Proceedings of the WA5.

5
2005 IEEE Conference on Control Applications
Toronto, Canada, August 28-31, 2005

Control and Automation of Power System

Substation using IEC61850 Communication
T.S. Sidhu, Fellow, IEEE, Pradeep K Gangadharan, Student Member, IEEE

Abstract-- Automation of control and management of a communicable IEDs for protection, including logical
power system substation is becoming more and more popular. algorithms and networking multiple relays has become
Overcoming the initial hiccups in its acceptance due to higher easier. This is found to be a cost-effective solution as
costs and apprehensions on reliability, more utilities and
compared to providing dedicated devices for control and
industries are keen in exploring this option now. In the scenario
of high pressure to improve the efficiency and productivity of automation, which is duplicating the resources in a
the power system substation, substation automation is proving substation.
to be a cost-effective solution. Use of communication in substations has been in vogue
With the modern protection relays becoming more powerful, for more than two decades now. From the time when
being integrated with more functions, they have the potential to communication was used only to collect data offline we have
play a key role in implementing control & automation in come a long way and today we see that much more vital real-
substations. Finalization of the new communication protocol,
IEC61850, for Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), automation
time functions are being realized through communication.
and control has become possible, which, when implemented can One major deterrent for the use of communication in
ensure a reliable and efficient power system substation automation and control has been the absence of a
This paper discusses the scope of the new communication common communication protocol that was designed for this
protocol for substation IEDs, IEC61850 and explains the application. Though many utilities have been using
implementation of few control and automation applications communicable IEDs and interlinking them, it requires huge
presented in the standard.
investments to engineer such systems and maintain them.
Experts say that around US$82 billion was spent on
Keywords: Substation control and automation, Intelligent
Electronic devices, Substation communication, IEC61850, Peer- application integration in 1998, which amounted to 40% of
to-peer communication, GOOSE messages the corporate IT budgets (Forrester 1999)[3]. Added to that,
the utilities were ending up with technical bottlenecks in
I. INTRODUCTION
interlinking devices from various manufacturers, who

C ontrol and automation of power system substation has

undergone dramatic changes since the introduction of
powerful micro-processing and digital communication in
offered devices with different communication protocols.
Inter-operability was a major issue. Also, addition of
multiple protocol converters and absence of specific
substations. Smart, multi-functional and communicative standards on the performance requirements of such
relays, more popularly called as IEDs (Intelligent Electronic communication protocols and systems, resulted in the user
Devices) have replaced traditional panels with dedicated finally ending up with a system much different from what
stand-alone relays, meters, control switches, mechanical was originally intended.
status indicators and annunciators. IEDs are proving to be a IEC started work on developing a common standard for
vital link in control and automation of power systems due to substation communication in 1994. At the same time IEEE
their strategic location and reliability. With increasing efforts started a similar work on developing a common
to bring the reliability of the other components of the control communication protocol called UCA. In 1997 both IEEE
and automation system, like communication links, switches and IEC agreed to work together and develop a common
also to the level of the IEDs [4], complete elimination of standard for substation communication, IEC61850[5]. This
hardwired systems is appearing to be a possibility. standardization process involved leading product/system
Though the primary purpose of most of these IEDs is to manufacturers and also major utilities. The primary objective
protect the power system equipment against damages during of the group was to develop a communication protocol for
faults, their location in the power system has made it an ideal substation communication, which will ensure,
device to implement control and automation systems as well. x Interoperability: The ability for the IEDs from one or
With the introduction of microprocessor based several manufacturers to exchange information and use
the information for their own functions.
The authors are presently with the University Of Western Ontario, London, x Free configuration: The standard shall support
Canada different philosophies and allow free allocation of

