IEC 61850 as a flexible tool for electrical systems
monitoring
Pau Lloret, Juan L. Velásquez, Lluís Molas-Balada,
Roberto Villafáfila, Andreas Sumper
Centre d'Innovació Tecnològica en Convertidors Estàtics i
Accionaments (CITCEA-UPC),
Departament d'Enginyeria Elèctrica,
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
EU d'Enginyeria Tècnica Industrial de Barcelona,
Comte d'Urgell, 187. 08036 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 934037432
lloret@citcea.upc.edu
Abstract—In the last decades there have been great advances in
electronic, information and communication technologies. Up to
date, any of these advances have been implemented in electrical
systems, but some difficulties have been encountered, particularly
regarding to the integration of intelligent electronic devices from
different manufactures into a centralized system. With the aim of
solving the above mentioned problem, the standard IEC 61850
was developed to specify communication networks in substations.
In addition to control and protection functions, the
information model created around IEC 61850 series can help the
development of other applications related with electrical
monitoring systems. Monitoring can be used to achieve a variety
of benefits for utilities, including maintenance prediction, failure
prevention, active control, improved commissioning tests and
more accurate end of life assessments. Examples of application
that could be highly benefited by the adoption of IEC 61850 as
standard for communications in the power electrical industry are
power quality monitoring and condition based maintenance.
In this paper, the new standard IEC61850 and the new
opportunities that it can offer to the electrical industry are
presented. Firstly, a brief presentation of IEC61850 and the main
benefits it provides are described. Finally, a more detailed
description of the possibilities that IEC61850 can offer in the field
of power quality monitoring and condition based maintenance
(CBM) is highlighted.
Keywords – IEC 61850 standard; monitoring; power quality;
condition based maintenance.
Endesa’s R+D+i awards NOVARE 2005
on Power Quality and Reliability
Samuel Galceran-Arellano
Centre d'Innovació Tecnològica en Convertidors Estàtics i
Accionaments (CITCEA-UPC),
Departament d'Enginyeria Elèctrica,
Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya.
ETS d'Enginyeria Industrial de Barcelona,
Av. Diagonal, 647, Pl. 2. 08028 Barcelona, Spain
Tel: +34 934016727, Fax: +34 934017433
I. INTRODUCTION
In the last decades there have been great advances in the
field of electronic, information and communications
technologies that have been introduced progressively in devices
and systems from different industry sectors. Over the years,
these new technologies have proved its reliability in all
operational conditions of high-voltage substations. For that
reason, substation automation became accepted worldwide and
most of these advances have been implemented. Analogue
relays are being substituted by digital devices increasing
control, protection, monitoring and communication capacities
in substations. Today all new intelligent electronic devices
(IEDs) in the market implement monitoring capabilities.
At the beginning, substation automation was characterized
by manufacturers’ proprietary solutions, using each one a
different proprietary protocol. This procedure encountered
some difficulties, particularly regarding to the integration of
IED from different vendors into a centralized automation
system. It extends integration time and makes necessary the use
of protocol gateways that increases system costs if different
vendors’ devices are used.
In addition to vendor proprietary solutions, geographically
based standards also coexisted at the same time. In the USA,
the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) developed
“Utility Communication Architecture” (UCA), and then UCA
2.0, which described detailed object models of field devices
and definitions of the communications behaviour. At the same
time in Europe, the International Electrotechnical Commission
(IEC) recognised the need to develop a standard interface for
the different manufacturer protection IEDs. As a result, the
standard “Companion standard for the informative interface of
protection equipment” (IEC 60870-5-103) was created. Faced
with the possibility of creating two standards to solve the same
problem, members of the IEC and EPRI recognised the need of
having only one standard interface to the electrical substation
IEDs and concluded that it should be based on the UCA 2.0
data models and services, but harmonised for general use
around the world. As a result, the IEC 61850 [1] standard series
were developed to specify standardized communication
networks and systems in substations.
Once IEC 61850 was published, it has been shown that
additional information models could be developed to increase
the standard application field. For that reason, nowadays
several extensions and actualizations are under way to adapt
IEC 61850 standard to wind power plants, hydro power plants,
distributed energy resources, and also related to power
transmission and distribution as well as power quality
monitoring.
