Paper accepted for presentation at the 2011 IEEE Trondheim PowerTech

Integration of Distributed Energy Resources in

the Grid by Applying International Standards to
the Inverter as a Multifunctional Grid Interface
S. Jaloudi, Student Member, IEEE, E. Ortjohann, A. Schmelter, W. Sinsukthavorn, Student Member,
IEEE, P. Wirasanti, Student Member, IEEE, N. Alamin, D. Morton

done by the inverter, which is the interfacing unit that provides

Abstract—Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) are rapidly decoupling between frequency and voltages across the
penetrating in power systems including their accompanying terminals of the ECS from one side and the voltage and
software and hardware (SW/HW) systems that are also frequency from the grid side; using grid forming, grid
distributed and related to different manufacturers and owners.
supporting, and grid parallel topologies [2]. This interface unit
Information integration and interoperability are two problems in
distributed systems. This paper presents a comparison between can act as a multifunctional device, including ac to dc
the available integration middleware and standards for inter- conversion, primary control, intelligent electronic device
application interoperability of distributed SW/HW systems (IED) functionality based on IEC 61850 for physical control
accompanying DERs such as Common Object Request Broker and offer billing functionality to count for injected power into
Architecture (CORBA), Web Services, multiagent systems the Smart Grid. The last two functionalities can be achieved
(MASs), and recently IEC 61850. In addition, the paper shows
via IEC and IEEE standards in order to introduce a
the possibility of mapping the information objects of IEC 61850
to the data objects of legacy SCADA protocols for physical multifunctional grid interface device, for future Smart Grids.
control and integration of DERs interfaces, namely inverters, into This insures standardized interoperability, physical control and
the future Smart Grid over IP-based networks, to achieve inter- business-related functionalities.
device and device-to-application interoperability. Moreover, On the other hand, future power systems can be considered
billing functionality can be added to the inverter to count for as distributed systems because they could contain multiple
injected power into the Smart Grid, and hence the inverter has
operating systems and diverse communication networks. In
business-related functions.
addition, ECSs based on RESs are penetrating in power
Index Terms--Distributed power generation, IEC standards, systems including their associated software and hardware
IEEE standards, multiagent systems, power systems, SCADA (SW/HW) systems. These systems are geographically
systems, Smart Grids, web services. dispersed, and related to different manufacturers and owners.
System integration is a serious problem in such distributed
I. INTRODUCTION systems, which mainly covers interoperability between

C onventional power systems include centralized power interconnected systems and communication protocols. While
plants, the power mainly flows in one direction, and the power utility device-to-device interoperability is recently
active control takes place only in the high voltage levels. In proposed via IEC 61850, application-to-application
contrast, smart power systems include centralized power interoperability can be achieved via middleware architecture
plants, distributed energy resources (DERs) as well as such as Distributed Object Computing (DOC) middleware,
renewable energy sources (RESs) in all voltage levels, and Component Object Middleware (COM), and Message
characterized by actively controlled bidirectional power flow Oriented Middleware (MOM). On the other hand, IEEE has
[1]. The energy converting system (ECS) of the RES converts adopted the Distributed Network Protocol version 3 (DNP3)
the energy from one form to dc current, which must be as a communication protocol for future Smart Grids under the
converted into ac in order to be fed to the grid. This can be name IEEE P1815™ [3]. Traditionally, DNP3 and IEC 60870-
5-104 are considered as legacy SCADA protocols that offer
communication between remote terminal units (RTUs), as
This research work is supported by the German “Federal Ministry of field devices, and the SCADA system as control center
Education and Research” and administrated by “Arbeitsgemeinschaft
industrieller Forschungsvereinigungen "Otto von Guericke" e.V. (AiF)”. application. The National Institute for Standards and
S. Jaloudi, W. Sinsukthavorn, P. Wirasanti, and N. Alamin are pursuing Technologies (NIST) has recently launched a project for
their PhD degrees at South Westphalia University of Applied Sciences mapping the information objects of IEC 61850 to the data
through the joint program with the University of Bolton (UK), Soest,
Luebecker Ring 2, 59494 Germany (e-mail: [email protected]).
objects of DNP3 [4], which will offer the device-to-
E. Ortjohann is a professor at South Westphalia University and head of application interoperability.
Power Systems and Power Economics department, Soest, Luebecker Ring 2, Therefore, application-to-application interoperability is
59494 Germany (e-mail: [email protected]).
D. Morton is a research professor in the School of Business and Creative
discussed in section II, entitled information integration in the
Technologies at the University of Bolton, Deane Road, Bolton, BL3 5AB, Smart Grid as a distributed system. Standard communication
UK.