0-7803-9354-6/05/$20.00 ©2005 IEEE 1331

 functions. with respect to, engineering process and its supporting tools,
x Long term stability: The standard shall be future proof, life cycle of IEDs and overall system, and quality assurance.
i.e., it must be able to follow the progress in Part5: This part defines the performance requirement of
communication technology as well as evolving system different functions being implemented using communication.
requirements All known functions are included. This part is the basis on
which the architecture of the communication network and
The IEC 61850 standard is now available and major the applications that can be implemented for a given network
manufacturers have started offering IEDs with this new are to be decided.
protocol. Implementation of this protocol is expected to Part6: Specifies a file format for describing
solve many implementation bottlenecks faced till now and communication related IED configurations and IED
also reduce cost. More and more applications, which were parameters, communication system configurations,
till now realized using hardwired logics will henceforth be switchyard (function) structures, and the relations between
possible using the IEDs employed with this communication them. The main purpose of this format is to exchange IED
protocol. This paper introduces the new communication capability descriptions and SA system descriptions, between
protocol IEC61850 and goes on to explain the IED engineering tools and the system engineering tool(s) of
implementation of few substation control and automation different manufacturers in a compatible way. The defined
functions using this protocol. language is called Substation Configuration description
Language (SCL). The configuration language is based on the
II. IEC61850 STANDARD
Extensible Markup Language (XML) version 1.0.
A. Description of IEC61850 standard Part 7-1: The purpose of this part of the IEC 61850
The standard that defines the new IEC61850 protocol is standard is to provide “ from a conceptual point of view “
divided into 10 parts as shown in figure 1 assistance to understand the basic modeling concepts and
description methods.
Part 7-2: Applies to the ACSI (Abstract Communication
Service Interface) communication in substations and feeder
applications. The ACSI provides.
a) Abstract interface describing communications between
a client and a remote server.
b) Abstract interface for fast and reliable system-wide
event distribution between an application in one device
and many remote applications in different devices and
for transmission of sampled measured values.
Part 7-3: Specifies common attribute types and common
data classes related to substation applications. This standard
is applicable to the description of device models and
functions of substations and feeder equipment.
Part 7-4: This part specifies the information model of
devices and functions related to substation applications. In
particular, it specifies the compatible logical node names and
Fig. 1: IEC61850 standard parts data names for communication between IEDs. This includes
the relationship between Logical Nodes and Data. The
Part1: This part provides an introduction and overview to names defined in this document are used to build the
the IEC 61950 standard. hierarchical object references applied for communicating
Part2: Contains the glossary of the terminology and with IEDs in substations and on distribution feeders. The
definitions used in the context of substation automation naming conventions of IEC 61850-7-2 are applied in this
system in the different parts of the standard. part.
Part3: Gives the general requirements of the Part 8-1: This part specifies a method of exchanging
communication network with emphasis on their quality time-critical and non-time-critical data through local-area
requirements. It also specifies the environmental operating networks by mapping ACSI to MMS and ISO/IEC 8802-3
conditions to which the communication network devices frames.
should conform, to ensure reliable operation. Part 9-1: This part of IEC 61850 specifies the mappings
Part4: Pertains to the system and project management for the communication between bay and process level and it

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specifies a mapping on a serial unidirectional multi-drop
point to point link in accordance with IEC 60044-8.
Part 9-2: Defines the Specific Communication Service
Mapping (SCSM) for the transmission of sampled values
according to the abstract specification in IEC 61850-7-2.
The mapping is that of the abstract model on a mixed stack
using direct access to an ISO/IEC 8802-3 link for the
transmission of the samples in combination with IEC 61850-
8-1.
Part 10: To specify the procedure for conformance
testing of products implemented with this communication Fig. 3: Organization of Logical device, logical nodes, data classes and data
protocol.
Every control or automation function (infact any
B. Approach of IEC61850 function) can be broken down to a collection of different
To meet the basic requirements of the standardization logical nodes. These logical nodes can be housed in a single
process, that is interoperability and to be future proof, the IED or distributed among multiple IEDs. All the different
IEC61850 standard is built over a standard OSI 7 layer logical nodes of a specific application are interconnected
model. The data services and applications related to the using logical connections. These logical connections can be
power system substation are built above the 7th layer over a single or multiple physical connections.
(application) of the OSI model. This ensures that the
substation communication can evolve with the evolution of
communication technology using its strength. Figure 2
below shows this approach to the standardization process.

Fig. 4: Building functions from multiple logical nodes [1]

Figure 4 illustrates how functions are realized using

logical nodes and logical connections. In this example two
Fig. 2: IEC61850 approach to standardization
function, F1 and F2 are shown. Function F1 is split into 5
logical nodes (LN1 to LN5). Function F2 is split into three
The data models are divided into logical groups called
logical nodes LN3, LN5 and LN6. These logical nodes are
devices, nodes, classes and data.
housed in three different physical devices (IEDs), PD1, PD2
Each functional element is defined as a logical node. A
and PD3. The logical node LN0 is the node carrying the
physical device (IED) can house multiple logical nodes in it.
identification of the physical device. The logical connections
Each logical node is a collection of standard data classes.
between the logical nodes are marked as LC and the physical
The possible values that can be assigned to the data classes
connections between the physical devices are PC.
are called as data. Figure 3 pictorially represents the physical
device, logical nodes, data classes and data. C. Data flow among the logical nodes
Depending on the application, the logical data flow
among the different logical nodes and their performance
requirement may vary. The data flow can be broadly
classified into one of the following types;
x Polling – When a logical node from the client requests
the logical node from the server for data transfer at
periodic intervals is called polling. A typical example
would be when a master station polls for metering

