A REPOT ABOUT

IEC 61850
Communication Protocol
 By : LAHOUAL Yassine
 Branch : AII3
 Model : S.C.I

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Contents

Contents ..................................................................................................................................... 2
Introduction to IEC 61850 ......................................................................................................... 3
Purpose and Scope of IEC 61850............................................................................................... 3
IEC 61850 Substation Architecture ............................................................................................ 3
Intelligent Electronic Device...................................................................................................... 4
Basic Information Models .......................................................................................................... 4
What is GOOSE? ....................................................................................................................... 5
What is ACSI?............................................................................................................................ 5
ACSI Server (Services Operating on DATA) ................................................................ 5
Other Services ................................................................................................................ 6
The SCL language...................................................................................................................... 7
SCL File Types .............................................................................................................. 7
IEC61850 vs other Protocols ..................................................................................................... 8
Today’s Modern Substation ........................................................................................... 8
The Substation of Tomorrow ......................................................................................... 8
Levels of communications: ......................................................................................................... 9
Horizontal communication ............................................................................................. 9
Vertical communication ................................................................................................. 9
Protocol Mapping Profile ........................................................................................................ 10
Conclusion ............................................................................................................................... 10

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Introduction to IEC 61850
The IEC 61850 protocol standard for substation enables the integration of all protection,
control, measurement and monitoring functions by one common protocol. It provides the
means of high-speed substation applications, station wide interlocking and other
functions which needs intercommunication between IEDs.
The well described data modelling, the specified communication services for the most
recent tasks in a station makes the standard to a key element in modern substation
systems.

Purpose and Scope of IEC 61850

The 61850 standard was developed to:
 Utilize new technologies (Ethernet, TCP/IP)
 looking for Interoperability and Integration
 Simplify system configuration
 Enable sharing of measurement among devices
 Fast and convenient communication
 Lower cost for installation, configuration and maintenance

IEC 61850 Substation Architecture

 IEC61850-enabled IEDs get digitalized power grid condition data via process bus
and merge units
 IEDs communicate with each other using substation buses

RTU : remote terminal units

HMI : human machine interface
SCADA : supervisory control and
data acquisition
IED : Intelligent Electronic Devices
MU : Merge unit
VT : voltage transformer
CT : current transformer
CB : circuit breaker

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Intelligent Electronic Device
 Microprocessor-based controllers of power system equipment
– e.g., circuit breaker, protective relay…
 IED : a substation automation device performing SA functions by means of logical
nodes (LNs).
 Receive digitalized data from sensors and power equipment.

Basic Information Models

• SERVER (physical device)
A communication entity within an IED. It
allows access via the communication system
and its only access point to the data of the
logical devices and logical nodes contained in
the server.
– Communicate with a client .
– Send information to peer devices .

• LOGICAL-DEVICE (LD)
– Contains the information produced and
consumed by a group of domain specific
application functions, which are defined as
LOGICAL-NODEs .

• LOGICAL-NODE (LN)
– Functions in real devices like (circuit
breaker) .

• DATA
– Provide means to specify typed information

→ Object Name Structure :

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What is GOOSE?
Stands for Generic-Object-Oriented-Substation-Event
It is a mechanism for the fast transmission of substation events, such as commands,
alarms, indications as messages .
A single GOOSE message sent by an IED can be received and used by several receivers .

What is ACSI?
Stands for Abstract-Communications-Service-Interface
 None timing critical message transmitting
 Used for configuration, maintenance, log…

ACSI Server (Services Operating on DATA)

•DATA-SET
–The grouping of data and data attributes
–A view of DATA
•SETTING-GROUP
–How to switch from one set of setting values to another one
–How to edit setting groups

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•REPORT and LOG
–Describe the conditions for generating reports and logs based on parameters set by the
client
–Reports may be sent immediately or deferred
–Logs can be queried for later retrieval
•Generic Substation Event (GSE) control block (GSSE/GOOSE)
–Supports a fast and reliable system-wide distribution of input and output data values
•Sampled Values Transmission control block
–Fast and cyclic transfer of samples
•Control
–Provide client mechanisms to control the DATA related to external devices, control
outputs, or other internal functions
•Substitution
–Support replacement of a process value (measurands of analogue values or status
values) by another value
•Get/Set
–Retrieve or write particular Data Attribute Values
•Dir/Definition
–Retrieve Object References and definitions of all sub-objects.

Other Services
•Association
–How the communication between the various types of devices is achieved
–Two-party and Multicast
–Access Control
•Time Synchronization
–Provide the UTC synchronized time to devices and system
•File Transfer
–Defines the exchange of large data blocks such as programs

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The SCL language
Purpose: interoperable exchange of communication system configuration data between
an IED configuration tool and a system configuration tool from different manufacturers.
 The “IEC 61850 language used in the XML files” is called SCL language.
 Designed for exchange of information between engineering tools.

→ Example :

SCL File Types

•SSD: System Specification Description
–Data exchange from a system specification tool to the system configuration tool.
–Describes the single line diagram of the substation and the required logical nodes.
•ICD: IED Capability Description
–Data exchange from the IED configuration tool to the system configuration tool.
–Describes the capabilities of an IED.
•SCD: Substation Configuration Description
–Data exchange from the system configuration tool to IED configuration tools.
–Describes all IEDs, a communication configuration section and a substation description
section.
•CID: Configured IED Description
–Data exchange from the IED configuration tool to the IED.
–Describes an instantiated IED within a project.
 The communication section contains the current address of the IED.
 The substation section related to this IED may be present and then shall have
name values assigned according to the project specific names.
 Possibly a stripped-down SCD file to what the concerned IED shall know.

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IEC61850 vs other Protocols
Today’s Modern Substation
Many competing protocols each doing something slightly different.
“Latency more than 10minutes”

The Substation of Tomorrow

A unified approach with IEC 61850.
“5ms latency”

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Levels of communications:
Horizontal communication
 Multicast using GOOSE
 No confirmation
 Messages sent repeatedly

Vertical communication
 Reporting to SCADA /RTU
 Peer to peer using MMS protocol (TCP/IP)
 Server / Client model

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Protocol Mapping Profile
All but GOOSE messages and transmission of sampled values are mapped to MMS
protocol stack

Conclusion

IEC 61850 is a high-level description of substation automation and a powerful standard

with global support in the industry and many technical qualities to support engineering
workflows in the design, maintenance and operation of modern electrical infrastructure.

IEC 61850 is a migration from the analog world to the digital world for substation
 Union of data names
 Creation of a comprehensive set of services

IEC 61850 will become the protocol of choice as utilities migrate to network solutions
for the substations and beyond.

Extensible enough to support system evolution

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