Paper accepted for presentation at the 2011 IEEE Trondheim PowerTech
Application of the IEC 61850-7-420 Data
Model on a Hybrid Renewable Energy System
Nicholas Honeth*, Wu Yiming*, Nicholas Etherden**, Lars Nordström*
Abstract--IEC 61850 is the most promising standard for design
of substation communication and automation systems. Recent
revisions of the standard include support for modeling, and
control of Distributed Energy Resources (DER). This paper
presents an application of the IEC 61850-7-420 data model for
DER in the implementation of a control and energy management
system for a Hybrid Renewable Energy System (HRES). These
systems are beginning to prove their usefulness in providing
deployable electrical supply in locations where no such supply
exists as well as for backup power or power quality related
support functions. The motivation for applying the standard to
the design process is twofold; to modularize the design according
to an accepted international standard and to design for
interoperability with other IEC 61850 enabled devices and
SCADA systems.
Index Terms--IEC 61850-7-420, Hybrid Renewable Energy
System, Distributed Energy Resources, Data Model, Design
Methodology.
I. INTRODUCTION
I ntegration of renewable energy sources into the electrical
energy mix will require a number of novel solutions that
will be accompanied by new challenges in design, control and
optimization. It is reasonable to assume that the majority of
these renewable energy sources will exist in the form of
Distributed Energy Resources (DER) that are geographically
distributed according to various factors including weather
conditions, land ownership and local energy demand. The
term DER usually refers to a resource that provides a single
function or utilizes a single primary energy source. DERs that
are more heterogeneous providing various types of
functionality including storage as well as production from
various sources including wind, solar and hydrogen fuel cells
are often referred to as Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems.
HRES is a concept often used to provide a reliable energy
source for critical loads such as information and
communication technology deployed in areas with unreliable
or completely without electrical grid connection. [1] In cases
where the systems are grid connected or interconnected with
other similar HRES or DER, a standardized control and
communication interface is a highly desirable capability. The
The work is undertaken within a joint development project at HVV
(www.highvoltagevalley.se) and financed by the Swedish Governmental
Agency for Innovation Systems.
* Authors from KTH Royal Institute of Technology (e-mail:
nicholas.honeth@kth.se)
** Authors from STRI AB and Luleå University of Technology (e-mail:
Nicholas.Etherden@ltu.se).
978-1-4244-8417-1/11/$26.00 ©2011
IEC 61850-7-420 standard provides a data and communication
model specifically focused on DER. This paper presents a
design methodology that utilizes the IEC 61850-7-420 model
as a framework for designing and prototyping application-
specific control systems for HRES. This effort is motivated by
the complexity of controlling a heterogeneous system that may
use components from various vendors and have behaviors that
vary with many external conditions. The work presented in
this paper has been implemented and tested on a Research,
Development and Demonstration (RD2) HRES platform
developed by STRI AB in Sweden. The control system design
methodology and implementation is part of ongoing academic
work on the subject at KTH.
In the following section a summary of related work is
presented. Section III describes the RD2 HRES system
components and functionality. Sections IV and V explain the
design methodology and implementation followed by Section
VI which describes one of the HRES subsystems in more
detail. Section VII explains the integration of communication
functionality and finally, Section VIII describes the testing
process.
II. RELATED WORK
The review of related research and development efforts is
separated into sections; work focused on IEC 61850 and
HRES-related work.
A. IEC 61850 and related standards
The IEC 61850 series of standards for communication
networks and systems is intended to provide interoperability
for Substation Automation Systems (SAS) [4] . It provides
a specification for the communication between Intelligent
Electronic Devices (IEDs) and related SAS equipment.
Furthermore, it describes the requirements of the functions
implemented in SAS, not to attempt to standardize the
functions themselves but to specify the communication
between them.
A subset of the functions that are described in [4] fall into
the category of distributed functions. The standard defines
these as the set of functions where its subparts, called Logical
Nodes (LNs), are located on different physical devices. While
all functions communicate with each other, the process that
they are controlling, monitoring or protecting, distributed
functions are dependent on the execution of a set of defined
functional steps for their operation. The loss of any of the
constituent LNs could mean that the function would be
blocked or that it would be functionally degraded.