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 values at periodic intervals from an IED. The advantage III. COMMUNICATION IN POWER SYSTEM SUBSTATION
of this method is that the traffic on the network is fixed Communication in power systems is used in many
and also multiple clients can get the data. However this applications. These applications can be broadly classified
technique has the limitation of not being able to cater to into two, based on geographical spread as:
time critical applications and also events occurring x Inter substation: Applications involving exchange of
between two consecutive polling can be lost. data between substations over a wide area network
x Unbuffered reporting – In this technique a logical (WAN) is classified under this category
node housed in the server sends data to one or multiple x Intra substation: Applications involving exchange of
logical nodes. The data that is being transmitted is not data within a substation over a local area network
buffered in the server. Thus in the event of momentary (LAN) is classified under this category
communication interruption all events occurring at that
time is lost. However this technique can be used for Based on the time criticality of the data transfer, the IEC
time critical applications. 61850 classifies the messages into 5 types
x Buffered reporting – This is similar to the above case x Type 1: Fast messages - This type of message
with the exception that the server buffers data for a typically contains a simple binary code containing
limited time. Thus the chances of missing events during data or command. The receiving IED will act
momentary interruption in communication are remote. immediately on receipt of these messages. Examples
x Log – This type of data transfer occurs when the servers of this type of message are, trip, close, start, block,
send data on the occurrence of events and the clients etc. The total transmission time of these messages
store them in a sequential order. can be anywhere between 3 to 100 ms depending on
x Peer to peer data value publishing – This is a bi- the application.
directional data transfer that occurs between logical x Type 2: Medium speed messages - In this type of
nodes. The initiation of the data transfer depends on the message, time at which the message originated is
application that could be triggered on satisfying any pre- important but the transmission times are relatively
defined condition. Exchange of generic object oriented less critical. These messages are time tagged using
substation events (GOOSE), or transfer of raw sample the IEDs local clock. Example for this type of
data from instrument transformer to IEDs are examples message is the rms value of measured signals.
of this type of data transfer. Typically the total transmission time in this case shall
be less than 100ms.
x Type 3: Low speed messages - Complex messages
which are time tagged and which require a
transmission time of less than 500ms are classified
under this type. Data like event recording, slow speed
auto control functions are examples of this type.
x Type 4: Raw data - Sampled raw data from the
instrument transformers (CTs and PTs) are classified
under this type. The data in this case is a continuous
stream of digitized data.
x Type 5: File transfer functions - This type of
message is used to transfer large files of data for
Fig. 5: Interface between IEC61850 object model and OSI stack
recording and information purpose. Setting files,
disturbance record files are examples of this type of
To meet the service and performance requirements of the messages.
different types of data transfer, different data models are x Type 6: Time synchronization messages - This type
mapped to the communication services as shown in figure 5. of message is used to synchronize the internal clocks
Time critical data like GOOSE messages and raw sample of different IEDs that are networked together.
data are sent directly to the data link layer. To increase Most of the control and automation functions are
reliability, the data transmission is repeated. Also for some implemented within a substation using fast, medium speed or
specific applications like protection tripping, VLAN services low speed messages. In some applications inter substation
of data link and physical layers are used. communication may also be used. The feasibility of applying
any control or automation function using communication and
IED depends primarily on the service capabilities of the

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network available. The following section explains the
implementation of control and automation applications using
IEC61850.
IV. APPLICATIONS USING IEC 61850
The formulation of a common standard for
communication in power systems has created a potential to
implement many automation and control functions using
IEDs. Some of the new algorithms proposed [2], [6] can also
be adapted to work in this scenario. Implementation of two
examples presented in the IEC61850 standard [1] is
explained here. Fig. 7: Logical nodes interconnection for voltage regulation application [1]
The two applications discussed in this paper are;
x Automatic voltage regulation The logical nodes involved in achieving this function are
x Point-on-wave switching control shown in figure 7. The node “IHMI” is physically present in
the master PC of the operator. This node is assigned in this
These control applications are built around the application to provide the status information to the operator.
transformer in the substation. Figure 6 shows a power The logical nodes PTOV (over-voltage protection), PTUV
transformer along with the breaker, CT, PT breaker and (under-voltage protection), PIOC (over-current protection),
OLTC. This transformer is protected by a single IED with ATCC (automatic tap change control), MMXU (measuring
multiple protection and control functions. Layout of the process) are present inside the IED. The logical nodes
logical nodes, physical device and interconnections for a TVTR1 and TVTR2 (voltage transformers), TCTR (current
transformer bay is shown in Figure6. transformer), XCBR (circuit breaker), YLTC (tap changer)
are also housed in the IED. However it is possible to have
had these nodes external to the main IED when the
concerned primary equipment has communication capability.
The connection between the logical nodes is implemented
using logical connections.
When the bus voltage goes below (or above) a threshold
set in the ATCC logical node, it decides to increase (or
decrease) the tap. This decision also depends on the status of
the protection elements (they should not have operated) and
the power flow. It also calculates the number of taps to be
raised (or lowered). This information is then given to the
YLTC through the logical connection. The YLTC node in
turn gives pulses to the OLTC control motor to change the
tap position. The YLTC returns the present position of the
Fig. 6: Transformer bay IED with logical nodes tap to the ATCC node. For implementing this application a
low speed data transfer is sufficient (500ms).
A. Voltage regulation
B. Point on wave switching control
The target is to maintain the voltage at the LV bus at the
rated value. This is an implementation of an automatic To minimize the stress on the breaker while closing it, the
control task. The position of the OLTC (on-load tap breaker poles have to be closed when the voltage across its
changer) is calculated based on the voltage at the load bus. contacts are minimum. This is done by measuring the
To make it more adaptive the present amount of load can voltages at either side of the breaker and issuing close
also be taken into consideration. commands at the appropriate time to the circuit breaker.
Similarly, to reduce the stress when opening a circuit
breaker, the current signal is monitored and the point on the
current waveform that will give the minimum stress is
calculated. The logical nodes used to implement the point-
on-wave switching is shown in figure 8.