978-1-4244-8417-1/11/$26.00 ©2011
 2

protocols for conventional and future power systems are B. Structured Communication
discussed in section III. Device-to-device interoperability and Remote procedure calls (RPC) is an example of this type of
application-to-device interoperability depending on IEC and technology. The Sun RPC and distributed computing
IEEE standards are discussed in section IV, which is entitled environment (DCE) are tow examples of the RPC technology.
comparison between international standards and middleware RPC-based technique allows procedures in one application to
for interoperability and control of DERs. Section V introduces call procedures in remote applications as if they were local
a general strategy for the inverter as a multifunctional grid calls. Structured communication offers higher-level
interface device by applying specific IEEE and IEC standards communication than the ad hoc programming. However,
to it. Finally section VI concludes the whole paper. disadvantages of ad hoc networks were not fully overcome.
Moreover, tightly coupled components in the network, is a
II. INFORMATION INTEGRATION IN THE SMART GRID AS A serious problem in this technology.
DISTRIBUTED SYSTEM
C. Middleware Architecture
A new trend in power systems is developing toward
distributed generation (DG), which means that energy It is the bridge infrastructure software that interconnects
conversion systems (ECS) are suited close to energy distributed applications and components to ensure
consumers and large units are substituted by smaller ones [5]. interoperability. It resides between the application layer and
In general, DG is geographically distributed across the grid the underlying operating system, network infrastructure, or
and their accompanying information and communication database. The main goal of a middleware is to enable
technology (ICT) systems are distributed as well among distributed heterogeneous SW/HW systems to
different stakeholders. Hence, the Smart Grid is a distributed intercommunicate and interoperate via integration
system that could be a collection of heterogeneous architecture. Distributed Object Computing (DOC)
components and unrelated software systems communicating Middleware, Component Object Middleware (COM) and
over different networks through an intelligent integration Message Oriented Middleware (MOM) are all examples of
middleware, which enables these components, systems and this middleware.
devices to share the resources of the power system and to The DOC technologies are based on Object-Oriented
organize their activities, so that the interconnected systems techniques (Object-Oriented Middleware: OOM), and
look like a single integrated grid. This gives Smart Grids some consider each entity in the distributed system as an object with
characteristics related to distributed systems such as: no distinction between clients and servers. Moreover each
1) Future Smart Grid has multiple points of control, object provides services to other objects and receives services
2) Different systems will be able to interoperate through from other objects through a communication middleware
well-defined interfaces that mandates the Smart Grid called an object request broker (ORB) [8]. CORBA 2.x and
to be an open system, remote method invocation (RMI) are examples of DOC
3) Components, objects and resources of Smart Grids technology. CORBA also defines communication protocols
may not be shared or accessible by all stakeholders, and object information models to enable interoperability
4) Smart Grid will be scalable; size scalability (number between heterogeneous applications [9]. DOC technologies
of users/applications), geographical scalability focus on interfaces, and the object models treat these
(distance between nodes), and administrative interfaces as client/server and tightly couple the
scalability (number of administrative domains). intercommunicating objects [10]. This means that
In general, three technologies are developed to support programmers must explicitly program the connections among
distributed systems [6]: Ad hoc network programming, the objects, which limits the flexibility of CORBA-based
structured communication and middleware architecture. applications.
COM middleware tried to overcome the limitations of the
A. Ad hoc network programming DOC middleware by creating a virtual boundary around
Inter-process communications (IPC) is an example of this application components, with well-defined interfaces,
technology that includes pipes, shared-memory and sockets composing and executing components in generic application
programming. It enables components from different address servers [10]. It encapsulates services to provide reusable
spaces (clusters) to intercommunicate. Clustering is the building blocks, and looks at each implementation entity as a
process of partitioning a network into subnets of nodes, and it component and defines a set of connection points and
is a way of making ad hoc networks more scalable [7]. Using interfaces to synchronously intercommunicate with other
e.g. sockets, directly within application code, tightly couples components. Some component models also support
this code to the socket API. Adding new application to the asynchronous message passing. These components represent
system becomes costly, and needs manual effort. On the other clients, whereas a container represents the server. To associate
hand, programming directly to an IPC can cause a paradigm clients with their servers, connection points are joined with
mismatch, e.g., one side uses method invocations while the named interfaces provided by other components [6].
other uses message passing. Microsoft’s COM and DCOM that are deprecated in the .NET,
Enterprise Java Beans (EJB), Java 2 Enterprise Edition (J2EE)
and CORBA 3.x Component Middleware (CCM) are all
 3

