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Integrate a 3rd Party IEC 61850

Device with PowerSCADA Expert
7.40?

System Technical Note

PowerSCADA Expert

V1.0
Safety Information

Important Information
Read these instructions carefully before trying to install, configure, or
operate this software. The following special messages may appear
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This is the safety alert symbol. It is used to alert you to potential personal injury
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NOTICE is used to address practices not related to physical injury. The
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Please Note
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It is the end user's responsibility to ensure that any third-party products introduced into a
solution are assessed for compliance with the security requirements of the solution, and
that they do not introduce cyber security risks into the solution.

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© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved

Safety Precautions
WARNING
HAZARD OF INCORRECT INFORMATION
• Do not incorrectly configure the software, as this can lead to incorrect
reports and/or data results.
• Do not base your maintenance or service actions solely on messages
and information displayed by the software.
• Do not rely solely on software messages and reports to determine if
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and requirements.
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failures of communications links.
Failure to follow these instructions could result in death, serious
injury, or equipment damage.

Notices
Modbus, Modicon, PowerSCADA Expert, PowerLogic, Schneider Electric, ION, and ION
Enterprise are either trademarks or registered trademarks of Schneider Electric in
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This product must be installed, connected and used in compliance with prevailing
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change from time to time, always ask for confirmation of the information given in this
publication.
Schneider Electric 35 rue Joseph Monier 92500 Rueil-Malmaison, France
www.schneider-electric.com

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© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved

The information provided in this documentation contains general descriptions and/or technical
characteristics of the performance of the products contained herein. This documentation is not
intended as a substitute for and is not to be used for determining suitability or reliability of these
products for specific user applications. It is the duty of any such user or integrator to perform the
appropriate and complete risk analysis, evaluation and testing of the products with respect to the
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please notify us.
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the manufacturer should perform repairs to components.
When devices are used for applications with technical safety requirements, the relevant instructions
must be followed.
Failure to use Schneider Electric software or approved software with our hardware products may
result in injury, harm, or improper operating results.
Failure to observe this information can result in injury or equipment damage.
© 2014 Schneider Electric. All rights reserved.

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© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved

Table of Contents
Safety Information ii
Important Information ii
Please Note ii
Safety Precautions iii
Notices iii
About The TVD Program vi

1. Introduction 7
1.1. Purpose 7
1.2. Customer Challenges 7
1.3. Prerequisites 7
1.4. Glossary 8

2. Selection 9
2.1. Selected Architecture(s) 9
2.2. Key Functions 9

3. Design 10
3.1. Researching IEC 61850 Support 10
3.2. Designing Tags to Support Full PowerSCADA Expert Functionality 10

4. Validation 12
4.1. IEC 61850 Tag Verification 12
4.2. Validation Environments 12
4.3. Time to Deploy 12
4.4. Reviewers 13

5. Configuration and Implementation 14

5.1. Find the Device’s IEC 61850 Reference and corresponding .CID file 14
5.2. Creating the Device Type 15
5.3. 17
5.4. Creating the Device Profile 18
5.5. Setting up the Project and Exporting the Profile 19
5.6. Importing the IEC 61850 Profile 20

6. Conclusion 22
7. Appendix 23
7.1. Supplemental Information and Reference 23
7.2. Connecting to your Device 23

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved

About The TVD Program
This document is a System Technical Note. An STN is one of the documents created as part of the
TVD activity. These consist of:
• TVDA: Tested Validated Documented Architectures
A Tested, Validated, Documented Architecture (TVDA) provides technical guidelines and
recommendations for implementing technologies to address your needs and requirements. This
guide covers the entire scope of the project life cycle, from the Selection to the Operation phase,
providing design methodologies and source code examples for all system components.
• STN: System Technical Notes
A System Technical Note (STN) provides a more theoretical approach by focusing on a particular
system technology. These notes describe when to use a particular technology, and therefore
support you in the Selection phase of a project. TVDAs and STNs are related and
complementary. In short, you will find technology fundamentals in an STN and their
corresponding applications in one or several TVDAs or TVDSs.
“TVD” itself is the set of activities that result in a document or documents that are produced to
describe how to achieve a goal for an offer or solution. These activities consist of Testing (or
Verifying), Validating, and Documenting. While these activities are part of normal offer development,
the difference with TVD is that they are applied with a specific goal in mind; Validation, for example, is
done specifically to ensure that the goal of the TVD output is possible. Another way of stating this is
that these activities are narrowly focused to ensure a high standard of quality for the system or
capability the TVD document describes.

