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Performance Evaluation of IEC 61850 GOOSE based inter substation

communication for accelerated distance protection scheme

Article  in  IET Generation, Transmission and Distribution · August 2018

DOI: 10.1049/iet-gtd.2018.5481

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Performance Evaluation of IEC 61850 GOOSE based inter substation

communication for accelerated distance protection scheme

Mohd Asim Aftab1, Saeed Roostaee1, S. M. Suhail Hussain1*, Ikbal Ali1, Mini S Thomas1,2 and
Shabana Mehfuz1
1
Department of Electrical Engineering, Jamia Millia Islamia (a Central University), Jamia Nagar, New Delhi -
110025, India.
2
National Institute of Technology Tiruchirappalli, Tiruchirappalli – 620015, Tamil Nadu, India.
*
Corresponding Author, Email: s.suhail.md@gmail.com, Phone: +91-9654746725.

Abstract: Distance protection is the most widely used protection technique for transmission line protection due to its
enhanced selectivity towards fault, fast response and availability of various relay programming algorithms. However, when
faults are detected in Zone 2 of a relay, instantaneous tripping is not possible and are cleared after an inherent time delay.
Sometimes this increased disturbance duration may lead to system instability, power quality problems or may result in
increased plant damage. To address this issue, communication assisted accelerated distance protection has been employed.
To have this communication for tele-protection through standardized and interoperable means an IEC 61850 GOOSE based
communication assisted distance protection scheme is employed. This IEC 61850 GOOSE based accelerated scheme must
meet the stringent performance requirements. Thus, this paper presents the experimental validation and performance
evaluation of IEC 61850 GOOSE based accelerated protection scheme by transporting GOOOSE messages through tunnelling
in inter substation for accelerated distance protection scheme. A system-in-the-loop platform has been developed to
analyse the End-to-End (ETE) delay performances of GOOSE messages under different WAN scenarios in this paper. It has
been found that for worst case scenario there is a significant operating time saving in the proposed scheme.

Keywords: Distance relaying, IEC 61850, GOOSE, Power system protection, System-in-the-loop.

case where instability does not happen, the increased

1. Introduction
Power system protection deals with identification and
isolation of faults occurring in the electrical network [1].
The main aim of power system protection is to safeguard
power system equipment such as transformers, generators,
transmission lines, feeder etc. from faults. Moreover, since
overhead transmission lines are exposed to environment,
there exists a greater possibility of occurrence of faults in
overhead transmission lines than any other power system
equipment [2]. Due to increased electrical energy
consumption and growing impetus towards distributed
generation [3], fluctuating power flows and varying levels of
short circuit currents occur in the electrical grid [4]. In order
to safeguard this system from faults and to increase the
reliability and stability of the electrical power system, a
robust, high-speed and sophisticated protection strategy is
required.
Among various protection strategies, distance
protection is the most sought over technique for protection
of transmission lines [5-6]. This is due to the fact that other
line protection strategies, such as overcurrent, are less
selective as compared to distance protection scheme. Also,
the coverage of distance protection scheme is less affected
by source impedance as compared to other line protection
strategies, such as overcurrent protection [7]. However
conventional distance protection scheme does not provide
instantaneous tripping for all types of faults on transmission
line [8-9]. The remote faults are normally cleared by the
conventional distance protection scheme after the Zone-
2time delay. The fault conditions during this time delay may
lead to system instability or cascading blackout. Even in
disturbance duration may give rise to power quality
problems and even damage to power plant. Alsoin literature,
it is reported that for every one millisecond saved in fault
clearing time, the stability limit of the transmission system
goes up by 15 MW [10]. Hence the time delay for Zone-2
faults has to be reduced. One of the solution is to provide
communication assisted accelerated distance protection
scheme in transmission line which can speed up the overall
fault clearing time [11]. In distance protection scheme, this
communication assisted accelerated protection scheme
requires signalling of ON/OFF signals and is realized using
tele-protection [8].
In order to have this communication assisted
accelerated distance protection scheme through standardized
and interoperable means, IEC 61850 [12] based
communication has been widely adopted [13-14]. IEC
61850 is a global standard for substation automation to
provide interoperable and standardized communication. IEC
61850 has emerged as a de-facto standard for substation
automation in utilities world over [15]. In recent years, IEC
61850 based substation automation research activities have
been well reported in literature and still substantial research
is underway [16-20]. IEC 61850 standard was initially
proposed for substation automation which was later
extended to utility automation [21]. With publication of new
parts such as IEC 61850-90-1 [22], it has been extended for
substation to substation (inter substation) communication.
Hence IEC 61850 based communication has been used in
different protection schemes between different substations
[23-24]. The advantage of adopting IEC 61850 for
accelerated distance protection scheme is to achieve