examples of this type of middleware. In fact, CCM is a III. STANDARD COMMUNICATION PROTOCOLS FOR
technical improvement on EJB, and joins the best of .NET and CONVENTIONAL AND FUTURE POWER SYSTEMS
J2EE component models. The .NET is multi-language, single- More and more power-related applications utilize
platform, while J2EE is single-language and multi-platform. information and communication technologies (ICTs) and
Apache ActiveMQ and Java Messaging Server (JMS) standard protocols for information exchange that intelligently
provide loosely coupled exchange of messages and represent integrates the SW/HW components of new DERs into the
MOM products. Simple Mail Transfer Protocol (SMTP) can existing conventional power systems. This comes by the
be used to offer the functionality of this middleware as a application of standard communication protocols between
firewall-friendly standard. Nevertheless, it needs more different stakeholders of the power system. Some of these
programming efforts. More details can be found in section IV. protocols are already in use. The most popular are the legacy
On the other hand, two communication mechanisms exist, SCADA protocols, such as the IEC 60870-5-104 (T104) and
the request/response and the asynchronous messaging, which the distributed network protocol version 3 (DNP3). New
includes publish/subscribe topic messaging and point-to-point standards are emerging such as the IEC 61400-25 for wind
message queuing. COM and DOC Middleware are examples power plants, the IEC 62056 for telemeter, and the IEC 61850
of the request/response pattern, whereas, MOM is an example for communication and data modelling in substations, DERs
of the asynchronous messaging pattern. The request/response and hydroelectric power plants. These standards are explained
pattern introduces synchronous communication between client in the following subsections.
and server. The main characteristics of this pattern are point-
to-point communication, which means that the client A. IEC 60870-5-104
communicate with only one server at a time, and clients are The IEC 60870 standard defines communication protocols
tightly coupled to servers, which means that the client must between control center (CC) and substation. Part 5 consists of
know the identity or the address of the server, (i.e. designated 6 sections, under the general title “Telecontrol equipment and
communication). The Publish/Subscribe and message queuing systems – Part 5: Transmission protocols” [11]. Part 5-104
mechanisms introduce asynchronous communication, where represents a legacy SCADA protocol and widely used for
senders transmit data to receivers without blocking to wait for telecontrol between the control center and RTUs in Europe.
a response. Furthermore, it supports group communication, This protocol can be used over Internet WAN because it was
where multiple subscribers can receive events sent by one built according to the IEEE model, and hence web-based
publisher. Moreover, Publishers are loosely coupled to SCADA systems can be built in hierarchical way.
subscribers, where the publisher must not know about the The IEC 60870-5-104 (T104) data units are application
existence of the receiver (i.e. anonymous communication). service data units (ASDUs) in the IEEE 802 model (RFC
2200), as shown in Fig 1. This means that they are services in
D. Enterprise Service Bus
the application layer that are divided into data units. These
Web services can be used to implement the Service ASDUs are associated with control frames called application
Oriented Architecture (SOA), and together with a MOM can protocol control information (APCI). The APCI together with
build an effective enterprise service bus (ESB), which is a the ASDU form the application protocol data unit (APDU),
distributed system that integrates heterogeneous SW/HW which is the main transferred data unit from the CC to the
systems. The ESB in this case groups both the SOA together RTU in the control direction, and from the RTU to the CC in
with the Event Driven Architecture (EDA) to build seamless the monitoring direction, in vertical communication way as
information integration architecture. EDA can complement shown in Fig. 2. The minimum size of the APDU is 6 bytes,
SOA because services can be activated by triggers fired on while the maximum size is 255 bytes including control and
incoming events. However, the main technologies used by header frames [11]. This limits its usage to transfer large
web services are the Web Service Description Language amount of small sized data units. However, the server,
(WSDL) and the Simple Object Access Protocol (SOAP). controlled station, always uses TCP port number 2404, while
SOAP is the XML-based communication protocol used for the client, controlling station, uses ephemeral TCP ports. In
exchanging structured information in a decentralized addition, an IPv4 address must be assigned to each client as
distributed environment, and hence the naming, SOAP-based well as each server in order to be used in a WAN such as the
web services. It is used for accessing a Web Service via HTTP Internet. The hardware part of the RTU may or may not exist.
and hence, passes through firewalls. In addition, it allows This totally depends on the application that may use a
communication between applications running on different database (DB) instead of a HW device, or may use both of
operating systems, with different programming languages. In them together in a LAN with other SW/HW entities.
fact, Web services offer synchronous communication via
SOAP/HTTP and represent an SOA, whereas, asynchronous B. DNP3
communication can be implemented using SOAP/JMS, It is the American version of the early IEC 60870-5
SOAP/Apache ActiveMQ or even SOAP/SMTP in order to version, and originally designed as a general SCADA
represent an EDA. However, SMTP is a standard protocol, protocol. It was developed in the 90s while it was in public
whereas, JMS and Apache ActiveMQ are industry products. use, and later, its ownership is given to the DNP3 users group.
In January 2010, the IEEE announced that work is underway
for the formal recognition of DNP3 as an IEEE standard.
 4