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© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved

 1—Introduction

1. Introduction
1.1. Purpose
This document explains how to develop a PowerSCADA Expert device type for the IEC 61850
communications protocol.
This document is a System Technical Note (STN). It provides a Tested, Validated and Documented
set of instructions that will enable project execution teams to develop custom IEC 61850 device types
for Schneider Electric and third party IEDs.
On average, the device type setup detailed in this document took Xhours to develop. An experienced
application engineer, who has previously performed the procedure, will develop this device type in
even less time.

1.2. Customer Challenges

This document is intended to meet the following challenges:
• As an application engineer, I want a document that guides me through the development process
of creating custom IEC 61850 device types.

1.3. Prerequisites
1.3.1. System Prerequisites
Schneider Electric Software
PowerSCADA Expert version 7.40 SR1 Profile Editor
Operating System and Environment
The PowerSCADA Expert Profile Editor is supported on the following operating systems in both 32-bit
and 64-bit configurations:
• Windows 7 Professional/Enterprise
• Windows Server 2008 R2 Standard/Enterprise
• Windows 8 Professional/Enterprise
• Windows Server 2012 Standard/Enterprise

1.3.2. Competencies
This document is intended for readers who have been trained on, or have previously deployed,
PowerSCADA Expert. In addition, we recommend that you be familiar with:
• the concepts of IEC 61850 protocol
• the concepts of power monitoring
• Microsoft windows operating systems

1.3.3. Preparation
1. The reference document(s) for the IEC 61850 device you are integrating needs to be located and
understood well in advance of working through the Configuration and Implementation section

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 1—Introduction

in this document. These references include any .icd .SCD, or, .cid files provided by the
manufacturer in addition to the devices 61850 operations manual.

The device reference is the first step in the process of mapping the information recorded by
the device into a format supported by PowerSCADA Expert. The device reference will be
necessary to determine the tags that need to be configured for the device.

2. Determine the communication method for the device (TCP/IP or serial).

1.4. Glossary

Term Meaning

CDM (CDMTopics.xml) Common Data Model:used in Struxureware products to have a consistent

reference system for data labels and measurements.
Location: C:\Program Files (x86)\Schneider Electric\PowerSCADA
Expert\v7.40\Applications\AppServices\bin
IED Intelligent Electronic Device
IEC International Engineering Consortium
GOOSE Generic Object Oriented Substation Events

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 8

 2—Selection

2. Selection
This section is intended to help you determine if the IEC 61850 protocol would better meet the
customer’s needs than other industry protocols.

2.1. Selected Architecture(s)

IEC 61850 is prevalent in the electrical substation automation market and is finding its way into other
areas as its many benefits are realized. It has proved helpful in oil and gas, mines, wind farms and
industries that rely on distributed energy resources. The following graphic illustrates an architecture in
which IEC 61850 would be preferred over Modbus.

2.2. Key Functions

Advantages of IEC 61850
• IEC 61850 uses virtualized models for devices and data to help visualize the makeup of a
substation.
• Self-description allows devices to tell masters specific data that will be reported. This allows
masters to automatically configure itself for the device. Structured Data brings better reliability to
concentrators that have been known to lose information. Information is retained being embedded
as part of the naming convention, forwarded up chain by self-description and visible without
configuration using browsers.
• Fast peer-to-peer communications is obtained via Ethernet and replaces relay-to-relay wiring.
Assumes messages will not get through and retransmits periodically. Speeds over Ethernet are
greatly increased with individual request taking less than 10 milliseconds coupled with high
reliability.
• Powerful reporting features which unlike previous protocols is not based on polling but rather has
remote devices pushing out reports where data is structured in datasets defined by the client.
These reports will be referred to latter as either buffered report control blocks (BRCB) or
unbuffered report control blocks (UBRCB).
• Dramatic reduction of necessary wiring through use of GOOSE (Generic Object Oriented
Substation Event) messaging enabling fast and reliable applications like interlocking and tripping.

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 9

 3—Design

3. Design
This section explains design elements that are key to the function of IEC 61850 protocol

3.1. Researching IEC 61850 Support

For the purposes of correct device type design, the following aspects of IEC 61850 specification need
to be considered.

3.1.1. Object Model

Past protocols used data tags and various data types
like INT, FLOAT, etc, which had to be known upfront.
This is rather unintuitive. IEC 61850 makes use of a
model architecture that is more readable and
abstracts having to know the underlying data types
which simplifies the addition of data to our systems.
When referring to data in IEC 61850, we often speak
about the object model hierarchically as shown
below.

Example 1
The hierarchy above represents the circuit breaker
position status from a third-party IEC 61850
implementation. Note that:
• The logical node level represents a circuit breaker.
• Pos describes the switching position for this
particular breaker.
• The status of the position is stored as a Boolean in the data attribute.