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accelerated protection by transportation of high speed
Generic Object Oriented Substation Event (GOOSE)
messages from the distant relay.
To implement the distance protection between two
substations, the GOOSE messages have to be transported
from one substation to another distantly located substation.
But the GOOSE messages are typically mapped on to data
link layers, hence cannot be transported over a Wide Area
Network (WAN). IEC 61850-90-1 recommends tunnelling
of GOOSE messages over a WAN for communication based
inter-substation protection schemes. In literature many
authors have explored inter-substation communication, but
performance evaluation of tunnelled GOOSE messages over
the WAN under different scenarios has not been reported.
This paper explores these methods and presents an
evaluation of different methods for different protocols using
system in loop simulation results. Also, in order to tunnel
GOOSE messages for inter substation communication, there
is a challenge of configuring the different IEDs located in
different substations. This paper presents the details on
process of exchange of SCL files for configuring IED in
different substations.
The major contribution of the paper are:
• IEC 61850 based accelerated distance protection
scheme.
• Evaluation of the performance of IEC 61850 GOOSE
based inter-substation messages over different WAN
architecture.
• The details on process of exchange of SCL files for
configuring IED in different substations.
• A platform for transition of conventional IEDs to IEC
61850 enabled IEDs to be adopted in wide area
protection schemes.
The paper is organized as follows. A brief description
of various accelerated distance protection schemes is
explained in Section 2. Section 3 presents IEC 61850 based
accelerated distance protection scheme. The laboratory
validation of the problem of delayed tripping for Zone-2
faults is demonstrated in Section 4. The performance
evaluation of inter-substation communication architecture
along with results and discussions is presented in Section 5.
Finally, Section 6 presents conclusion.
2. Accelerated Distance Protection Scheme
Distance protection scheme is one of the most sought
over technique by relay engineers for reliable protection of
transmission line because of its widespread usage in power
systems and availability of advanced distance protection
computational algorithms. The distance protection relays
measure the apparent impedance of the line based on the
voltage and current magnitude obtained at the relaying point.
This value is compared with a reach point impedance and if
it is found to be less, the fault is determined to occur in the
reach of the relay. Then, a trip command is issued to the
local circuit breaker to clear the fault [25-26].
However, in order to provide main and backup
protection, power system protection is divided into different
zones, based upon the reach of the relay. A relay detects a
fault in Zone-1 and operates instantaneously, while it
operates with a delay for faults in subsequent zones (i.e.
Zone-2 and so on). The trip command for a fault sensed by
the distance relay in its Zone-1 is based on traditional
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comparators which compare the impedance with the zone
reach impedance setting.
The inherent Zone-2 delay (typically 0.25 to 0.4
seconds [27]) in relay operation is not tolerable in some
applications due to two main reasons, sustained faults in the
feeder for Zone-2 delay may cause the system to become
unstable and in case of auto reclosing circuit non-
simultaneous tripping of relay could result in maloperation
where a transient fault causes a permanent lock out of circuit
breaker [27]. Thus, in order to clear the fault as early as
possible, operating time of the relay can be reduced by
employing communication based accelerated protection
schemes. Communication based accelerated schemes allow
considerable improvement in the overall fault clearing time for
any fault within the zone of protection [8]. In case of distance
relaying this communication based accelerated protection
schemes requires sending of only ON/OFF signals for fast fault
clearing for in zone faults. These signalling schemes is realized
using the tele protection equipment and are broadly categorized
into three main types, intertripping, Permissive tripping and
blocking scheme. In intertripping as a trip signal is received at
the receiving end relay it is directly transferred to the circuit
breaker for operation. This signal is not verified/supervised
with the receiving end relay operation. In Permissive tripping
scheme, tripping is only possible if the trip command received
through communication coincides with the detection of fault
signal at the receiving end relay. In Blocking scheme, tripping
is done when no signal is received from far end, but the relay
has detected the fault [12].
In order to realize these accelerated protection schemes,
serial communication and PLC communication is employed [8].
However, for achieving interoperability, consistency and
adaptability to existing substation infrastructure this
communication assisted accelerated distance protection
scheme must be through standardized means. This can be
achieved by adopting IEC 61850 as the communication
standard for accelerated distance protection scheme. IEC
61850-8-1 GOOSE has been employed for transferring the
trip signal to the distant relay. This requires a performance
validation of the IEC 61850 GOOSE based tele-protection
scheme to achieve distance relaying.
3. IEC 61850 based accelerated distance
protection relaying