Apart from control and protection functions, IEC 61850
series also offers instantaneous information in real-time. This is
an important issue for applications that need the use monitoring
or metering techniques for their implementation. Monitoring
can be used to achieve a variety of benefits for the operators of
substation equipments, including maintenance prediction,
failure prevention, active control, improved commissioning
tests and more accurate end of life assessments.
In this work there is a brief description of the standard IEC
61850 and the main benefits it offers. Following, a more
detailed description of the possibilities that IEC 61850 can
offer in the field of electrical systems monitoring such as power
quality, in section IV, and condition based maintenance
(CBM), in section V, are highlighted.
II. INTRODUCTION TO IEC 61850
The IEC 61850 standard defines communications between
IEDs in the electrical substation and the related system
requirements. It has been developed by Technical Committee
(TC) 57 of the IEC, and the objective was the development of
an international standard for communication networks and
systems in an automated electric substation.
Until the new standard appeared, several proprietary
communication protocols coexisted in a substation depending
on the quantity of different vendors used. This makes the
integration of devices from different vendors in the same
substation a hard task. One of the main objectives of the new
standard is to achieve interoperability of IEDs from different
equipment manufacturers.
Under the general title Communication networks and
systems in substations, IEC 61850 series are divided into 14
parts also divided into 10 main topics. The list of these parts is
the following:
• IEC 61850-1: Introduction and Overview.
• IEC 61850-2: Glossary.
• IEC 61850-3: General requirements.
• IEC 61850-4: System and project management.
• IEC 61850-5: Communication requirements for
functions and device models.
• IEC 61850-6: Configuration description language
for communication in electrical substations related
to IEDs.
• IEC 61850-7-1: Basic communication structure for
substation and feeder equipment – Principles and
models.
• IEC 61850-7-2: Basic communication structure for
substation and feeder equipment – Abstract
communication service interface (ACSI).
• IEC 61850-7-3: Basic communication structure for
substation and feeder equipment – Common data
classes.
• IEC 61850-7-4: Basic communication structure for
substation and feeder equipment – Compatible
logical node classes and data classes.
• IEC 61850-8-1: Specific communication service
mapping (SCSM) – Mappings to MMS (ISO/IEC
9506-1 and 9506-2) and to ISO/IEC 8802-3.
• IEC 61850-9-1: Specific communication service
mapping (SCSM) – Sampled values over serial
unidirectional multidrop point to point link.
• IEC 61850-9-2: Specific communication service
mapping (SCSM) – Sampled values over ISO/IEC
8802-3.
• IEC 61850-10: Conformance testing.
IEC 61850 series defines object modelling and information
models that describe in an abstract way data names and power
system structures. These information models specify what
information or data is exchanged, and are focused on field
device characteristics. IEC 61850 also defines interface models
(Abstract Communication Service Interface, ACSI) that
describe in an abstract way the mechanics of how data is
exchanged to get the right information to the right destination
at the right time. The definition of these standardized
information and interface models makes possible to achieve
interoperability between diferent kinds of devices
independently of the device manufacturer.
The abstract models defined divide the substation
automation system functions in small entities called logical
nodes. Logical nodes are conceptually defined in IEC 61850-5
and then described in IEC 61850-7-4. Logical nodes are
independent of physical devices, so several logical nodes can
reside in the same device. Based on their functionality, each
logical node contains a list of data and data attributes. All this
elements form part of the object name identification and it is
structured as is shown in Figure 1. As each signal identification
has to be unique and unambiguous, logical node prefixes and
instance numbers are used to distinguish between data objects
with the same logical node function.
Figure 1. Structure of the object name identification [1].
All these abstract models defined in the IEC 61850-7-X
series are independent of a concrete implementation in an
actual protocol. In IEC 61850-8-X and IEC 61850-9-X these
abstract communication services and objects are mapped to
actual protocols. All communication use Ethernet (ISO/IEC
8802-3) as the basic communication technology. Services
commonly used for communication within the whole substation
are mapped in IEC 61850-8-1 to MMS (Manufacturing
Message Specification, ISO 9506). MMS is an application
layer standard designed to support messaging communications
between IEDs in a distributed system environment. It was
chosen because it is the only public standard protocol that can
support easily the ACSI mapping and information models
defined in IEC 61850-7-X series. Additional protocols are
defined for those ACSI services that are not mapped to MMS,
such as SNTP (Simple Network Time Protocol) for time
synchronisation messages, or GOOSE (Generic Object
Oriented Substation Event) and GSSE (Generic Substation
Status Event) for trips and fast messages.
