1

Technology of the future Sampled Values provide many benefits for

the power systems of tomorrow
Fred Steinhauser, OMICRON, Austria

Abstract
IEC 61850 defines several kinds of communication
mechanisms. The Client/Server communication for
SCADA and the GOOSE protocol for peer-to-peer
status messaging have been widely adopted in a
quite short time. Now, after years of experience
with these new protocols, also the application of
Sampled Values has become a common topic.

Introduction
Sampled Values (SV) are used for the
transmission of digitized instantaneous values of
quantities of the power system, mainly the primary
currents and voltages. Thus, SVs can replace the
classical secondary quantities. SVs are published
on the substation network and are subscribed by
any device that can make use of them.

At the time when the working groups for IEC 61850

were discussing the SV concept, IEC 60044-8 was
about to be finalized and released. IEC 61850-9-1
became a link between the two worlds. It used the
dataset of IEC 60044-8 and mapped it to Ethernet.
IEC 61850-9-1 was later superseded by the more
advanced concepts of IEC 61850-9-2. Meanwhile,
IEC 61850-9-1 was withdrawn.
IEC 61850-9-2 defines the mapping of the abstract
sampled values services to Ethernet. The
document leaves many degrees of freedom, for
example the sample rates or the actual contents of
datasets are not defined. Because of this
variability, a "full" implementation, considering any
parameter as a configurable item, is out of its
scope. This is a serious challenge for achieving
interoperability.

A brief history of Sampled Values

The idea of SVs is almost as old as the application
of communication protocols in substations. But in
the beginning, the performance of the
communication technologies was mostly just
sufficient for non-real-time applications like
SCADA. And even where real-time concepts were
applied, the SV implementations were totally
vendor specific and this prohibited a wider
acceptance of the concept.
The need for a standardized protocol interface was
soon identified and from this IEC 60044-8 has
emerged. It was published in 2002 and it reflects
an attempt to meet this challenge by the means
available Merging Units providing SVs for
protection relays in the late 1990s. The concept of
the "Merging Unit" (MU), a device processing the
signals from the individual sensors and providing
the digitized data at a protocol interface, was
developed in this document.
The Sampled Values services of IEC 61850 are
defined in part 7-2 of the standard as an abstract
service independently from the actual transport
mechanism. The specific communication mappings
then define how and to what extent services
become transported by a specific technology.

Fig. 1 Merging Units providing SVs for protection

relays

Implementation guideline "9-2LE"

To facilitate the implementation and interoperability
of devices utilizing SVs, an implementation
guideline (IG) was worked out and later published
by the UCA International Users Group. Since the
IG defines a subset of IEC 61850-9-2, it became
nicknamed the "9-2 Light Edition", or "9-2LE". Most

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SV implementations today are based on this IG. It

focuses on protection and metering, requiring only
a few settable parameters. The dataset contains
four currents and four voltages. The sample rates
are either 80 samples per cycle (SPC) for
protection and metering or 256 SPC for power
quality applications. Currently, mainly 80 SPC are
used.
The future standard IEC 61869-9 for digital
interfaces for instrument transformers (the
successor of IEC 60044-8) will include the
implementation guideline as a normative element.

subscribers of SVs have to be tested, and test

cases range from development to commissioning.
Protection testing with Sampled Values is the
translation of the classical protection testing with
secondary values and binary I/Os into the IEC
61850 world. The relay is stimulated by SVs and
provides its response by GOOSE. A test set must
be able to publish SVs and to publish and
subscribe GOOSE messages. For testing more
complex protection applications, e.g. differential
protection, multiple, synchronized SV streams
must be published.

Why Sampled Values?

The SVs are especially essential for the
proliferation of non-conventional instrument
transformers. Other than with conventional CTs
and PTs, the output quantities of these sensors are
not interoperable. The signals are specific to the
physical principle of the sensor and the vendor's
implementation. The output signals are often very
small and vulnerable to disturbances, so wiring has
to be shielded and kept short. Sensors and
devices from different vendors cannot be combined
on this level. A standardized protocol like SVs
removes all these obstacles and enables the
application of these new sensors.
SVs also provide benefits when used with
conventional instrument transformers. The A/D
conversion is done close to the sensors and much
of the burden can be removed, thus improving the
performance. Finally, the extensive wiring of the
instrument transformers, literally involving tons of
copper buried in cable ducts, is replaced by only a
few optical fibers, which are immune to
electromagnetic interference.

Networking Issues

Fig. 2 Protection testing: Protection testing with

SVs and GOOSE
Merging Unit testing is a challenge during
development, but also when evaluating a merging
unit. For devices with inputs for conventional
instrument transformers, this can be perfectly done
with high precision protection test sets. Low-level
interfaces can be served as well. The timing
requirements are rather stringent and a challenge.
The maximum allowed timing errors are in the
single-digit s range. To assess the timing of a
merging unit, it must be synchronized with the test
set.

A portion of the substation that is primarily

designed for carrying process-close real-time
information, which is mainly SVs and GOOSE, is
also called a process bus. The SVs impose a
considerable load for the process bus. Thus, the
topology and management of a process bus is
especially important. Segmentation of the network
and filtering of the traffic are crucial for the proper
functioning of a process bus. The technical report
IEC 61850-90-4 gives some guidance for this, but
expert knowledge will always be required for
designing such networks.
Fig. 3 Merging Unit Testing: Testing a Merging
Unit for conventional instrument transformers

Testing with Sampled Values

Testing applications utilizing sampled values
appear in different scenarios. Publishers and

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Commissioning: Although the tests described

above can be performed on site, the details of the
relay's performance or the merging unit's accuracy
will not be the main issue during commissioning.
Instead, verifying correct settings and connections
is more important. In many cases it is impossible to
access the interface between the sensors and the
merging unit. For these cases primary injection can
provide a good solution which also extends the
scope of testing.
Using a primary test set that directly reads back
the Sampled Values from the merging unit is a
straightforward approach. The precision of such a
test set is of course not as high as that of
laboratory equipment. Also, it is often difficult to
establish
time
synchronization
during
commissioning. However, for this purpose it is
mainly important to check the correct scaling of
magnitudes and the polarity of the connections,
which can be done perfectly.

About the Author

Fred Steinhauser was born in
Austria in 1960. He studied
Electrical Engineering at the
Vienna
University
of
Technology, where he obtained
his diploma in 1986 and
received a Dr. of Technical
Sciences in 1991. In 1998 he
joined OMICRON, where he
worked on several aspects of testing power system
protection. Since 2000 he works as a product
manager
with
a
focus
on
substation
communication issues.
Fred Steinhauser is a representative of OMICRON
in the UCA International Users Group. As a
member of WG10 and WG17 in the TC57 of the
IEC he contributes the standard IEC 61850. He is
also a member of SC B5 of CIGR.

Fig. 4 Commissioning: Closed loop testing with

primary injection

An attractive choice
Sampled Values are a concept with attractive
features. The design of an adequate substation
network is a new challenge and existing concerns
have to be addressed. Altogether, SVs are a
future-orientated technology that will contribute to
making protection and control systems more
effective and cost-efficient.

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