machine interface (HMI) and the interfaces with outside the

substation, the bay level (unit level), which includes the
protection and control intelligent electronic devices (IED), and
the process level, which includes intelligent sensors, actuators
and other I/O devices. In addition, the standard utilizes
different network technologies and communication
mechanisms for exchanging information in the substation, via
several protocols, as shown in Fig 3:
Fig. 1. IEC 60870-5-104 in the IEEE 802 model. 1) Client/server communication protocol that uses the
mapping of the application models and objects to
Named as IEEE P1815™, the IEEE claims that the standard manufacturer message specification (MMS) for
will promote interoperability across hundreds of operational transmission outside the substation,
systems with thousands of installed devices, as well as 2) Generic Object Oriented Substation Events (GOOSE)
strengthening security protocols while maintaining for real- time messaging between substation devices,
compatibility with existing object models [3]. However, the 3) Sampled Analogue Values (SAV) for transmitting
size of its APDU can vary between 0 and 2048 bytes, which measured binary data from current and voltage
limits its usage to transfer small amount of large sized data transformers (CTs/VTs).
units. In spite of that, the IEEE claims that it is an extremely The GOOSE messages and sampled values are in use
robust and flexible methodology for optimizing data within the substation, sent from the application layer directly
transmission between mission-critical devices in process to the real-time Ethernet. In contrast, the client/server
automation settings [3]. mechanism uses the whole stack of the ISO model, uses the
C. IEC 61850 specific communication service mapping (SCSM) for mapping
the information models to a communication protocol, and can
IEC 61850, the standard protocol for "Communication
be synchronized via simple network time protocol (SNTP). All
networks and systems for power utility automation" [12], is a
these properties make it suitable for SCADA systems.
communication and data modeling standard for the design of
However, the MMS, by itself, is not the right protocol for
substation automation systems using the object oriented data
SCADA systems and hence, the mapping of IEC 61850
model, substation configuration language (SCL), and abstract
information models to a legacy SCADA protocol, such as the
communication service interface (ACSI) that specifies the
IEEE P1815 and T104, is proposed as explained in section V.
models and services used for access to the elements of the
While the IEC 61850-7-420 define information objects and
domain specific object model. The SCL has many types of
models for the communication with DERs logical nodes
XML-based files, which include the IED Capability
(LNs), the IEC 61850-7-410 is used for the same purpose in
Description (ICD) file, the Substation Configuration
hydroelectric power plants. However, both are parts of the IEC
Description (SCD) file, and the Configured IED Description
61850 that adopted the IEC 61400-25 for wind power plants.
(CID), etc. These files are constructed in the same method and
format but have different scopes depending on the need. They
are used for offline configuration, which reduces cost and
effort, yet, eliminate inconsistencies in system configuration.
The standard divides inter-substation communication into
three levels: the substation level, which includes the human-

