figure 5. The logical node CSWI is used to operate the breaker from the station controller, the logical node XCBR is used to model the information received from the circuit breaker and the logical node CILO provides the information about the interlocking conditions for opening or closing the circuit breaker.
CSWI.Pos.ctlVal CSWI.Pos.stVal CSWI.Pos.q CSWI.Pos.t
I 0

Client / Server services

Stack IF
MMS ASN.1 ISO Session RFC 1006 TCP IP Priority tagging IEEE 802.1p/802.1Q Ethernet ISO/IEC 8802-3

Station Controller

Bay Controller
CILO.EnaOpn.stVal CILO.EnaCls.stVal

XCBR.Pos.stVal XCBR.Pos.q XCBR.Pos.t

Figure 3: The communication stack

Figure 5: The data model for controlling a circuit breaker

III. THE USE OF IEC 61850 IN A SUBSTATION Based on typical functions of a substation automation system, we will explain how the communication services are applied and how the functions involved will be modeled using IEC 61850 logical nodes and data.

To start an operation, the station controller sends operate commands to the bay controller. The sequence of commands and responses is standardized in IEC 61850-7-2 and is shown in Figure 6. Use of select before operate is one option. Following the operate request on the data object CSWI.Pos.stVal, the bay controller checks fro the interlocking condition (e.g. is CILO.EnaOpn.stVal=TRUE) and if an operation is permitted, activates the output to the open coil of

the circuit breaker. The bay controller then supervises the return information from the circuit breaker. If the operation terminates with success, a command termination (CmdTerm) message will be sent to the station controller.
Client Server (Control Object) Operated Device

A_TCTR.Amp.instMag MMXU.PhV.phsA.cVal.mag MMXU.PhV.phsB.cVal.mag MMXU.PhV.phsC.cVal.mag B_TCTR.Amp.instMag C_TCTR.Amp.instMag

Select (CSWI.Pos.ctlVal=open) Select rsp+ Operate (CSWI.Pos.ctlVal=open) Operate rsp+ Activate output Select

Bay Controller

sampled values
Control model (61850-7-2)
between open

A_TVTR.Vol.instMag B_TVTR.Vol.instMag C_TVTR.Vol.instMag

Figure 7: The data model for measuring current and voltage

Report (CSWI.Pos.stVal=open)

Reporting (61850-7-2)
CmdTerm

Deactivate output

Control model (61850-7-2)

Figure 6: Control services

If the position of the circuit breaker has changed, that information may be transmitted spontaneously to the station controller. For that, the reporting model defined in IEC 61850-7-2 is used. The station controller, acting as a client, configures a report control block in the bay controller, acting as a server. The control block is configured to monitor a set of information defined in a dataset for changes. As soon as one of the information in our example the data CSWI.Pos.stVal changes the value, a message is sent to the client including the new value of the data with time stamp t and quality q. All of the above mentioned communication services are defined in IEC 61850-7-2 as abstract services and are mapped in IEC 61850-8-1 as shown in Figure 3 on services of the Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS) and transmitted using TCP/IP on Ethernet. The report control block is mapped in IEC 61850-8-1 on a MMS named variable. B. Measuring current and voltage In that second example, current and voltages are measured in CTs and VTs, the waveform is transmitted as digital samples over a communication link to an IED that calculates values like e.g. RMS current or active and reactive power. Figure 7 illustrates the example including the data model. Logicl nodes TCTR and TVTR are used to model the single phase current and voltage transformers. The logical node MMXU is used to represent the calculated values in the example the phase voltages are shown. While in the past, the link between the CT / VT and the bay controller was based on analog signals and the A/D conversion was made in the bay controller, IEC 61850 supports the possibility to use a communication channel that transmits directly the digital samples of the waveform from the CT/VT to the bay controller. For that purpose, the abstract service to transmit sampled values is defined in IEC 612850-7-2.

The device that uses the samples needs to be able to correlate samples from different sources to the time. For that purpose, the source of the samples in the example above the CT and VT, are synchronized. The samples are tagged with a reference to the time before they are transmitted over the communication network. The configuration of that service is again done using a dataset that defines the data content and a control block as shown in Figure 8. In that example, an IED is configured to transmit the samples of the current transformers of the three phases using a sample rate of 80 samples per period.

IED
Dataset CurMeas1 A_TCTR.Amp.instMag.i B_TCTR.Amp.instMag.i C_TCTR.Amp.instMag.i
A_TCTR B_TCTR C_TCTR