3.2. Designing Tags to Support Full PowerSCADA Expert

Functionality
One of the key considerations when creating IEC 61850 device types is whether you need the data
utilized in the following components in PowerSCADA Expert:
• Reporting
• LiveView (available in version 7.4)
• Standard Genie Libraries
Data will not appear in these components unless the tags in the driver are compliant with the CDM, or
Common Data Model. The CDM was designed to enable different software platforms to use the same
data, and the newer components in PowerSCADA Expert access CDM mappings in order to present
data. The Configuration and Implementation section describes the steps involved in ensuring that
tags are ones that are ‘known’ by the CDM.
Data that is stored in tags that are not in the CDM will still be accessible to custom graphics genies,
trending, alarms, and other legacy PowerSCADA Expert components.

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 3—Design

Examples of noncompliant tags you may encounter include the following, which are hardcoded into
equipment popups. Failing to correctly address these tags will render the entire standard library of
genies unusable.
• Breaker position
• Breaker racked out position
• Breaker Earth switch position
• Matching fault / trip circuit supervision
• Trip status

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 11

 4—Validation

4. Validation
This section includes information about the lab setup used to test the STN.

4.1. IEC 61850 Tag Verification

All IEC 61850 device types were verified using a combination of PowerSCADA Expert and IED scout.
The IED used for this validation purposes was the SEL 351S Relay.
Each tag in PowerSCADA Expert was compared to its corresponding data object and data attributes
in IEDScout. The data below represents a general interrogation issued from IEDScout. To verify that
the device type creation was accurate, the values were then compared with those displayed in
PowerSCADA Expert.

4.2. Validation Environments

Stage Environment Validation focus

Lab Validation LaVergne Lab Device type Creation

TVD Writing Virtual Machines Device type Creation
Pre-validation Virtual Machines Document itself
Final Validation Virtual Machines Document itself

4.3. Time to Deploy

The time required to develop custom IEC 61850 device types will vary depending on configuration.
This includes the number of potential data objects, as well as the amount of desired tags. Other
variables include the need to add or modify entries within CDMTopics.xml (Location: C:\Program
Files (x86)\Schneider Electric\PowerSCADA Expert\v7.40\Applications\AppServices\bin)

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 12

 4—Validation

4.4. Reviewers
Lab Validation and TVD writing were completed by engineering staff. Pre- and Final Validation was
performed by technical support.

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 13

 5—Configuration and Implementation

5. Configuration and Implementation

This section explains how to configure PowerSCADA Expert to integrate with an IEC 61850 device,
and how to subsequently connect with the device.

5.1. Find the Device’s IEC 61850 Reference and corresponding .CID file
The first step in configuring the device type, as mentioned in the Prerequisites section, is to find the
IEC 61850 Logical Node Extensions. If the device is IEC 61850 compliant, the manufacturer should
have a document with a table listing the logical node extensions implemented for the device. After
you find the reference, familiarize yourself with the manner in which the IEC 61850 objects are
explained. This will expedite the rest of the commissioning.
The following is a part of the SEL-351S IEC 61850 specification. Note that the explanation for each
corresponding attribute name is listed. This explanation will assist in determining the correct CDM tag
to match during import.

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 5—Configuration and Implementation

5.2. Creating the Device Type

The first step in creating a device type is to import the .CID file into the Profile Editor.

1. Open the Profile Editor. Click File -> Import.

2. Choose your .CID file by browsing the Import File Location: Once selected click ok then Start
Import.

3. On the next screen select a filter type of either “Report Control Block” or “Functional Constraint”.
If you wish to import all possible tags select “Functional Constraint” and check all possible FC’s.
Otherwise select the report control blocks desired for your device and click continue.

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 15

 5—Configuration and Implementation

4. With the “Device Types” tab selected right click on your unmatched device type and “Create New”
choosing the appropriate category and subcateory then click OK.
5. With your device type matched begin matching any unmatched data as needed. To do so select a
view filter on the left or search a specific data attribute using the “filter” field located towards the
top of the import screen.
Example:
Below with the “Datasets” view selected filter on the attribute MMXU1. Doing so will display any
unmatched tags containing the specified attribute. In our example the manufactor chose a prefix
of “MET” or metering and prepended the MMXU1 attribute. To match all tags for this logical node
right click the logical node and click “Re-Match on Logical Node Pattern”. This will drop the prefix
and match the tag to its correct Profile Editor tag.

Repeat this process for all desired logical nodes.

5.2.1. Manually matching and creation of custom tags

If the steps above do not match all desired tags, the remaining objects must be manually matched.

1. Search the desired logical node. In our example, we chose the Protection 51 phase time-
overcurrent level 1. To locate this tag within our datasets, we search on the keyword “PTOC1”.
Refer to your devices logical node extensions for clarification of logical nodes present in your
device.
2. Select the data attribute desired and use the “Search Tags” search field to find the Profile Editor
tag that best fits the logical node. Our search was for “Protection 50/51,” which yielded the
following results.