Fig. 2. The IEC 60870-5-104 protocol philosophy – vertical communication. Fig. 3. Approach of the IEC 61850 protocol stack.
 5

D. IEC 61400-25 order to support multi-language and multi-platform to insure

According to [3], the IEC 61400-25 series defines interoperability. Moreover, it supports synchronous and
communications for monitoring and control of wind power asynchronous communication via Internet Inter ORB Protocol
plants. The architecture of this standard has been selected to (IIOP) and Multicast Inter ORB Protocol (MIOP) respectively.
provide an abstract definition of classes and services such that It uses an Interface Definition Language (IDL) as a description
the specifications are independent of specific protocol stacks, language in order to obtain client stubs and server skeletons.
implementations, and operating systems. It mainly includes: Web services are World Wide Web Consortium (W3C)
1) Part 25-1: description of principles and models, standard that can be used to implement the SOA. They use
2) Part 25-2: information models, WSDL as a description language and SOAP messages over
3) Part 25-3: information exchange models, HTTP for synchronous communication that supports
4) Part 25-4: mapping to communication profile , request/reply mechanism. EDA can complement SOA by
5) Part 25-5: conformance Testing, using SMTP for asynchronous communication that includes
6) Part 25-6: logical node classes and data classes for publish/subscribe topic messaging and point-to-point message
condition monitoring. queuing as well. However, JMS and Apache ActiveMQ are
Part 25-4 specifies the specific mappings to protocol stacks two alternatives that can provide asynchronous
of MMS, DNP3, IEC 60870-5-104, web services and OPC communication with no programming efforts as with SMTP.
XML-DA. Hence, the focus of the IEC 61400-25 series is on Nevertheless, HTTP and SMTP are firewall friendly standards
the communications between wind power plant components and can build light-weight applications, which are advantages
such as wind turbines and actors such as SCADA systems. over JMS and Apache ActiveMQ products. Some of these
Internal communication within wind power plant components products, which are not even industry standards, guarantee the
is outside the scope of this standard [13]. delivery of messages that is not guaranteed with SMTP.
However, the SMTP as a standard is proposed here to
E. IEC 62056 complement the SOA, as shown in section V.
The IEC 62056 is a standard for “Electricity metering – Multi Agent Systems (MASs) are adopted by the IEEE-
data exchange for meter reading, tariff and load control”. Part FIPA (Foundation for Intelligent Physical Agents) and IEEE-
52, communication protocols for management distribution line PES (Power & Energy Society) as well, nevertheless, they can
message specification (DLMS) server, is dedicated for not be used for the control of DERs interfaces because they
electricity supply systems including electric energy meters in are not yet standardized and rely on high-performance
buildings, emergency electrical supplies, etc. [14]. This part is systems. In addition, no industrial community adopted MASs
used for load telecontrol and telemeter in a SCADA, which in their devices, i.e. there are no MAS-enabled IEDs.
makes it compatible with telemeter between the DER metering However, they use Agent Description Ontology (AD
equipment and the control center. The Companion Ontology) as a description language and Agent
Specification for Energy Metering (COSEM) contains Communication Language (ACL) messages. Moreover, they
metering specific objects based on Object Identification use many middleware technologies in order to achieve the
System (OBIS) codes for use with DLMS and xDLMS, which high performance.
is an extension to DLMS and describes how to access Although, CORBA 3.x defines object models and
attributes and methods of COSEM objects. OBIS naming is communication protocols, these objects can not be directly
used to identify COSEM objects in order to make them self- used for utility devices and DERs interfaces. In contrast, IEC
describing. The advantage of using DLMS/COSEM is the 61850 defines information objects and mapping to a
interoperability that they can offer. In addition, part 47 of the communication protocol that are specifically defined for utility
standard specifies the communication over IPv4 (like devices, which offer device-to-application interoperability.
Internet). Despite of the high performance of IIOP-based applications
compared to those of SOAP-based applications, mapping IEC
IV. COMPARISON BETWEEN INTERNATIONAL STANDARDS AND 61850 information models to IIOP is impossible without an
MIDDLEWARE FOR INTEROPERABILITY AND CONTROL OF DERS ORB that is compatible with the needs of IEC 61850. Hence,
As mentioned above, the middleware is the bridge there is no way to use one middleware for both device and
infrastructure software that interconnects distributed application integration. Timing requirements may be used to
applications and components to ensure interoperability. DOC, split device-to-application integration and control via IEC
COM and MOM are all middleware industry standards. In 61850 information models mapped to IEEE P1815 (DNP3),
some cases the middleware is a product (such as RMI, JMS, and inter-application integration via an ESB that represents an
etc.) that can not be used for Smart Grids, because it is not a effective middleware for business-to-business integration as
standard which is a requirement for future smart power well. While, traditional middleware often solves
systems. interoperability problems with tightly coupled systems, web
CORBA is an industry standard developed by Object services introduce loosely coupled architecture for the same
Management Group (OMG) that defines object information purposes.
models and communication protocols for interoperability. In A comparison between all these technologies is shown in
addition, CORBA 3.x joins the best of .NET and J2EE in Table 1 below.
 6

