by Christoph Brunner, Switzerland
IEC 61850 update
27
IEC 61850
and the PSR
Committee
The cooperation between different
standardization industry organizations plays a very important role in
moving forward the application of IEC
61850 in the field of electric power
systems protection and control.
While writing this column I
am in flight back from the IEEE
PSRC meeting in Orlando, Florida.
That meeting marked another
important milestone for IEC
61850 – in particular for the process
connection.
As part of that meeting, a
"plugfest" took place, where
interoperability based on the
draft profile for use of IEEE 1588
precision time protocol in power
system applications was verified.
Several manufacturers of Ethernet
switches and clocks tested for the
second time interoperability and
were successful. This time, the tests
used typical topologies as they are
found in our substation automation
applications and they tested as well
the behavior in case of failures with
the synchronization masters.
The story behind that activity
is an example of good cooperation
between IEC TC57/WG10 and
the IEEE Power Systems Relaying
Committee. Within the scope of IEC
61850-9-2, the need for a solution
for accurate time synchronization
over Ethernet for the purpose of
synchronizing the sampling of
analog values was identified some
time ago. IEEE 1588 provides the
framework for such a solution. Since
IEEE 1588 provides several options,
it was required to decide on what to
use. At the same time, in IEEE-PSRC
it was intended to use IEEE 1588 for
synchrophasors. While the TC57/
WG10 is anyway overloaded with
work and does not necessarily have
the expertise on 1588, it was agreed
to have IEEE-PSRC develop that
profile and use it later within IEC
61850 – probably by reference to
that profile. The only condition was
that the profile was needed soon.
So IEEE-PSRC, subcommittee-H
established a task force and later a
working group to develop a standard
(C37.238) with that profile. During
the meeting in January, the working
group could basically complete that
profile and expects to go to ballot
in the spring. Once that profile is
finalized, it will be an important
achievement towards the use of
IEC 61850 process connections to
current and voltage transformers
with the samples transmitted over
Ethernet and a network structure to
all interested subscribers.
But that is not the only
w o r k done in the P SRC. In
particular, the subcommittee H has
several working groups and task
forces addressing issues related to
IEC 61850:
Working group H5 prepares a
specification of a common format for
IED configuration data. The result is
intended to be used for extensions
of the logical nodes defined in IEC
61850 with settings.
Working group H16 prepares
COMFEDE - Common Format for
Event Data exchange - This will be
a standard defining an XML based
representation of vent data from
IEDs. It is based on IEC 61850 data
model and on the log service defined
in IEC 61850 and is a valuable
complement to IEC 61850.
Finally, I chaired a task force
that looked into possibilities to
link COMTRADE, IEC 61850
and CIM in a way to support an
automatic association of data from
a COMTRADE channel with the
point in the power network where
that information has been captured.
The scope for that work has been
defined. As a next step, a working
group shall be established that will
prepare a report. The work should
provide significant benefits when
analyzing the disturbance records
captured during a major system
event.
These are just a few examples
where work done in PSRC is
directly related to IEC 61850 and
where input from experts all over
the world is welcome.
To conclude, I have a remark
concerning the column I wrote in
the last PAC world where I discussed
the question whether IEC 61850 is
a protocol. That column resulted
in a few letters to PAC world, but
it has also triggered an extensive
discussion with a long e-mail
thread among the members of the
working group 10. This shows that
in the mean time, PAC World has
become an important part of our
community.
Christoph Brunner graduated as
an Electrical Engineer at the Swiss
Federal Institute of Technology in
1983. He is President and Chief
Technology Officer of UTInnovation
in Zug, Switzerland. Before, he
worked as a project manager at
ABB Switzerland Ltd in the business
area Power Technology Products in
Zurich where he was responsible for
the communication architecture of
the substation automation system.
He is Convenor of working group
(WG) 10 and member of WG 17, 18
and 19 of IEC TC57. As a member of
IEEE-PES and IEEE-SA, he is active in
several working groups of the IEEEPSRC. He is International Advisor to
the board of the UCA International
Users Group.
PAC.MARCH.2010