Alternatively, services used for the transmission of sampled
values are mapped over serial unidirectional multidrop point to
point link in IEC 61850-9-1, or mapped directly over Ethernet
in IEC 61850-9-2.
An overview of all these mapping used for the standard IEC
61850 is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2. Overview of functionality and profiles [1].
In addition to standardized communications and data
models that make possible interoperability between devices,
uniformed system handling and harmonized general system
properties are also needed. For that reason the IEC 61850 series
covers not only communications, but also unified system
configuration language, environmental conditions and quality
requirements, and conformance test procedures and techniques.
An important innovation that offers this standard is a
configuration language based in XML called Substation
Configuration Language (SCL) described in IEC 61850-6. This
language allows a formal description of the substation
automation system, the switchyard and the relation between
them, and the IED configuration. This permits exchange device
configurations using SCL files. The standard defines four types
of SCL files for different purposes; SSD files (System
Specification Description) make a description of the entire
system, SCD files (Substation Configuration Description)
describe a single substation, ICD files (IED Capability
Description) are the description of items supported by an IED,
and finally CID files (Configured IED Description) describe a
configuration for a specific IED. The use of these files provides
self-description of the substation system elements. This self-
description reduces manual configuration, installation time and
the cost of data management, configuration and maintenance. It
also reduces down time due to configuration errors.
In IEC 61850-3, general requirements of the
communications network are detailed with emphasis on the
quality requirements of IEDs such as reliability,
maintainability, system availability and security. It also
describes climatic, mechanical, and electrical influences and
requirements. This section refers to other existing generic
standards such as IEC 60870, IEC 60694 and IEC 61000, but
additional requirements have been elaborated too.
As a global communications standard, the IEC 61850 series
includes standardized conformance test to ensure that suppliers
comply with standard’s requirements. IEC 61850-10 specifies
conformance testing methods and procedures for testing
devices of substation automation systems and gives guidelines
for setting up test environments. This part also describes
documentation of conformance test report and certifications to
demonstrate the capability of the device under test to operate
with other IEDs according to the IEC 61850 series.
As IEC 61850 introduce the use of Ethernet bus in
substation automation, other benefits of IEC 61850 include
lower communication infrastructure costs using readily
available TCP/IP and Ethernet technology, or a reduction of
wiring cost for the use of a high speed process bus that enables
sharing of instrumentation signals between devices.
However, due to these increasing networking of systems
and power system equipments, cyber security has become a
major issue. For that reason, IEC 62351-3 [2], IEC 62351-4
[3], and IEC 62351-6 [4] were developed. These parts of IEC
62351 specify messages, procedures, and algorithms for
securing the operation of all protocols based on or derived from
the standard IEC 61850.
III. EXTENSIONS OF THE IEC 61850 INFORMATION MODEL
Despite its recent publication, the IEC 61850 standard is
consolidating as the future international standard for
communications in electric substations. In addition, several
extensions and actualizations of the standard are under way
regarding not only substations but also almost the whole
electrical energy supply chain as well. It includes wind power
plants, hydro power plants, distributed energy resources, and
also power transmission and distribution.
 The creation of those new publications are going to increase
the number of logical nodes, data objects and data attributes
that form the IEC 61850 series information model. The main
objective of those extensions is the definition of only one
harmonized standard for the whole electrical power system,
complementing the defined at the beginning regarding only
electrical substations.
Several activities are being done to adapt IEC 61850
standard to wind power plants (IEC 61400-25) [5]. The part of
the 61400-25 series that defines the mapping to communication
profiles, IEC 61400-25-4, includes mapping of IEC 61400-25
series into IEC 61850-8-1 among other four protocols. Until
now, the only standardized mapping available is the mapping
published in the international standard IEC 61850-8-1, others
are still under preparation. Part 61400-25-6 that defines
information models to be used in wind power plant condition
monitoring systems is also in progress.