3.1. IEC 61850: Overview
IEC 61850 is a communication standard series for
power substations developed by International
Electrotechnical Commission in the year 2000. IEC 61850
models power system devices using object-oriented
modeling approach in order to achieve data organization and
objects configuration. This modeling is mapped onto
specific protocols (such as Ethernet) which provides
consistency and interoperability. The communication
architecture of an IEC 61850 based substation can be
modelled by three generic types of IEDs, Merging Unit (MU)
IED, Protection and Control (P&C) IED, Breaker IED based
on the functions performed by them. The substations are
considered to be IEC 61850 automated and has their
Substation Communication Networks (SCN). The SCN of
substation with different bays and IEDs is shown in Fig. 1(a).
The IEC 61850 based SCN is divided into station, bay and
process level as shown in Fig. 1(a). The station level
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consists of operating station, engineering station and HMI
which are used for monitoring and control of the substation.
The information from the field is acquired in the form of
voltage and current samples in the MU IED and the breaker
IED at the process level. The P&C IED issues signal to the
breaker IED for any kind of faults arising in the substation.
The detailed description of SCN has been reported in
literature in [18-19].
The real time and mission critical messages in a
substation such as Sampled Value (SV) and GOOSE are
mapped onto the ethernet layer of the OSI model in the IEC
61850 standard. Fig. 1(b) presents mapping of various IEC
61850 services over OSI model. The Type 1 and Type 1A
are GOOSE messages which are time critical in nature such
as Trip, Close, Start, Stop etc. and are mapped directly onto
Ethernet layer to reduce the stack. The transmission of raw
data or Type 4 messages (SVs), which are continuous
streams of synchronized data from digital instrument
transformers, are also mapped on directly to Ethernet layer
with broadcast/multicast addressing. Type 2, 3, and 5
messages corresponds to ACSI applications such as normal
‘state’ information messages, auto-control functions,
transmission of event records, general presentation of
system data which are time-tagged messages, file transfer
messages etc, which require message-oriented services for
which MMS protocols with TCP/IP stack above Ethernet
layer are used.
Human
Engineering
Station
Machine Operating
Interface Station
Station Level
Bay Level
P&C IED MU IED Breaker
IED
Process Level
HV Switchgear LV Switchgear
devices
(a)
Sampled Values GOOSE TimeSync
(Type 4) (Type 1, 1-A) (Type 6)
UDP
Ethernet
Physical Medium (Copper, Co-axial etc.)
(b)
Fig. 1(a). A typical architecture of a SCN.
(b). IEC 61850 service mapping over ISO/OSI seven-
layer model.
In order to provide communication mapping as per
IEC 61850 standard hierarchical data exchanges,
standardized syntax and semantics, the concept of Logical
Nodes is used. Logical Nodes are group of data objects
which serve specific functions defined conceptually in IEC
61850. A group of logical nodes are combined together to
form a logical device according to the set of rules defined by
the standard. The naming convention of logical nodes is
based on the function carried out by them and is
standardized. Such as logical node, PDIS is used for
distance protection, MMXU is used for metering and
measurement purposes. Detailed description of logical nodes
used for distance protection has been given in subsequent
section.
3.2. IEC 61850 GOOSE based accelerated
distance protection for inter-substation
In order to provide distance protection between two
substations, the detailed message exchanges between the
IEC 61850 logical nodes has been detailed here. When a
Zone-1 fault occurs in substation 2, the distance relay senses
the current and voltage at the substation and issues a trip
signal to the circuit breaker, which is modelled by XCBR
logical node. The current and voltage samples are fetched by
the TCTR and TVTR logical nodes of IEC 61850. The
measurement and metering logical node, MMXU receives
the input from the TCTR and TVTR node and calculates the
three phase voltages and currents for the computing the
impedance value. The MMXU node also calculates other
parameters such as active power, reactive power etc. which
may be used by other applications. The PDIS node is used
for providing distance protection application. For respective
zones of protection, PDIS1, PDIS2, etc. logical nodes are
used for Zone-1, Zone-2 and so on respectively. The
respective zones of protection for the relays is highlighted in
Fig. 2. The PTRC logical node provides the signal
conditioning for the trip command which is then issued to
the circuit breaker for isolating the fault and PSCH logical
node is used for transmitting the signal.
The trip signal sensed by the Zone-1 relay is
transported to the far end i.e. Zone-2 relay for realizing the
communication based accelerated protection scheme. In
P&C IED MU IED Breaker
IED permissive tripping scheme the far end relay senses the fault
after its processing delay. However, since the fault line
beyond its Zone-1 distance setting, it does not trip
Electronic CT/PT and
devices transducer instantaneously. The inherent delay of Zone-2 is typically in
the range of 0.25 to 0.4 sec. The Zone-1 relay senses the
fault and sends a trip signal to its circuit breaker. Also, this
MMS Protocol Suite Application
(Type 2,3,5) Presentation
signal is transported to the Zone-2 relay with the help of
Session communication. The logic for permissive tripping is realized