Fig. 1. Functional levels and logical interfaces in IEC 61850 [4].
The IEC 61850 standard also defines a functional hierarchy
where functions are classified in terms of how closely they are
situated to the substation process. Three main levels are
defined:
• bay level functions - refers to the group of functions that
are predominantly associated with a specific bay in the
substation instance.
• process level functions - interface directly with the
process, namely I/O functions such as data acquisition
and issuing of commands.
• station level functions - refer to functionality that
concerns the substation as a whole.
Figure 1 from [4] illustrates the functional hierarchy as well
as shows the numbering of the standard interfaces between
LNs in different levels and between LNs situated on the same
functional hierarchy level. Interfaces 2 and 10, shown in grey,
are remote communication. Interface 2 is for use in remote
protection functions on the same level on the control plane
while interface 10 is the vertical communication to SCADA or
other telemonitoring. The specification of communication via
the remaining interfaces is the core of the IEC 61850 standard.
Communication between LNs at the station and bay levels
occurs through interfaces 1 and 6, while between LNs within a
station or bay are 9 and 3 respectively. Interface 8 supports
direct communication between LNs in different bays, this is
used to support functions such as interlocking. Finally,
interfaces 4 and 5 provide the communication channel
between process and bay level functions. The use of a process
bus specified in IEC 61850 is discussed in detail in [6]. The
benefits that are pointed out are the increased level of
interoperability between low-level devices that is achievable
as well as the possibility for cost and operational optimizations
that are not possible using more traditional methods where
extensive copper wiring is required.
The IEC 61850-7-420 [5] extension provides definitions of
LNs that are specific to the modeling and control of DER [2].
The additional LNs provide the designer of DER control
systems with the structures required to model DER
components and their functionality. Works that implement the
2
IEC 61850-7-420 standard include aggregations of DER into
Generic Virtual Power Plants (GVPP) [3], active distribution
management [9] and by the same authors, integration of wind
turbines [10] also using IEC 61400-25 [8].
B. Hybrid Renewable Energy Systems
[13] shows the modeling and simulation of a similar HRES
system also using labVIEW, the difference with this example
is that the labVIEW environment is used to simulate behavior
of the HRES components as well as the control system.
Contrary to the work presented in this paper, [13] does not
use any particular standard when designing the data model for
the HRES simulation and control but is based on a model
presented in an earlier paper [12] by the same authors.
[14] looks at using a UML-RT real-time UML specification
for modeling the HRES which is used to develop a structural
model used for simulations.
A series of works focused on the control and management
of HRES include works focused predominantly on the
decision models to be used [15]. Optimization strategies for
HRES operation have been presented in works such as [11],
and [16] which applies a receding horizon strategy using wind
forecasts for maximizing profit for the HRES operator.
C. IEC 61850-7-420 Application to HRES
After a review of the literature, there do not appear to exist
many efforts with similar objectives to the IEC 61850-7-420
methodology. Such methods are likely to be practiced at
manufacturer R&D labs, however, amongst published
academic work this approach seems to be novel in suggesting
the use of the IEC 61850-7-420 data and communication
models as a design framework for HRES control system
development.
III. HRES DESCRIPTION
The HRES consists of three sources namely; photovoltaic
panels, a wind turbine and a hydrogen fuel cell. For energy
storage it is equipped with a battery and an electrolyzer with
connected hydrogen storage. The system is grid connected via
an isolation transformer. The possibility of an HRES local
load is also assumed in the design. A DC bus bar is used for
interconnection of all DC components. The DC bus is linked
to an AC bus by an inverter. An AC battery charger is used to
charge the battery. The solar and wind energy sources are able
to output both AC and DC.