TABLE 1
COMPARISON BETWEEN IEC 61850, WEB SERVICES, CORBA 3.X AND MAS

IEC 870-5-104 (T104)

IEC 61400-25-2/3
V. APPLICATION OF STANDARDS TO THE INVERTER
As mentioned above, information integration in distributed
power systems mainly covers communication networks and
standard communication protocols. Therefore, the available
standard protocols that can be applied for communication
between the control center and SW/HW systems (RTU/IED,
DB, PC) of an ECS, in vertical communication over IP-based Fig. 4. Standards for RESs interfaces in vertical communication.
WAN, are shown in Fig. 4. Each DER is shown in a LAN
together with its related SW/HW systems as mentioned in bytes. In the IEEE P18115, the size of the APDU may vary
section III, part A, communicating in vertical way to the between 0 and 2048 bytes. Hence, T104 may require a large
control center via IEC 60870-5-104 (T104). number of ASDUs to send data, which may lead to a loss of
While the IEC 61850-7-4 and 61850-7-420 define efficiency, in this case. In the same sense, the IEEE P1815
information models for the communication with DERs logical usage is limited to small amount of data that have large-sized
nodes, the IEC 61850-7-410 is used for the same purpose in packets.
hydroelectric power plants. The IEC 61400 parts 25-2 and 25- An important difference between both protocols is the type
3 are also used for information modeling and information of data sent in each ASDU. While IEEE P1815 allows
exchange modeling respectively in wind power plants. multiple data objects in one ASDU frame, only data objects of
Legacy SCADA protocols, such as IEEE P1815 (DNP3) the same type can be transmitted in one T104 ASDU. In
and T104, are not fully capable of fulfilling the requirements contrast to T104 that uses request/response mechanism, IEEE
and all expected functions of future smart power systems. P1815 can use both request/response and event mechanisms,
Moreover, both are designed for low bandwidth control and via TCP/IP connections and UDP/IP connections respectively.
monitoring operations. In addition, the semantic content of Which protocol to be chosen, depends on the application
their messages are not machine readable. At the same time, the and on the needs of the customer, especially the amount of
new SCADA standard, IEC 61850, uses the MMS as a traffic between the control center and the DER interface unit.
communication protocol that is not suitable for As the IEEE P1815 protocol has variable length ASDUs, can
communication with control centers (SCADA systems). On carry different data types in the same frame, and supports both
the other hand, future smart power system devices will require communication mechanisms, it would be the right choice for
high bandwidth and rapid communications that are better mapping the IEC 61850 information objects.
supported by the IEC 61850 and hence, the information As shown in Fig. 4, SCADA/EMS (Energy Management
models of IEC 61850-7-4 and 61850-7-420 mapped to the data System) supervises, controls, optimizes and manages
objects of T104 or IEEE P1815 are proposed here for DERs generation and transmission systems. However, SCADA/DMS
control and monitoring. For the wind power plant, this is (Distribution Management System) performs the same
specified by the IEC 61400-25-4 standard. For IEC 61850-7-4, functions for power distribution networks. Both systems
the standard IEC 61850-80-1 can be used for the mapping to enable utilities to collect, store and analyze data from
T104 and for mapping to IEEE P1815 the National Institute of thousands of data points in national or regional networks,
Standards and Technology (NIST) has recently launched a perform network modeling, simulate power operation,
project for this purpose called Priority Action Plan (PAP 12) pinpoint faults, preempt outages, and participate in energy
[4]. trading markets [15]. In general, the main functionalities of the
Choosing the right legacy protocol, for mapping, depends control center can be summarized as follows: load frequency
on many factors. Although both have the same origin, which is control (LFC)/automatic generation control (AGC), economic
IEC 60870-5-101, the IEEE P1815 is a general SCADA dispatching, state estimation, contingency analysis, security
protocol. On the other hand, the amount of data to be sent and alerts and alarms [16]. These functionalities must be
received from the DER interface, to the SCADA system may automated in Smart Grids to achieve a reliable and stable
influence the efficiency of the whole system. While, the power system. This can happen by applying international
maximum size of the APDU in the T104 is 255 bytes standards to the inverter and between the inverter and other
including the header and control bytes, its minimum size is 6 associated DER SW/HW applications, components and
networks for physical control as well a business functions.
 7