Transport through a dual input AND gate and a dual input OR gate.
TCP The two inputs of the AND gate is the local relay sensing
Network
signal through PDIS logical node for its Zone-1 trip
IP command and the trip signal received through
Data Link
communication by PSCH logical node. If both the signals
are high then a high signal is generated on output of AND
Physical
gate and is sent to one of the input of OR gate. The other
input of OR gate is the local relay sensing signal for Zone-1
faults. Thus, the final output is high whenever the fault is in
Zone-1 of the local relay or for permissive tripping. Due to
the developed logic, if any of the inputs of OR gate is high
an output drives the circuit breaker for accelerated
protection scheme. The required links for depicting
accelerated distance protection for a fault near the substation
1 is highlighted in red color for the sake of clarity. The
scheme of IEC GOOSE based accelerated distance
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Substation 1
CT
PT XCBR Fault
TCTR
MMXU
TVTR
PDIS
PSCH
PTRC
Fig. 2.IEC 61850 based accelerated distance protection scheme for Permissive tripping.
protection along with the required logical nodes is shown in
Fig. 2.
The IEC 61850 based standardized communication
assisted distance protection scheme has been implemented
by utilizing the GOOSE messages transported between the
distantly located substations. The GOOSE messages are
burst type non-periodic event driven messages. Whenever a
fault occurs, protection devices respond to the fault by
generating burst of GOOSE messages. The occurrence of
fault changes the periodic heartbeat nature of GOOSE
message into burst mode. In burst mode, the transmission
interval of GOOSE increases sequentially such that after the
certain time of trigger of the event, the retransmission time
changes back to normal periodic nature as shown in Fig.3.
As an event occurs (such as a fault) the retransmission time
of GOOSE message is changed from To to T1, T2,
T3, ……Tn such that T1<T2<T3<….<Tn. Each message in
the retransmission sequence carries a retransmission timer
that informs the receiver of the maximum time to wait for
the next re-transmission. If a new message is not received
within that time interval, the receiver shall assume that the
association is lost. The setting for retransmission timer
parameter differs from various GOOSE clients and is
usually of the order of 0.5 ms [28].
cyclic GOOSE burst
……
To To T1 T1 T2 T3
time →
event
Fig. 3. GOOSE message retransmission in IEC
61850.
As an event occurs, the client issues a GOOSE request. A
retransmission timer is started. The retransmission
expiration timer indicates the sequence is to be retransmitted.
Upon retransmission, a GOOSE request is generated and
next retransmission interval is used. The gradual increase in
retransmission time in bursts is adopted in order to increase
reliability of the network, since GOOSE message conveys
critical commands.
Since, GOOSE messages are typically designed for
trip signals between Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) in
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Substation 2
CT
XCBR PT
TCTR
MMXU
TVTR
Zone-1 trip
PDIS Zone-2 trip
WAN
PSCH
PTRC
CB Trip
CB Trip Signal
Signal
a substation, they have a fast transfer characteristic. Also, at
times of fault, a high amount of data flows in the
communication network. The high priority and time
criticality of GOOSE messages allow overall performance
improvement in the protection scheme in case of faults. The
transfer time of a trip and block GOOSE message must be
well below 4ms and 20ms respectively [29].
In order to provide IEC 61850 GOOSE based
accelerated distance protection scheme, the GOOSE
messages are required to be transported between distantly
located substations, i.e. in a Wide Area Network (WAN).
However, the typical GOOSE message has only data link
layer and does not possess an IP/network layer. Thus, in
order to send inherent GOOSE message in a WAN, IEC
61850-9-1 recommends either the GOOSE messages must
be made routable by adding network and transport layers or
the GOOSE messages can be tunnelled through the WAN.
In this paper, for transporting the GOOSE messages over
WAN the concept of tunnelling is considered. Tunnelling
employs encapsulation method to transport data packets
from a private network to another network over an IP
network (i.e. public network such as Internet).
The router pairs at each end of WAN link forms a
virtual tunnel through which the data packets are transported.
cyclic GOOSE These routers wrap and unwrap the data packets (here
GOOSE packet) with TCP/IP protocols. Since the inherent
GOOSE messages does not possess an IP or network layer,
…… the WAN router subscribes to a particular GOOSE message
of interest from its LAN. This GOOSE packet is
To encapsulated with TCP/IP header and sent over WAN to the
receiving router which subscribes it and decapsulates and
republishes the GOOSE message onto the receiving LAN.
The process of wrapping and unwrapping of the data packet
at each end of WAN, introduces an extra time delay but at
the same time there is a significant reduction in network
routing delay since it establishes a virtual connection-
oriented service. Also, since tunnelling establishes a virtual
link between the two substations in a WAN, the IEDs
located in the two substations behaves as though they are
within the same LAN. This requires the configuration of
IEDs in two different substations by exchanging the SCL
files via the established tunnel. This has been explained in
the subsequent subsection.
3.3. SCL file exchange in tunneling
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(a)