The lowest level of control and monitoring is realized by
custom-built breaker and measurement modules referred to as
Control Modules (CM). The measurement and status signals
are connected to the analogue and digital input signals of a
National Instruments I/O module. Similarly, breaker control
signals are connected to the module’s digital outputs. The
control system is implemented in labVIEW and provides an
Ethernet interface for monitoring and control.
 3

Fig. 2. RD2 HRES system diagram.

(UML) model design follow the IEC 61850-7-4 LN classes
and data classes.
IV. IEC 61850-7-420 DESIGN INTEGRATION
The IEC 61850 standard provides guidelines for functional V. CONTROL SYSTEM DESIGN
description of automation systems. A rich set of Logical The design of the control system is divided into three main
Nodes (LN) are defined, these atomic functional blocks and steps. The first step is building the architectural
associated “pieces of information to communicate” (PICOM) communication model of the system according to the IEC
defined in appendix A of IEC 61850-5 form the building 61850 standard as interrelated LNs. Next, using the model
blocks for the control system design. Additionally, the made from first step, the IEC 61850 data model is translated to
standards documentation provides examples and templates to a UML model which is refined for implementation. Finally,
equip engineers with a framework for control architecture the design is implemented on a control system development
design. platform. In the cases presented in this paper, the labVIEW
In the case of application specific or embedded control development environment is used and deployed on the HRES
systems, designers who follow these guidelines and make use control system.
of the LNs and PICOMs relevant to the functionality they
wish to implement can more easily produce a concise and
understandable design. Furthermore, implementations
following the standard using the presented methodology
should exhibit a high level of reusability, saving development
effort in subsequent implementations.
The IEC 61850-5 document provides the requirements for
device models. IEC 61850-7-4 defines LNs and data classes
but does not provide LN specifications for the functionality
required for control of DER. For this purpose the standard has
been extended with the IEC 61850-7-420 specification for
DER. This document provides specifications that extend the
modeling to renewable energy sources, battery and hydrogen
energy system. All components and functionality of the HRES Fig. 3. IEC 61850 communication model of the battery energy
are represented as LNs in the design in order to provide the storage system.
necessary framework for the control system development as
well as to allow for interoperability with existing and future The LN information exchange and UML models describing
control and monitoring devices. the individual subsystems can become quite large. For this
The Logical Nodes (LN) and Unified Modeling Language reason we present the design for the battery storage system
only in detail in this paper. The remaining subsystems follow a
 4

similar pattern using the component and function specific (XFUS).

LNs. The battery energy storage system LN communication This level is lowest level of the IEC 61850 hierarchy and
model and UML models are shown in figures 3 and 4 functions do not communicate horizontally with each other.
respectively. Each function interacts with one or more high level functions.
Following the IEC-61850 paradigm, the control system is
divided into three hierarchical levels namely, process, bay and VI. BATTERY ENERGY STORAGE SYSTEM UML MODEL
station:
A. Logical Nodes for Station Level Functions
At station level, several functions such as remote
monitoring interface (ITMI), Human Machine interface
(IHMI), Remote Telecontrol interface (ITCI), Alarm handling
(CALH), Busbar protection (PBIF), Station level Automatic
process control (GAPC) and Station level Interlocking
function (CILO) are applied.
Here HMI can be regarded as a computer terminal which
allows for monitoring and manual control. In this particular
case the HMI implementation is also performed in LabVIEW.
The remote telecontrol interface can be run on a remote
computer with network connectivity. Through the network it
can also monitor and control the system HMI as describe
above. The implemented RD2 interface does not yet support
IEC 61850 communication but uses a proprietary protocol.
High-level protection and control functions such as busbar
protection and interlocking are implemented at this level.
These functions are applied to the breaker control strategies at
lower levels in the IEC 61850 hierarchy.
B. Logical Nodes for Bay Level Functions
At the bay level are the Measuring (MMXU), Overvoltage
protection (PTOV), Undervoltage protection (PTUV),
Overcurrent protection (PTOC), Bay level Automatic process
control (GAPC), Bay level Interlocking function (CILO),
Switch controller functions (CSWI), Battery system LN
(ZBAT), and Battery charger LN (ZBTC).