MSVCB01 DatSet = CurMeas1 MsvID = ChamosonT1V SmpRate = 80

Figure 8: Configuring the sampled value transmission

The transmission of the sampled values is time critical, in particular when it is used for protection. IEC 61850-5 requires a transmission delay of less than 3 milliseconds. In addition, the message needs to be sent to multiple receivers. To achieve that, this service does not rely on the client / server concept and does not use the seven layer stack. The service is using multicast and the mapping as defined in IEC 61850-9-2 directly maps the ASN.1 encoded messages on Ethernet. To guarantee a timely delivery, priority tagging is used in addition. The result, how the message is transmitted over the wire is shown in Figure 9. The example only shows the application

data (no Ethernet headers are shown). It is possible, to combine multiple samples in one frame. In the example, two (noASDU=2) consecutive samples (ASDU1 and ASDU2) are packed in one frame. ASDU1 has the sample count (smpCnt) 21 that is used as a reference for the time correlation.
ASN.1 encoded (ISO/IEC 8824-1 / 8825) savPdu noASDU Seq of ASDU Seq ASDU1 svID smpCnt confRev smpSynch Seq of data TAG Len Val 60 81 80 1 2 A2 76 30 36 80 7 MSVCB01 82 2 21 83 4 2 85 1 2 87 12 [A_TCTR.Amp.instMag] [B_TCTR.Amp.instMag] [C_TCTR.Amp.instMag] 30 36

4 Byte 4 Byte 4 Byte

instantiated to realize the required functionality; e.g. multiple instances of a bay controller IED are required for each bay of the substation arrangement. The information flow needs to be configured. For the information flow from IEDs to the substation controller or the gateway, reports are used; the report control blocks and the associated datasets need to be defined. The same is true for the information flow between the IEDs using GOOSE (Generic object oriented system event) messages. In addition to configure the source of the information flow, optionally it is possible to define the destinations of the information flow as well. The output of the system configuration tool is the substation configuration description or SCD file, which contains the complete configuration information for the substation. This file can be used as input to the IED configuration tool. With the IED configuration tool, additional IED specific information can be added and the configuration download for a specific IED is created. V. USE OUTSIDE THE SUBSTATION Although originally defined for the communication within the substation, the basic concepts of IEC 61850 make it suitable for other applications in the utility automation industry. This has been recognized by the industry, and several new working groups have been created within IEC, that are preparing standards based on IEC 61850 for new application domains. A. Use of IEC 61850 in power generation In three areas of power generation, IEC 61850 concepts are used by defining new domain specific object models (logical nodes). The standard IEC 61850-7-410 Hydroelectric power plants Communication for monitoring and control is used for the control and supervision of a hydro power plant. The standard defines logical nodes for electrical functions; various control functions, essentially related to the excitation of the generator. New logical nodes defined within this group are not specific to hydropower plants; they are more or less general for all types of larger power plants. Further, it defines logical nodes for mechanical functions related to the turbine and associated equipment and it defines logical nodes for hydrological functions. Another standard, IEC 61850-7-420 Communication systems for distributed energy resources (DER), is to be used for information exchange between DER devices and any systems which monitor, control, maintain, audit, and generally operate the DER devices. That standard defines the logical nodes for a DER system in general, as well as for the models of DER equipment like reciprocating engines ("piston engines"), fuel cells, photovoltaic systems or combined heat and power devices. A third standard, the IEC 61400-25 series defines logical nodes for the communication between wind power plant components like wind turbines and related SCADA systems.

Seq ASDU2

Figure 9: The message to transmit sampled values

IV. DESIGN AND ENGINEERING OF A SUBSTATION With IEC 61850-6, the substation configuration language is introduced. That configuration language, intended to exchange configuration information between engineering tools, has a major impact on the design and engineering of a substation automation system. The principle is shown in Figure 10.

System Specification

Substation Configuration Description

Device Capability

Figure 10: The use of the substation configuration language

The SCL is supporting the design, engineering and commissioning of the substation during its whole life cycle. It starts with the formal specification of the substation (single line diagram, functionality in terms of logical nodes) in the system specification description or SSD file. The capability of the IEDs (logical nodes and communication services that can be supported) that will be used to implement the substation automation system is described in the IED capability description or ICD file. The ICD file may as well specify the predefined object model of the IED that is used for the intended functionality of the IED within the system. The SSD and ICD files are used as input for the system configuration tool. With the system configuration tool, the complete design and engineering of the future substation is then made. Multiple IEDs of the same type need to be

B. IEC 61850 for wide area communication As well discussed in the working groups, is the use of IEC 61850 for wide area communication like communication between substations or communication between substation and control centres. A report IEC 61850-90-1 will discuss the different aspects of the use of IEC 61850 for the communication between substations. In that report, the following applications are considered: 1. Protection functions like current differential line protection, distance protection with permissive and blocking schemes, directional and phase comparison protection, transfer tripping, predictive wide area protection and substation integrity protection schemes. 2. Control functions like auto reclosing, interlocking, cross triggering, generator or load shedding, out-of-step detection and topology determination of high voltage networks. From a communication viewpoint, two different architectures are possible. A first approach is called the gateway approach and uses a relative low speed communication channel with specific teleprotection communication equipment. This is an approach used today; the only specific is the use of a IEC 61850 interface for the teleprotection equipment. The second approach is the tunnelling approach shown in Figure 11. This is the use of a high speed communication link with a direct transmission of the IEC 61850 messages from one substation to the other substation.

the transmission line. A fault in zone 2 requires a permissive signal to be received from the other side in order to initiate a trip.
PDIS1 PDIS2 PSCH Permit Permit PSCH PDIS1 PDIS2