SEL 421 Distance protection

Relay

Computer running
PSCAD
Omicron
CMC 256-6
(b)
Fig. 5(a). PSCAD Model of transmission line.
(b). Laboratory setup.

In order to provide interoperability and seamless
integration in an IEC 61850 process, Substation
Configuration Language (SCL) files are required to be
exchanged among the IEDs in an IEC 61850 based
substation. Configuration of IEDs occurs within a substation
by sending the IED Capability Description (ICD) and
System Specification Description (SSD) files to the system
configurator tool which contains the capability of an IED in
form of a blank template and the single line diagram of
substation with all the functional requirements respectively.
The system configurator tool, generates Substation
Configuration Description (SCD) file which contains
communication configuration of all IEDs in the form they
are configured to operate for protection and automation
functions in a substation. This SCD file is shared with all
substation devices and can be used for multiple applications.
The specific IED configuration is then generated from the
SCD file containing substation specific address of a
particular IED in the form of IED Capability Description
(CID) file. Thus, after this process, the complete substation
is configured and each IED is aware of locations of all other
devices in the substation.
The tunneling process establishes a high bandwidth
wide area connection between two different LANs which
are geographically distantly located. However, the sender
and receiver IED acts as if they are within the same local
area network and exchanges the .icd files required for IED
configuration. This requires the data flow from one IEC
61850 IED in a substation to its appropriate IED in another
substation. However, since the power network between the
two substations is meshed, this requires that the whole
power network information with all substations and IEDs
must appear as a single SCL file. For a normal engineering
purpose, the concerned IED is required to know a part of
information of the other system and not the complete
network information. Thus, it is appropriate to define a
‘system interface exchange description’ or SED file. This
SED file is exchanged from one substation to another and
contains a part of overall information of the system required
for a certain purpose.
Since switch is not modelled in SCL, the nearest IED
to the switch for each substation is known as the boundary
IED for another substation. Referring to Fig. 4, IED A3 in
substation 1 is the boundary IED for substation 2. Similarly,
IED B4 in substation 2 is the boundary IED for substation 1.
A group of IEDs engineered and configured by the system
configuration tool for a specific purpose is known as a
project. The engineering control right to configure the IED
i.e. to change the IED data model rests only with the IED
tool. The types of IED engineering rights can be ‘fix’, for
fixing the boundary IED, ‘dataflow’, for boundary IED data
flow addition within the capability of the IED, and ‘full’,
which allows complete engineering of data flows. The SED
file is transferred from one substation project to another
which augments the DATA into the data flow. The modified
SED file is returned to the originating substation which
helps to maintain the same consistent state among the
projects.
A case may arise when there are multiple SED files
are exported at different points of time. In order to remove
this redundancy of multiple versions of SED files, each SED
file has an identification and a revision index time of
modification. This allows to identify the latest SED file
version in such cases.
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IED B2 IED B1
Substation 1
WAN
Tunneling
IED B4
IED B3
IED A1 IED A3 SED file interchange
IED A2 Boundary
Boundary IED
IED
Fig. 4. SCL file exchanges in tunneling.
4. Laboratory validation of problem
A typical power system network was modelled using
the PSCAD software. The model consists of a 400 kV, 225
km transmission line, with two substations at each end.
Distance relays B1 and B2 are located at end of transmission
line along with CT/VT. The fault is added 0.14 s after the
simulation begins and is removed after 0.15s. The inherent
time delay for Zone-2 fault for relay B1 is set for 300ms.
The PSCAD model of transmission line is shown in Fig.
5(a).
The demonstration and testing of the delay in
distance relaying has been carried out in this paper on
laboratory testbed developed at Substation Automation
System (SAS) lab at Jamia Millia Islamia University, New
Delhi India. This test bed comprises of industrial grade
equipment such as IED (SEL 421), Omicron® (CMC 256-6),
manageable ethernet switch, PSCAD simulator as shown in
Fig. 5(b). The PSCAD simulator is used for development of