Simultaneously, IEC TC 57 is actually working in
extending IEC 61850 to communication in hydroelectric power
plants (IEC 61850-7-410) [6]. This new extension of the
standard will add another 60 hydropower specific logical nodes
to the IEC 61850 series. Based on the same concept, the IEC
TC 57 is also preparing an extension of IEC 61850 in the area
of distributed energy resources (DER) (IEC 61850-7-420) [7].
Under the common name IEC 61850, several information
models are defined or are under way for exchanging
information between IEDs, and for the configuration of
systems and devices. IEC 61850 series has become the base
standard for modelling the whole power system information, as
it includes not only electrical substations information models.
All these new standardized information models have to ensure
that no confusion will arise and interoperability is maintained.
IV. IEC 61850 AND POWER QUALITY
Besides control and protection functions, the availability of
instantaneous information is one of the properties that IEC
61850 series offers. This is an essential issue for applications
that need the use of monitoring techniques for their
implementation.
At present, one of the means used around the world for
getting a good improvement in the power quality of the
electrical systems is by using IEDs that are located in certain
points of the network in order to monitor power quality
defining parameters (Figure 3. ).
Figure 3. Power quality parameters [8].
Although IEC 61850 information models of the first edition
of the standard do not deal with all power quality parameters,
there are some logical nodes that can be used to monitor some
power quality parameters. As an example, following there is a
list of some logical nodes used for power quality applications:
• MMXU and MMXN: acquire values from instrument
voltage and current transformers in a three-phase and
single-phase system respectively. They also calculate
RMS values for currents and voltages, power flows and
phase impedances.
• MMTR: provides basic energy meter measurements.
• MSTA: provides metering statistics, which includes
average, minimum and maximum of metered values
over a given evaluation period.
• MSQI: provides the sequence components and
imbalances.
• MHAI and MHAN: calculate harmonics (including
subharmonics and multiples) and interharmonics in a
three-phase and single-phase system respectively.
TC 57 of the IEC has been publishing amendments to the
first edition of IEC 61850 series. One of this was an
amendment to the first edition of IEC 61850-7-3, and defines
new common data classes used for the power quality models
and for the representation of statistical and historical
information. These amendments will be merged in the future
with the first edition of IEC 61850-7-X series and will be
circulated in the form of its second edition. The second edition
of 61850-7-2, 61850-7-3, and 61850-7-4 parts that are now in
preparation includes extensions of the models for power quality
metering as well as extensions for handling of statistical data
and history of them. This extension of information models to
cover power quality monitoring may include a new logical
node group (group Q, [9]) with new logical nodes for flickers,
RMS voltage variations including sags, swells, or momentary
interruptions, transients, or frequency variations [10].
V. IEC 61850 AND CONDITION BASED MAINTENANCE
Another application field that could be highly beneficed by
the adoption of the IEC 61850 standard, and the monitoring
resources it offers, is the maintenance based on condition.
Nowadays, most maintenance actions in power systems are
carried out by either corrective or preventive maintenance. The
corrective maintenance lets the component or system run until
breakdown or fault before maintenance action is considered.
For this reason corrective maintenance is also known as
breakdown maintenance or run-to-failure maintenance. In
contrast, preventive maintenance is carried out at
predetermined intervals according to prescribed criteria and
intended to reduce the probability of failure or the degradation
of the functioning of an item [11]. This is done by repair or
component exchange in preset intervals. Preventive
maintenance is sometimes called historical, planned, or
calendar based maintenance.
It has been shown that these traditional maintenance
techniques, corrective and preventive, are very costly and
inefficient. To try to maintain the correct equipment at the right
time, predictive maintenance techniques were introduced. In
predictive maintenance, the maintenance intervals are decided
according to the condition of the equipment rather than to time
service or number of operations. Predictive maintenance is also
known as Condition Based Maintenance (CBM). CBM relies
on monitoring selected parameters of the equipment in a
manner that the ongoing condition can be continuously or
periodically assessed and maintenance is initiated based on the
present needs of the equipment condition [12]. The main
purpose of CBM is to eliminate or minimize breakdowns and
prolong the preventive maintenance intervals. As a result, an
increase in equipment availability is achieved, and then power
availability and quality is increased too.