The measuring function is used to acquire the system data
such as current, voltage, status of switches and devices.
Overvoltage and overcurrent protection are used to protect
system devices if there situations arise. Normally, the device
specification determines the maximum voltage and current. To
ensure that devices are working safety and maximize working
life time, voltage and current should be kept within the
component recommended levels of voltage and current.
The automatic process control (GAPC) is used as the
interface between subsystems of HRES control system. It can
collect the measurements, status signals, events and alarms
Fig. 4. Static UML structure of the battery energy management
from measurement, protection and other functions such as the system.
station level automatic process control. The IEC 61850 model of battery energy storage system
The LN for the battery group (ZBAT) is used to give UML model is shown in figure 4. The Battery energy storage
information about the battery such as battery type, nominal system is composed of Battery Group (ZBAT), Battery
voltage of battery and so on. The LN Battery charger is charger (ZBTC), and DC port of Integrated energy controller.
implements the functionality to control and monitor the Battery group is composed of several battery units as the
battery charger. figure shows. Also shown are the DC ports controlling the
C. Logical Nodes for Process Level Functions charger (ZBTC) for the battery and the inverter (ZINV) for
AC output.
Lastly, in the process level is the Generic I/O (GGIO),
Voltage transformer (TVTR), Current transformer (TCTR),
Circuit breaker (XCBR), Switch functions (XSWI), and Fuse

VII. IEC 61850 COMMUNICATION
Implementation of the IEC 61850 communication interface
is beyond the scope of this paper. Integration of an external
IEC 61850 communication stack is currently in progress. The
interface is required to implement datasets that are directly
linked to the LN object instances in the control system. This
facilitates communication of measurement values, events and
commands over relevant protocols such as GOOSE and MMS.
Although the signals of the control system may need to be
mapped to an IEC 61850 communication stack independently
of the design, by separation into LNs this process is simplified
by harmonization of the controller design with the standard.
The alternative development method would be to implement
the control system without regarding the IEC 61850 model.
Once the control system is functional, a mapping from the
control system custom interface to IEC 61850-7 interfaces is
created. This practice is common especially among control
systems that were developed prior to the widespread adoption
of the standard and subsequently been adapted for integration
into IEC 61850 systems. A practical disadvantage of this
approach is that it can make the systems difficult for
integrators and engineers to work with as they must
understand the system from both sides of the mapping.
The work described here attempts to alleviate these issues
by including the IEC61850-7-420 data models at design time.
Using good object-oriented implementation methods, all
PICOMs can be made accessible using accessor and effector
functions. Correct use of these methods ensure that the
integrity of internal data and system state remain consistent as
well as simplifying the modularization of the control system.
VIII. VERIFICATION AND TESTING
The verification of the HRES system was performed in a
series of phases. Detailed logs of all measurements and state
changes are used throughout all tests for use in verification
and performance analysis.
A first step was to provide a barebones manual control
interface that allows an operator to manually control basic
system functionality, primarily the breakers on the CMs. As
this step required only configuration of the interfaces to the
CMs and development of a basic HMI, it was completed in a
short time and deployed on the system and used for
demonstration purposes as well as for hardware maintenance.
During the implementation of the LN-mapped
functionality, small simulation unit test were constructed for
the LNs. These tests simulated various inputs and states
allowing the developers to analyze the output for
malfunctions. The results of these tests assisted with
debugging real-time related problems such as “debouncing” in
the CILO interlocking LNs for example. The simulated unit
tests were valuable for identifying errors before connecting to
sensitive equipment that otherwise would have been damaged
by a malfunction or protection failure.
A first round of deployment tests evaluated the functioning
of the LN implementation interfacing with the actual
hardware. The conclusions from these tests were that the
implementation of the standard LNs was very successful and
5
that the effort in unit testing these had been well-spent. Some
coordination problems between the custom-implemented LNs
were however identified and prompted a minor redesign of the
GAPC LN implementation. The goals for the next design
iteration aim to move as much functionality as possible out of
the GAPC LN and to define this in terms of standard LNs
making the GAPC more streamlined and simpler to verify.