a power system model. The oculographic and status data of
power system transients is stored as COMTRADE file and
was playback on the real IEDs using Omicron CMC 256-6
relay testing setup.
For the case study carried out, a Zone-1 fault occurs
for relay B2 and Zone-2 fault for relay B1. The results of
recorded three phase voltages (in kV) and three phase
currents (in kA) are shown in Fig. 6(a)-(d). The IEDs were
tested for distance relay protection. The relay recordings for
relays B1 and B2 are also provided in Fig.6. It is found that
since relay B2 has a Zone-1 fault located at 25 km from the
relaying point, the relay trips instantaneously for the AB-g
fault. The fault was sensed at around 0.14042 sec. The
results conform to the typical LLG fault values. However, in
case of relay B1, since the fault lies in its Zone-2, it will trip
after the inherent time delay of 300ms i.e 0.3 s. The
recorded event of relay B1 shows the fault detected in zone
2 at around 0.140503. Thus, with these settings, the relay
will trip at 0.440503 s for the Zone-2 fault.
5. Performance evaluation of inter-substation
communication architecture
For evaluating the performance of inter-substation
communication network architecture, the transmission line
model with substations at each end discussed in previous
section, as shown in Fig. 5(a), is considered. The substations
are considered to be IEC 61850 automated. The two SCNs
are connected with each other through a wide area network
(meshed network of routers) via gateway routers.
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In order to evaluate the inter-substation communication
architecture between two substations a system-in-the-loop
(SITL) simulation in Riverbed Modeler [31] set up is
configured. The SITL experimental setup for validation of
proposed IEC 61850 GOOSE based accelerated distance
Substation 2
protection scheme is as shown in Fig. 7(c). The
experimental setup consists of three modules: 1. P&C IED
of substation 2 emulated by PC running IEC 61850 GOOSE
Sender software [31]. 2. Breaker IED of substation 1
emulated by PC running IEC 61850 GOOSE receiver
software [31]. 3. WAN network simulated in PC running
Riverbed modeler. In the Riverbed Modeler Network
simulator software, the two SCNs with different bays and
IEDs, are simulated as per [18]. And these SCNs are
connected through a Wide Area Communication network
containing routers spanning over a distance of 225 km. For
setting up the SITL simulation the P&C IED in substation 2
and the Breaker IED of the substation 1 are replaced by real
IEDs in the simulation with the help of SITL nodes of
Riverbed Modeler. The SITL node of Riverbed modeler
facilitates an interface which can enable the simulated
network to exchange data with a real network.
The communication network simulation tool used to
simulate a WAN, through which GOOSE messages
propagate between the source and destination IED, is a non-
real time tool. Thus, in this work, simulated IEDs are used
to publish and subscribe GOOSE messages which are
propagated through a WAN in simulated environment. The
advantage of using this scheme is that real GOOSE
messages from simulated IEDs are flowing in the simulated
network which gives near to real time results.
The traffic i.e. messages exchanged between
different IEDs in SCN (intra substation) and inter substation
for the proposed accelerated distance protection scheme is
given in Table 1. In simulation, the router gateways in SCNs
are configured with a GRE tunnel by making appropriate
settings in router attributes. The message exchanges
between different IEDs are as per the Table 1 are set in the
simulation. The simulation is run for 5 minutes and the End-
to-End (ETE) delays for different messages in SCNs are
shown in Table 2.
It is assumed that at t=120s a fault occurs in
transmission line which is sensed in Zone 2 of the P&C IED
in substation 1. The same fault is detected in Zone 1 by the
P&C IED of substation 2. Hence the P&C IED of substation
2 sends a GOOSE message to its breaker (intra substation)
as well as sends a GOOSE message to the far end P&C IED
at substation 1 via the virtually established tunnel in WAN
connecting the two SCNs. This is visualized by setting the
P&C IED of Substation 2, i.e. PC running GOOSE sender
software, to publish the GOOSE messages at t=120s. These
GOOSE messages are subscribed by the Breaker IED in
substation 1, i.e. PC running the GOOSE receiver software.
The GOOSE packets are transported from SCN 1 to SCN 2
via the tunnel. The sender and receiver transports data
packet through the tunnel in same manner as if they are
within the same LAN. The captured GOOSE packet at the
breaker IED of Substation 1 is shown in Fig. 8.
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Fig. 6(a) Voltage waveform at relay B2.

