TRAINING PROGRAM

FOR PTSS ENGINEERS

SUBSTATION
AUTOMATION WITH
ABB, Peenya
15 June, 2005 IEC 61850
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Rajiv Krishnan
ABB Limited, Bangalore
2005-06-14
 Introduction
The standard IEC 61850 “Communication Networks and Systems in Substations”
will provide interoperability between the electronic devices (IEDs) for protection,
monitoring, metering, control and automation in substations.

Interoperability and free allocation of functions opens up a vast range of possible

solutions, but the consideration of customer requirements and commercially
available equipment will scale down this range to a handful of them.

It is important both for utilities and Substation Automation system providers to

understand this process.
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 The Impact of IEC 61850 on Substation Automation
The basic functionality of Substation Automation is given by its tasks and will not
be changed by IEC 61850. On a first look, the system architecture is also not
changed much. Nevertheless, communication is the backbone of SA and, therefore,
IEC 61850 is the most important key for designing systems.
The inherent features in IEC 61850 like the use of object oriented data model, the
selection of mainstream communication technology, etc., allow the design of
optimized systems, to meet requirements stated in customer specifications, not by
chance but based on standardized rules.
Optimization includes not only functional performance but also economic aspects
like investment, availability, expandability and maintainability, i.e. all life cycle
costs. For specification, design and engineering, the most important feature of IEC
61850 is its support for strong formal description of the substation and its
automation system. If the customer is not providing this formal specification, this
task is left for the system integrator to use its power for SA system design.
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 Customer Specification
The customer specification has to include three areas of requirements:

• the functionality needed: functionality refers mainly to the given single-line

diagram of the substation and the protection and control functions of the
substation automation system.

• the performance requested: performance includes not only the reaction times on
certain events but also figures for reliability and availability.

• all applicable constraints: constraints may include but are not restricted to
• switchgear (process) interfaces
• interface to remote network control centers
• interface to remote maintenance systems
• geographical situation on-site like, distances between components, building
space, shielding and grounding facilities, etc.,
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• existence of prescribed IED types.

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 Customer Specification - Single Line Diagram (1)

Part of a substation single line diagram with equipment designations

The minimal needed automation of this substation part and the intended
operating procedures already contain implicitly a big part of the functional
specification.
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 Customer Specification - Single Line Diagram (2)
The SLD shows all power equipment to be controlled and protected, and defines how
this shall be done from the operator’s point of view.
The topology, i.e., how the power equipment is electrically connected, gives further
information needed for interlocking and synchrocheck functionality. The equipment
designation in the SLD gives further inputs for detail engineering of the SA systems.
The SLD as part of the specification is currently drawn on paper. The XML based
Substation Configuration description Language (SCL) of IEC 61850 offers a formal
way to describe the SLD. Passing the SLD in this form as file reduces
misunderstandings and enables automatic processing of it without new data entry.
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 Customer Specification - Functions (1)
The functionality as given by the SLD has to be further refined. All requested
functionality should be specified without reference to any implementation to allow
optimized solution.
By this approach, the system design can exploit all benefits of the state-of-the-art
technology. Up to now, the most formal and simple way is to add the Device
Function Numbers according to IEEE, if applicable. IEC 61850 offers the concept of
logical nodes (LN) for formally defining functions.
The LN is the smallest part of a function, which communicates with other LNs and
which may be implemented in a separate IED. The LN is an object, which comprises
at least all related mandatory data and attributes and all extensions according to the
rules of IEC 61850. It defines also the standardized access to its data. Therefore,
LNs allow defining functional requirements in a standardized way. The resulting LN
names may be used in the SLD representing the requested functionality.
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 Customer Specification - Functions (2)

XCBR Circuit breaker,

XSWI Isolator or earthing switch,
TCTR Instrument transformer /
transducer for current,
YLTC Power transformer,
CSWI Switch control,
CILO Interlocking,
MMXU Measuring unit,
PTOC Time overcurrent protection,
ATCC Automatic tap changer control,
ITCI Telecontrol interface or gateway,
IHMI Human machine interface.
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Part of a substation single line diagram with function allocation by LN names

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 Customer Specification - Functions (3)
By specifying LN type definitions, the specification will contain all data as
described in the LN signal lists. At this level of design, no allocation of functions to
IEDs is done.
Specifying according to IEC 61850 means that the interconnection of the functions
is also described. To give signals, functions and connections the proper meaning, we
have to know which power equipment and bay within the switchyard refers to what
function or vice-versa. This may be done with help of SCL. The resulting file is
called System Specification Description (SSD) file.
The SSD file does not define specific details of function implementation and
function interaction. These must be described separately with text blocks and
diagrams. The SSD file allows including short text parts or references to files
containing additional information into the objects of the SLD as well as into the LN
definitions.
With these features the degree of understandability is enhanced quite a lot compared
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to current verbal specification, and it supports automated consistency checks of

quotations against specifications.
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 Customer Specification - Performance (1)
Performance comprises a wide range of topics such as response time, safety and
reliability. These requirements guide the allocation of LNs and their related
functions to devices, and strongly influence the structure of the communication
system.

Response time requirements can be subdivided into:

• average response time requirements, which are not process critical,
• absolute worst case requirements, whose deviation might lead to dangerous
process states.

If the performance requirements are safety related or not, depends on the function
using this data. Therefore, they should be specified per function.

For safety it might be sufficient to specify the degree of safety to be met as a safety
probability per function, typically a failure probability of 10-5/h to 10–6/h for
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protection related functions.

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 Customer Specification - Performance (2)
It is up to the system designer to select IEDs, communication configurations and
function implementations to match these response times and failure modes in
addition to the needed availability. This approach is, however, only possible if the
communication system is not already fixed. In this case the communication system
designer has the responsibility for the safety of distributed functions.