Liberalization and privatization of electric markets have
swept the power sector and as a result business environment
become more competitive. Maintenance is often one of the
biggest controllable expenditure in a company [13]. For that
reason, the introduction of the condition based maintenance
concept in substations will allow electric power companies to
optimize their maintenance and operation costs, while at the
same time that will increase the quality and continuity of the
electrical supply due to an increase in the efficiency of devices.
Condition monitoring is a major component of predictive
maintenance. With the appearance of IEC 61850 series,
condition monitoring and other monitoring tools become easier
to implement in automation substation systems. It defines
among its information models several information that could
help to determine the condition of substation equipment.
For example, the logical node used for modelling circuit
breakers (XCBR) includes the sum of switched amperes
(SumSwARs) and one operation counter (OpCnt) as some of
their data attributes. The sum of switched amperes in a circuit
breaker, also known as i2t, and the number of switching
operations are some of the key monitoring parameters to know
the circuit breaker condition.
In a similar way, several logical nodes include key data
attributes needed to know the condition of power transformers.
Examples of logical nodes used to monitor transformer
condition are:
• YPTR: includes the winding hotspot temperature.
• YLTC: includes key attributes to monitor the tap
changer condition.
• ZBSH: provides properties and supervision of bushings
as used for power transformers.
• SARC: includes attributes for monitoring and
diagnostics for arcs.
• SPDC: includes attributes for monitoring and
diagnostics for partial discharges.
• SIML: supervises liquid insulation medium such as oil
used in transformers and tap changers, including
attributes like relative saturation of moisture (H2O),
insulation liquid temperature (Tmp) and measurement
of hydrogen concentration (H2).
As described in [10], in future all this nodes will be
extended and included in logical node group S, specially
dedicated to sensors and monitoring.
Other logical nodes also useful for condition monitoring
could be the described in section IV that belong to metering
and measurement logical node group M, such as MMXU,
MMXN, MMTR, MSTA, MHAI or MHAN.
VI. CONCLUSIONS
As it has been seen in this paper, the adoption of the IEC
61850 series as the standard not only for the communications in
electrical substations but also in the whole electric power
system, is an opportunity that the electric sector should not
miss.
IEC 61850 distinctive features described causes great
benefits to its users, especially regarding standardization of
communications and data models that make possible
interoperability between devices. It also provides device self-
description that reduces manual configuration, installation time
and the cost of data management, configuration and
maintenance. The proposed use of Ethernet bus in substation
automation is the cause of other benefits, e.g. lower
communication infrastructure costs using readily available
TCP/IP and Ethernet technology, or a reduction of wiring cost
for the use of a high speed process bus.
In addition to control and protection functions, the
extensive information model created around IEC 61850 series
can help the development of other applications related with
electrical monitoring systems. Therefore, applications which a
detailed monitoring is needed, such as power quality
monitoring or condition based maintenance, can be also highly
beneficed by the adoption of IEC 61850 series.
Due to technical reasons, those kinds of applications have
not been yet generally applied in electric power industry.
Nowadays, those technical issues are partially solved thanks to
advances in electronic, information and communication
technologies and standardization of protocols used in these
communications. The appearance of IEC 61850 and other IEC
61850 based standards will help to develop these monitoring
based applications in power electric systems in the following
years.
However, the development of IEC 61850 standard family is
not completely concluded. It is in continuous actualization and
several addendums, extensions and clarifications are being now
developed. An example of this continuous actualization is the
proposed extensions of the information models regarding
power quality and transformer monitoring, or the use of IEC
61850 also outside substations.
ACKNOWLEDGMENT
Nowadays, the concepts introduced in this paper about the
use of IEC 61850 for condition monitoring are being applied in
a project called 'Substation monitoring for predictive
maintenance'. This project has awarded with Endesa’s R+D+i
international prize NOVARE 2005 on distribution networks in
the category of Power Quality and reliability.
 Thanks to manufacturers that have given their equipments
to develop this project and which participate in Endesa’s
Distribution Innovation Circle (CIDE).
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