Fig. 6(b) Current waveform at relay B2.

Fig. 6(c) Voltage waveform at relay B1.

Fig. 6(d) Current waveform at relay B1.

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7(a). Relay data recordings for relay B1.

7(b).Relay data recordings for relay B2.

SITL
Riverbed Modeler Simulation Environment
Component
N
I Tunelling GOOSE message
C through IP network

GOOSE Receiver
(Replicating Breaker IED of Substation 1)

N
I
C
SITL
Component

GOOSE Sender
(Replicating P&C IED of Substation 2)

Fig. 7(c). Experimental setup for validation of GOOSE assisted distance protection scheme.

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Table 1Traffic in typical Substation Communication Network.

Application Source IED IEC 61850 Packet Size Destination Frequency
Message type (Bytes) IED (/s)
SCN Traffic
Sampled Values MU IED Type 4 - Raw data 126 P&C IED 4800
message
GOOSE P&C IED Type 1, 1A 104 Breaker IED -
Status Updates P&C IED, Type 3 200 Station 10
Breaker IED Sever
File Transfer P&C IED, Type 5 - 256 Server, P&C 1
FTP Breaker IED, Background traffic IED, Breaker
Server IED
Inter Substation Communication Network Traffic
GOOSE Trip P&C IED Type 1, 1A 104 P&C IED, 1
Signal Breaker IED

Table 2 Communication traffic in substation along with comparison of average delay for various substation messages.
Application IEC 61850 Message Packet Delay in ms
type Size Without Priority With Priority
(Bytes) Tagging Tagging
Sampled Values Type 4 - Raw data 126 Avg. Max. Avg. Max.
message 0.242 0.296 0.210 0.266
GOOSE Intra Type 1, 1A - GOOSE 104 0.58 0.68 0.36 0.39
Substation Trip signal
Inter 4.35 4.92 4.12 4.62
Substation
Status Updates Type 3, Status updates 200 1.9 2.4 1.1 1.6
File Transfer FTP Type 5 - Background 256 1.5 1.8 1.3 1.7
traffic

The major portion of ETE delay for transporting the

GOOSE message via tunnel is contributed by encapsulation
and decapsulation of the packets at the routers. The average
ETE delay for the GOOSE message transmission is
computed using Riverbed modeler and is found to be
4.35ms. While, the same GOOSE message is also sent to the
Breaker IED of the substation 2 has comparatively less
delay, which is due to fact that this breaker IED is in same
LAN of SCN of substation 2. Figure 9(a) shows the ETE
delays of inter and intra substation GOOSE messages.
The ETE delay performance of wide area inter-
substation communication networks under different
congestion levels is evaluated. From Table 3 and Fig. 9(b) it
can be noticed that congestion has a considerable impact on
the ETE delays in case of links with low bandwidths.
However, in the links with high bandwidths the effect of
congestion is minimal. From the obtained results, it can be
inferred that links with higher capacity have comparatively
equal delay levels for varying congestions. For example,
consider the E1 link which has a capacity of 2.048 Mbps,
has same delay for 25%, 50%, 75% congestion levels. On Fig. 8. GOOSE packet.
the contrary, the DS0 links which has bandwidth of 64 kbps
are not suitable for this accelerated distance protection In order to evaluate the performance of ATM and
scheme for long distances as they result in higher ETE SONET ring technologies for transporting GOOSE
delays. Whereas the links with higher bandwidth in order of messages in the WAN, links of different capacities were
Mbps will have acceptable ETE time delays for message simulated in Riverbed Modeler. The ATM is an independent
exchanges over longer distances. communication technology and is evaluated over the
SONET based ring. The SONET link is designed for high
speed communication between regional or national level
networks. ATM technology was evaluated over SONET
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rings to determine the performance for GOOSE message
transmission. Also, the point to point protocol (PPP) is
widely used WAN technology and is evaluated over a
SONET. The results provided a reduced ETE delay and is
tabulated in Table 4. From the results, it can be inferred that
major portion of delay in transporting the GOOSE packet
over tunnel is contributed by encapsulation and
decapsulation delay at the end routers. The reduction in
delay is by 1ms on an average from the previous results and
can be attributed to SONET high speed link technology.
The resultant time saving in the proposed GOOSE
based accelerated distance protection scheme can be
computed as follows. It is found that a typical processing
delay of the relay is around 15ms. From Table 3, for the
worst-case scenario i.e. using DS0 link with 75% congestion
rate, maximum latency in GOOSE messages is found to be
48.5ms. Thus, the overall delay would be the sum of
communication delay and the processing delay of the relay
which is 63.5ms i.e. around 0.0635s. This value is found to
be far less than the operational delay of Zone-2 relay i.e.
0.440503s. An approximate time saved with respect to
conventional scheme is 0.377003s.