As shown in Fig. 5, the inverter can act as a multifunctional hence, be able to connect to the advanced meter infrastructure
grid interface device, by converting it into an IED, and (AMI), for billing purposes as a business-related function.
applying specific information models of the IEC 61850-7-4 Moreover, the database of the inverter may contain owner
and 61850-7-420 to an IED inside the inverter. Fortunately, information, latitude, longitude, and other customer data.
the logical nodes of the IEC 61850 can be modeled using the These can be communicated to the customer information
functional blocks (FBs) of IEC 61499 and enhanced with system (CIS) and geographic information system (GIS) via
intelligence, which results in an executable model of an Web Services. The outage management system (OMS) may
automation agent. According to [17], they were able to apply use SCADA information, GIS information, CIS information,
this architecture for simple fault location. Here we are trying and AMI information among other information in order to
to apply the same idea on the inverter for physical control. As complete its functionality. This mandates the usage of ESB
MASs are not standardized yet, this approach could convert based on EDA and SOA (MOM and Web Services)
the inverter into an automation agent that mimics MAS, acts architectures for business integration and inter-application
autonomously and collaborates with other inverters to achieve integration, as shown in Fig 5. This architecture can be built
the power system reliability and stability, as shown in Fig. 5. based on IEC 61968 (DMS), which is dedicated for
Using this architecture, vertical and horizontal application integration at electric utilities [18]. It defines
communications can be achieved, and therefore, inverters can interfaces for the DMS that consists of various distributed
communicate in peer-to-peer for physical control, in addition application components for the utility to manage electrical
to the hierarchical structure that can be achieved as well. distribution networks. These capabilities include monitoring
On the other hand, the IEC 62056 standard can be applied and control of equipments for power delivery, management
for metering between DER meter equipment and the control processes to ensure system reliability, voltage management,
center. Adding the metering functionality to the inverter gives demand-side management, outage management, work
it the ability to count the injected power into the main grid and management, automated mapping and facilities management.

Distributed control and management based on IEC 61968 (DMS) Legend

GIS Geographic Information System
OMS GIS DR
Outage Geo-spatial DR DR Demand-Response
XML-Based Data XML-Based Data XML-Based Data
OMS Outage Management System

AMI Advanced Meter Infrastructure

ESB = EDA + SOA = MOM (SMTP) + SOA (Web Services: WSDL, SOAP/HTTP)
CIS Customer Information System

SCADA Sup. Control & Data Acq.

XML-Based XML-Based XML-Based
Operation MDMS ESB: Enterprise Service Bus
Customer AMI
SCADA CIS
Data Data Management Repository EDA: Event Driven Architecture

SOA: Service Oriented Architecture

SOAP/HTTP

7
IE

MOM: Message Oriented Middleware

6-4
SMTP
EE

05
P1

62

SOAP: Simple Object Access Protocol

815

C
IE

MDMS Meter Data Mngment System

DERs Grid 1 DERs Grid 2
IP-based WAN
(Internet / Intranet) Mapping IEC 61850 Information
Objects to IEEE P1815 Data Objs
IEC 61850-7-4/420 IEC 61850-7-4/420
3~ Inverter as IED/RTU
IEEE P1815 for Physical Control & Web Services for Business Functions 3~ 3~ =
IEC 61499