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 5—Configuration and Implementation

3. Select the tag that best matches and click “Match.” In our example, Protection 50/51 unit1,
highlighted above.
4. In some cases, the Profile Edtior will not contain a tag suitable for matching. When this occurs,
select “New,” which will launch the Add / Edit Custom Tags Editor. Complete the fields as
desired, using the help if nessesary.

Repeat this process for all logical nodes, and then click Complete Import to
return to the main Profile Editor Screen. Your new device type is listed in the
Device Type Name drop down.

5.3.

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 5—Configuration and Implementation

5.4. Creating the Device Profile

In the Create Device Profiles tab:
1. Click Add/Edit; from the Options, click Create New. Click Next.

2. Name the new Device Profile

3. Move the Device Type into the Selected Devices pane. Click Next.

4. Move all of the tags into the Selected Tags pane. Click Next

5. Select Trending for all tags that require it.

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 5—Configuration and Implementation

6. Select the Driver Parameters desired for the device, this includes DataSets, File FTP, and Report
Control Blocks. These will be used later during instantiation of the device. If you are unsure
select all three parameters.
7. Check Close Wizard and click Finish.

5.5. Setting up the Project and Exporting the Profile

Select the project on which you are working. Click the Set Up Project tab, then click Add Edit.

8. Add the Device Profile to the Selected Project.

9. Save and Exit.

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 5—Configuration and Implementation

10. Export the Project.

5.6. Importing the IEC 61850 Profile

You need to bring the Profile into your Project.
1. Launch the Profile Wizard and select the Create an I/O Device option.

2. Select the IEC61850 profile. Click next.

3. Assign an Equipment name and I/O device name as well as any descriptive comment necessary
for the device.
4. Enter the values for any driver parameters previously selected.

To include:

• FTP address: This is the IP address of

the device being configured.
• FTP User Name: FTP username of
your device (see device manual for
details)
• FTP Password: of your device (see
device manual for defaults)
• BRCBs: List of Buffered Reports
separated by commas, e.g.:
CFG/LLN0$BR$BRep01,
CFG/LLN0$BR$BRep02
• URCBs: List of Unbuffered Reports separated by commands. Eg - CFG/LLN0$RP$URep01,
CFG/LLN0$RP$URep02

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 5—Configuration and Implementation

NOTE: If you are unsure of the details surrounding your buffered and unbuffered references open up
the devices .CID file and search for the string “ReportControl name”, in the document it will be
followed by the “name” field which corresponds to the BRCB or URCB in question.
<ReportControl name="BRep01" desc="Predefined Buffered Report 01" datSet="DSet01"
rptID="DSet01" confRev="1" buffered="true" bufTime="500">
5. Click Next.
6. Click Browse and find your previously imported .CID file. If your file is not visible make sure you
have the correct file type selected in the bottom right corner of the selection window as seen
below.

7. You should now be ready to add the device.

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 21

 6—Conclusion

6. Conclusion
The key to custom IEC 61850 device type creation is planning ahead and understanding both the
device and application. You must:
• Identify and understand your device’s IEC 61850 reference manual.
• Have available the Profile Editor Import help file.
• If Reporting or LiveView functionality is a requirement for your project, verify that tags have an
appropriate entry in the CDMTopics.xml .
If you have comments or suggestions about the contents of this document, please contact your
business development representative and ask that they be relayed to the PowerSCADA Expert team.

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 22

 7—Appendix

7. Appendix
7.1. Supplemental Information and Reference

Document or Reference Link or Location

IEC61850 Driver Help Chm file

7.2. Connecting to your Device

The following is a brief troubleshooting guide that may help you connect to your IEC 61850 devices.
• If your device is multi-protocol, verify that the device is set to communicate IEC 61850 via
TCP/IP. This is typically located in the hardware setup interface (e.g., IONSetup, SFT2841, SEL
QuickSet).
• If communication issues persist, enable the following Citect.ini parameter settings to address:
[IEC61850N] DebugCategory = PROT|STATE|DCB
[IEC61850N] DebugLevel =ALL
• Verify the communications of your device with a IEC 61850 diagnostics tool such as IEDScout
Additional information regarding debug troubleshooting can be located in the ”Troubleshooting”
section of the IEC61850 driver documentation.

© 2014 Schneider Electric All Rights Reserved 23

StruxureWare™ PowerSCADA Expert is a trademark of Schneider Electric. Other trademarks used herein are the property of
their respective owners.

Schneider Electric Industries SAS Due to evolution of standards and equipment,

Head Office characteristics indicated in texts and images in this
document are binding only after confirmation by our
35, rue Joseph Monier
departments.
92506 Rueil-Malmaison Cedex
FRANCE

Print:

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StruxureWare Power SCADA Expert

Version 7.4 2014