A. Packet Loss/Delay Analysis:

This subsection provides an analysis of the protection
algorithm due to any losses or delays in the critical GOOSE
messages. As discussed in previous sections, GOOSE
messages are non-periodic event driven messages. They are
generated due to occurrence of an event (such as fault) and
are issued in bursts from the GOOSE publisher to the
GOOSE subscriber. A separate analysis for lost and delayed
packets has been presented.
I. GOOSE packet lost in transmission.
In this scenario, an analysis has been done for a lost GOOSE
(a) packet which could occur due to traffic congestion,
temporary connection failure etc. As a fault occurs in the
network, a GOOSE packet is generated in the form of burst
as shown in Fig. 3. Also,, after issuing a GOOSE packet a
retransmission timer is started. If the first GOOSE packet is
not received, another packet is retransmitted after the
expiration of retransmission timer. If the first GOOSE
packet is lost, another GOOSE packet is retransmitted after
a delay of T1 which is of the order of ms (typically 0.5ms).
Assuming both the first lost packet and the second
retransmitted packet are propagating through a same
network, it is found that the lost packet reaches after a lapse
of 0.5ms. Thus, the lost packet accounts for an additional
(b) 0.5ms delay to the tripping delay. Considering the average
Fig. 9 (a) ETE delay for intra-substation and inter- delay of 4.35ms and 4.12ms for non-priority tagging and
substation GOOSE message. priority tagging of intersubstation GOOSE message
(b). Average ETE delay for various types of WAN links. respectively, the net average delay after accounting the lost
packet is computed as 4.85ms and 4.62ms for non-priority

Table 3ETE GOOSE delay for different types of WAN links under different congestion levels.
GOOSE Delay (in ms)
Type of links/ DS0 (64 DS1 (1.544 DS3 (44.736 E1 E3 (34.368
Capacity→ kbps) Mbps) Mbps) (2.048 Mbps)
Congestion Mbps)
No Congestion 15.23 7.31 4.35 6.15 4.82
25 % congestion 18.25 8.2 4.35 6.10 4.82
50 % congestion 26.8 8.8 4.20 6.10 4.77
75 % congestion 48.5 8.8 4.13 6.10 4.72

Table 4 ETE GOOSE delay for ATM and SONET networks

GOOSE Delay (in ms)
Type of OC1 OC3 OC12 OC24 OC48
links/Capacity(Mbps) (47.24) (148.61) (566.89) (1244.16) (2488.32 )

ATM over SONET 3.23 3.22 3.11 3.11 3.11

PPP over SONET 3.36 3.35 3.35 3.33 3.31

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tagging and priority tagging respectively.
II. GOOSE packet delayed in transmission.
In this scenario, an analysis has been done for a delayed
GOOSE packet in transmission. As explained in previous
section, each burst of GOOSE message has its a
retransmission expiration timer. If the delayed packet is not
received within the retransmission expiration timer, a new
packet is retransmitted and the delayed packet is discarded.
Considering the same scenario as case I, if a packet is
delayed by less than 0.5ms such as 0.22ms (for example),
the net average delay accounted is 4.57ms for non-priority
tagging and 4.34ms for priority tagging GOOSE messages.
However, if the packet is delayed more than 0.5ms and the
retransmitted packet reaches first, the delayed GOOSE
packet would be discarded and the retransmitted packet
would do the job.
6. Conclusion
The performance evaluation for IEC 61850 GOOSE
based inter-substation accelerated distance protection
scheme is demonstrated in this paper. Employment of the
proposed scheme results in significant time saving in fault
clearance and thus helps to improve system stability, reduce
power quality issues and prevents plant damage. In order to
transport inherent GOOSE messages, with no IP/network
layer, for inter-substation communication the concept of
tunnelling has been used in this paper. A system-in-the-loop
set up for analysing the ETE delay performances of GOOSE
messages for different scenarios has been reported.
Performance evaluation in terms of end to end delay for
different types of WAN technologies has been reported and
from obtained results it is concluded that links with lower
bandwidths are not suitable for long distances as they may
result in high end to end delay.
This study validates the stringent performance
requirement of IEC 61850 GOOSE based scheme for
achieving accelerated distance protection. The cyber
security aspect of the communication network is left as a
future scope of this work and it needs to be evaluated in
order to prevent any kind of network intrusions which could
lead to false relay operations.
7. Acknowledgement
This work has been supported in part by Council of
Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR), India.
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