IEC 62056

3~ 3~
IEC 62056
IEC 61499

= =
= =
- +
Local Area Network (LAN)
DB DB
DB Database
DB

DERs Grid 3 Photovoltaic (PV)

IEC 61850-7-4/420 IEC 61850-7-4/420 Fuel Cell

IEC 61499

IEC 62056

3~ DB
IEC 62056
IEC 61499

3~ DB IEC 61850-7-4/420 IEC 61850-7-4/420

= = - + Battery
IEC 61499

IEC 62056

IEC 61499

IEC 62056

3~ DB 3~ DB
= =
Diesel Generator
- + - + - +

Fig. 5. Application of standards to the inverter for control and integration of DERs, vertical and horizontal communications over IP-based WAN.
 8

According to [18], the IEC 61968 is relevant to loosely [9] S. Vinoski, "An Overview of Middleware," 9th International
Conference on Reliable Software Technologies Ada-Eroupe 2004, Palma
coupled applications with more heterogeneity in languages, de Mallorca, 14-18 June 2004.
operating systems, protocols and management tools. It is [10] A. Gokhale et al., "Applying model-integrated computing to component
intended to support applications that need to exchange data on middleware and enterprise applications," Communications of the ACM,
vol. 45, no. 10, pp. 65-70, Oct. 2002.
an event driven basis. The standard is intended to be
[11] Telecontrol Equipment and Systems-Transmission Protocols-Network
implemented with middleware services that broker messages Access for IEC 60870-5-101 Using Standard Transport Profiles, IEC
among applications, and will complement, but not replace Standard 60870-5-104-2006.
utility data warehouses, database gateways, and operational [12] Communication Networks and Systems in Substations, IEC Standard
61850-SER-2010.
stores. Hence, the ESB introduces its architecture for the DMS [13] Wind Turbines: Communications for Monitoring and Control of Wind
in order to implement all these functionalities. Power Plants, IEC Standard 61400-25-2006.
In the ESB, the EDA architecture complements the SOA [14] Electricity Metering: Data Exchange for Meter Reading, Tariff and Load
Control, IEC Standard 62056-2006.
architecture because services can be activated by triggers fired [15] The evolution of SCADA/EMS (from ABB). [Online]. Available:
on incoming events, which satisfies the intended http://www.abb.com/cawp/gad02181/7ff771bfb4d81e96c1256e3900525
implementation of the IEC 61968. 82f.aspx. Last accessed Sep. 2010.
[16] Anjan Bose, "Power System Control Centers: New Vision," EPCC
workshop, Duplin, Ireland, June 2009. [Online]. Available:
VI. CONCLUSION http://www.epcc-workshop.net/pdf/final/33%20BOSE.pdf
[17] V. Vyatkin, G. Zhabelova, N. Higgins, K. Schwarz, and N.–K. C. Nair,
This paper introduced the inter-application, inter-device, "Towards Intelligent Smart Grid Devices with IEC 61850
and application-to-device interoperability in future Smart Interoperability and IEC 61499 Open Control Architecture," IEEE Conf.
Grids that include many RESs and DERs together with their on Transmission and Distribution, New Orleans, 2010, pp. 1–8.
[18] Application Integration at Electric Utilities: System Interfaces for
accompanying SW/HW systems. The paper shows that inter- Distribution Management, IEC Standard 61968-1-2003.
device and device-to-application interoperability can be solved
via IEC 61850 information objects modeled with IEC 61944
functional blocks, mapped to IEEE P1815 data objects, and
applied to the inverter as an automation agent. This increases
the functionality of the inverter, converts it into an IED, and
gives it the ability to communicate horizontally in peer-to-peer
with other inverters for physical control, in addition to the
vertical communication that can be achieved as well.
Moreover, the billing functionality can be applied to the
inverter, as a multifunctional grid interface device; via the IEC
62056 to achieve business-related functions as well. On the
other hand, the ESB based on SOA and EDA, built according
to the IEC 61968 interfaces can solve the problem of inter-
application interoperability and information integration. In
addition the ESB offers business-business integration medium.

VII. REFERENCES
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