At the time of writing, the preparations for a second round
of deployment tests were under way. The expected outcomes
of these tests are a verification of the control functions under
stand-alone conditions. Records of weather conditions,
measurements and system state will be collected for longer
periods of time and will be used for further tuning of the
GAPC LNs in particular.
IX. FUTURE WORK
The methodology and development described in this paper
is part of an ongoing research and development effort. There
are many interesting goals for future work, the first of which is
the implementation of communication according to IEC
61850-8-2 to integrate the HRES into an adjoining IEC 61850
substation control system.
At the time of writing a case study investigating the
interaction between multiple systems of this kind is nearing
completion. The study aims to comment on the utility of
HRES systems providing power quality support services or to
increase the hosting capacity in rural distribution networks.
The IEC 61850 suite of standards provide a framework for
design and implementation of power control system up to the
“substation level”, for higher level control that requires
complex interactions between controller units we intend to
investigate the application of multi-agent systems (MAS)
control complimentary to the work presented in [17].
This paper presents a high-level overview and provides an
example of one subsystem of the implemented work. It would
be interesting to develop and document the design
methodology more formally. Furthermore, the use of
labVIEW as the development platform, while useful for
prototyping, should be replaced with a more generally
applicable implementation language such as C/C++. A library
implementing some common LNs and providing abstract
classes for implementation of LNs are a desirable product of
this work.
X. CONCLUSION
The development method proposed in this paper aims to
modularize the design of HRES control systems and to design
for interoperability from the architectural description phase.
The end result should be system which is capable of
seamless interoperability with other IEC 61850 enabled
devices and SCADA systems.
XI. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
The work is undertaken within a joint development project
at HVV (www.highvoltagevalley.se) and financed by the
Swedish Governmental Agency for Innovation Systems. STRI

AB is acknowledged for support during design and
implementation of the control system architecture as well as
for providing access to the RD2 platform for development and
testing.
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6
XIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Nicholas Honeth, (S’10) received the M.Sc. degree in
computer science from Chalmers University of
Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden and the B.Sc,
degree in electrical and computer engineering from
the University of Cape Town, Republic of South
Africa. He is currently a Ph.D. student at the
department of Industrial Information and Control
Systems at KTH - The Royal institute of Technology,
Stockholm, Sweden. His chief interests are in
intelligent control systems for electrical distribution
networks.
Wu Yiming, received the B.Eng.degree in Electrical
Engineering and Automation from Harbin Institute of
Technology, Harbin, China in 2009. Currently he is
working towards his M.Sc. at Royal Institute of
Technology, Sweden. His thesis work is on the
application of IEC61850 into ICT architecture of the
Research, Development and Demonstration (RD2)
platform as well as the design and implementation of a
control and monitoring system for it.
Nicholas Etherden works at STRI AB and is an
Industrial postgraduate student at Electric Power
Engineering, Lulea University of Technology, Sweden.
He has a MSc in Engineering Physics from Uppsala
University in Sweden, 2001. He has several years
experience from the development of a new IED family
for IEC 61850 as application engineer, project manager
and product marketing manager at ABB. Since 2008 he
is responsible for the STRI IEC 61850 Independent
Interoperability Laboratory and a member of IEC TC
57 working group 10 and UCA/IEC 61850 User group testing subcommittee.
Lars Nordström, (M’06) received the M.Sc. degree in
electrical engineering and the Ph.D. degree in
industrial control systems, both from KTH - The Royal
institute of Technology, Stockholm, Sweden. He is an
Associate Professor in Power System Management and
Director of the Swedish Centre of Excellence in
Electric Power Engineering, an industry-university
research center, located at KTH. His area of research is
power systems management and related information
exchange, including application of decision theory on
information system architectures and the application of ICT to power system
problems. Dr. Nordström is chairman of IEC TC57s Swedish committee, and
a member of the IEC’s Strategic group on Smartgrids as well as National
Cigre SC D2 representative for Sweden.