Safety and availability are normally specified as probability values, together with
some general rules like “no single failure shall endanger the safety" or "... shall lead
to function loss”, etc. The probability numbers can either be derived by comparison
with conventional systems offering sufficient safety and availability, or by
considering the costs of failures.

The question has to be addressed as to what kind of redundancy results from the
reliability requirements.
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 Customer Specification - Constraints
The constraints include boundary conditions like:
• geographical extension and topology of the substation
• existence of building structures, switchyard kiosks, shielded rooms for station
HMI, etc.
• interfaces to auxiliary power supply system
• interfaces to the switchgear, especially the type of process interface - parallel
wired or serially linked
• interfaces to network control centers
• devices already existing or prescribed by the customer
• main 1 and main 2 protection from different manufacturers
• certain functions to be stand-alone

All these conditions influence the SA system architecture regarding possible IED
selection, their locations and the resulting communication links.
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The performance requirements together with the given constraints define the final
physical architecture.
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 Design Process

Steps of the design process

The general design process from customer specification to final system design is principally
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independent from any standard but some features of IEC 61850 influence and facilitate this
process.
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 Design Process - Alternative 1

1. Start with the functional specification, preferably with an SSD description.

2. Search for IEDs, which support the required functions.
3. Check if the grouping of functions (LNs) on the selected IEDs fulfills the
availability and safety criteria.
4. The boundary conditions and the availability conditions are used to design the
connecting communication architecture in a cost optimal way.
Now the overall system structure is known, and detail design can start. This kind of
approach is mostly used if the types of available IEDs are well known, have
relatively static configuration range, and are not too large.
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 Design Process - Alternative 2

1. Start with the constraints and performance requirements.

2. This determines the minimum number of IEDs needed at the interface
locations, and their main functionality. This design step must also cover the
requirements for functional redundancy (e.g. main 1 and main 2 protection).
3. Based on this and the required functionality the interfacing IEDs and the
functions available on them are determined.
4. If all required functionality are not covered, then further IEDs have to be
added.
5. Finally the connecting communication architecture is designed in a cost
optimal way.
This kind of approach is mostly used if a large number of IED types (possibly from
several manufacturers) are available, or IEDs can be flexibly configured.
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 Design Process - Tools and formal specification

To get maximum benefit from tools, the specification has to be translated into the
SCL based SSD (System Specification Description). The SSD has to be
complemented with more detailed specification where needed. The SSD is an
unambiguous input, which enhances the quality of the specification and allows
functional simulation to see the interaction of LNs and to get a base for
estimation of communication load, performance, completeness, etc. before the
system exists.
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 Design Process - Grouping of LNs to LDs

For both approaches described, we have to decide the geographical allocation of

functions.
If we start with given IEDs, the IEDs have to be allocated to these functions.
During this allocation we have to prove that no constraints are violated and the
reliability and availability goals are met.
If we have a free choice of devices, we may first group functions, i.e. the LNs
belonging together, in Logical Devices (LD). The next step is combining all LDs in
IEDs in such a way that a minimum number of devices results but all constraints
are fulfilled. Finally, we have to find proper devices for implementing this
optimized solution.
The device selection may be an iterative process for both approaches.
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 Design Process - Selection of IEDs (Example)

In case of free selection of IEDs, considering availability requirements, design ends

up mostly with two devices per bay. If there are constraints on allocation of
functionality, the number may be higher. In addition, the selection is influenced by
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the process interface normally given by the switchgear.

Switches are active communication nodes connecting Ethernet links.
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 Design Process - Redundant Protection (Example)
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The process interface with redundant protection

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 Design Process - Formal IED Description
The standard IEC 61850 requires that
• Any conformant IED should provide an SCL based description, i.e. a file
with all its capabilities.
• This IED Configuration Description (ICD) may be supplied on data storage
medium like a CD or may be readable from the device itself.
This standardized file can be read and written by all conformant system
engineering tools. This tool may also contain a database with all ICDs for IEDs,
which are common for the system integrator.
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 Design Process - Detail Engineering
The result of the design process for IEC 61850 based systems can formally be
described in an SCD (System Configuration Description) file, which contains the
logical communication connections between IEDs within subnetworks and routers
between subnetworks.
The detail engineering on system level has to determine the communication
addresses and the detailed data flow between the IEDs in terms of data sets and
signal inputs to clients. This signal-level data flow engineering replaces the
engineering of the conventional wiring.
The inherent semantics of the IEC 61850 data model allows this step to be done
with object based or automated signal engineering. The resulting SCD file
contains individualized IED descriptions for the system under design.
These descriptions have to be downloaded via the IED tools to the IEDs to make
them aware of their place in the system and their connections to other IEDs.
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 Design Process - Communication Topology
Logically, communication according to IEC 61850 takes place between LNs.
However, in any implementation, physical communication takes place between
IEDs.
IEC 61850 is based on Ethernet, and Ethernet allows different physical variants.
Since the standard and Ethernet support both client-server and peer-to-peer
communication, any communication topology connecting all related IEDs fulfils
the functional requirements.
Therefore, the final determination of the communication topology is strongly
influenced by constraints, i.e. by non-functional requirements like performance,
availability and others.
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 Design Process - Final System
The selected IEDs, together with the communication architecture, represent the
final system. Different solutions are possible. Since all solutions have their
functional and non-functional properties and their price tags, a proper trade-off has
to be made.
The high level data and communication engineering is already made during
system design. But, IED engineering like configuration, parameterization, process
interface and human interface engineering must be performed.
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 Design Process - MV System (Example)
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Compact Substation Automation System for a MV substation

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 Design Process - HV System (Example)
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Distributed Substation Automation System for a HV substation

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