PTRC Protection IED

Trip Brk

Trip Brk

PTRC Protection IED

Figure 13: IEC 61850 model using tunneling approach

Figure 13 shows the IEC 61850 model for that application, using the tunnelling approach. The logical nodes PDIS represent the two distance elements for zone 1 and zone 2. The logical node PSCH implements the logic of the teleprotection scheme. An output of that logical node is the permissive signal that is sent to the other side of the transmission line using a GOOSE message. The logical node PTRC implements the local trip logic and creates the trip signal for the local circuit breaker. That logical node uses information from the logical nodes PDIS as well as from PSCH. In Figure 14, the model is shown using the gateway approach. Instead of a direct tunnelling of the GOOSE message, the teleprotection equipment is implementing a image of the remote PSCH logical node. The logical node RTPC is used to model communication related information of the teleprotection communication channel.
RTPC PDIS1 PDIS2 PSCH Permit PSCH Teleprot Equipment PTRC Protection IED Trip Brk Comm Channel PSCH Teleprot Equipment Trip Brk PTRC Protection IED RTPC Permit PSCH PDIS1 PDIS2

Telepr

Telepr

Figure 14: IEC 61850 model using gateway approach

Contr Prot Prot Contr

Figure 11: Tunneling approach

As an example, the permissive underreach teleprotection scheme is discussed. The application is explained in Figure 12.
Zone 2 (Overreach) Zone 1 (Underreach) Zone 2 (Overreach) Zone 1 (Underreach)

Zone 1

Permit Comm Channel

Permit

Zone 1

The use of IEC 61850 for the communication from the substation to the control centre and other system level applications will be discussed in IEC 61850-90-2. In that scope, the harmonization of IEC 61850 with IEC 61968 / 61970 (CIM and related standards) needs to be considered. IEC 61968 / 61970 is a standard series for information exchange between energy management systems, control centre applications, distribution management functions and other system level applications. This is discussed in more details in [3] and [7]. Another topic that needs to be considered with regard to the communication towards the control centre is the optional requirement for a data concentration / data filtering at the interface to the substation. VI. OUTLOOK AND CONCLUSION

Zone 2

&

OR

Trip Brk

Trip Brk

OR

&

Zone 2

Figure 12: Permissive underreach teleprotection

Zone 1 of the distance protection is set to underreach; zone 2 is set to overreach. A fault detected in zone 1 results in an immediate trip and a permissive signal sent to the other side of

It is the vision of the IEC TC57, that in the future, IEC 61850 will be used to collect the information from the different field devices and transmit this information to the control centre and other systems that manage the power

system. As a first step to realise that vision, IEC 61850 is well received by the industry as the communication standard to be used within substations. The use of IEC 61850 in new application domains is also well advanced. The standard for the wind power plants and the standard for hydro power plants have been approved; the standard for the distributed energy resources will be circulated early next year. In addition, the working groups are already preparing a second edition of IEC 61850 that is adding besides clarification many new features that are used for the applications in these new domains. The work, to use IEC 61850 for wide area communication is in progress. Within the technical reports IEC 61850-90-x, the issues are discussed. These issues will later be integrated in future editions of IEC 61850. An important aspect of that work is the harmonization between CIM and IEC 61850. VII. REFERENCES Periodicals:
[1] [2] Christoph Brunner, "IEC 61850 a new standard that will change the industry", Metering International, Issue 3, 2006, page 70 73 Klaus-Peter Brand, Christoph Brunner, Ivan de Mesmaeker, "How to use IEC 61850 in protection and automation", ELECTRA, No 222, October 2005, page 11 - 21

Papers from Conference Proceedings (Published):

[4] Lars Andersson, Christoph Brunner, Fred Engler, "Substation automation based on IEC 61850 with new process-close technologies", IEEE PowerTech 2003, Bologna, Italy Christoph Brunner, "IEC 61850 Communication backbone for the utility automation system of the future", DistribuTECH 2007, San Diego, USA Christoph Brunner, "Using IEC 61850 for communication between substations and from substation to control centre", PowerGrid 2007, Madrid, Spain Christoph Brunner, "IEC 61850 Harmonization with CIM / IEC 61968/61970", DistribuTECH 2008, Tampa, USA

[5]

[6]

[7]

Standards:
[8] IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems in substations, IEC Standard, 14 parts, 2002 2004.

VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Christoph Brunner (M 2001) has graduated as electrical engineer at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in 1983. He is president and chief technology officer of UTInnovation in Switzerland. Before, he worked as a project manager at ABB Switzerland Ltd in the business area Power Technology Products in Zurich / Switzerland where he was responsible for the process close communication architecture of the substation automation system. He is convenor of the working group (WG) 10 of the IEC TC57 and member of WG 17, 18 and 19 of IEC TC57. He is member of IEEE-PES and IEEE-SA. He is active in several working groups of the IEEE-PSRC (Power Engineering Society Relay Committee) and member of the PSRC main committee and the subcommittee H. He is international advisor to the board of the UCA international users group.

Technical Reports:
[3] Harmonization of IEC 61970, 61968, and 61850 Models. EPRI, Palo Alto, CA: 2006. 1012393