IEC 60870

In electrical engineering and power system automation, the International Electrotechnical Commission 60870 standards define systems used for telecontrol (supervisory control and data acquisition). Such systems are used for controlling electric power transmission grids and other geographically widespread control systems. By use of standardized protocols, equipment from many different suppliers can be made to interoperate. IEC standard 60870 has six parts, defining general information related to the standard, operating conditions, electrical interfaces, performance requirements, and data transmission protocols. The 60870 standards are developed by IEC Technical Committee 57 (Working Group 03).

List of IEC 60870 parts

IEC 60870-6

A typical national power grid includes a hierarchy of control centres to manage the generation, transmission, and distribution of power throughput the grid:

Prior to the development of electronics and telecommunications networks all co-ordination between control centres was carried out by telephone. However, the development of SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) systems allowed remote control and monitoring of electrical plant from centralised control centres.