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 V. PHYSICAL MEDIUM AND ISSUES
The data transfer capability of a communication network
depends on the amount of traffic, bandwidth of the link, type
of switching device used (hub, bridge, switch, router, etc),
the type of configuration (star, multi-drop, etc) and the type
of physical connection (twisted pair copper, optic fibre, etc).
Reference [4] discusses this in detail.
VI. CONCLUSION
Combined protection, monitoring and control devices and
LAN based integrated substation automation systems are set
to become more and more popular. Modern communication
Fig. 8: Logical nodes interconnection for point-on-wave switching function technologies including the internet are used for remote
[1] monitoring, setting, control and retrieval of load and fault
data. Higher performance at lower cost has resulted in a fast
Figure 9 shows the sequence of steps involved in acceptance of the new technology. With the finalization of a
executing the point-on-wave switching function. The process common communication standard for substation IEDs, most
is started by a command from the IHMI node to perform a of the bottlenecks faced till now have been overcome.
point-on-wave switching (either opening or closing). The In future the trend of system integration will continue at a
first action is to select the appropriate signals namely much higher pace, given that IED based substation control
TVTR1 & 2 for closing and TCTR for opening. Then on and automation will be a cost effective solution with the
receipt of the confirmation of the signal selection, the availability of a common communication protocol
execute command is sent from the IHMI node to the CPOW IEC61850. In addition to lowering the installation and
node. The CPOW node then calculates the point-on-wave on commissioning costs, a significant reduction in maintenance
the voltage or current waveform, which will result in cost can also be achieved.
minimum stress. This point is then converted to an
appropriate switching instance. The CPOW node then VII. REFERENCES
releases the close command to the XCBR node at the right [1] IEC61850, “Communication networks and systems in substation”,
instant. Depending on whether the breaker is equipped with Parts 1 to 9.
[2] IEEE PSRC working group H5 report to the Communications
three pole or single pole operation, a single or three Subcommittee, “Application of peer-to-peer communications for
individual commands are given. The XCBR node then protective relaying”
performs the switching and reports back the status. For this [3] Karlheinz Schwarz, “Standard IEC 61850 for substation automation
and other power system applications”, Power Systems and
application the requirement of the communication network is
Communications Infrastructures for the future, Beijing, September
different for different links. The logical link between the 2002
XCBR and CPOW nodes should have ability to perform fast [4] Marzio P. Pozzuoli, “Ethernet in substation automation applications –
message transfer. The other communication links can have issues and requirements “
[5] Klaus Peter Brand, “IEC61850 tutorial”, CIGRE September 2003.
medium or low message transfer capabilities.
[6] E. Demeter, T.S. Sidhu, S.O. Faried, “An Open System Approach to
Power System Protection and Control Integration”, accepted for
publishing in the IEEE Trans. Power Delivery.

VIII. BIOGRAPHIES

Tarlochan S. Sidhu (SM’94-F’04) is Chair of the Department of Electrical

and Computer Engineering and Professor and Hydro One Chair in Power
Systems Engineering at the University of Western Ontario, London, ON,
Canada. He is a Fellow of the IEEE, Fellow of the Institution of Electrical
Engineers of the U.K., Fellow of the Institution of Engineers, India, a
Professional Engineer registered in the Province of Ontario and a Chartered
Engineer in the U.K.

Pradeep Kumar Gangadharan (S’04) is currently pursuing his PhD

degree at the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada. From 1995 to
Fig.9: Sequence of execution of the point-on-wave switching application [1] 2003, he worked in various capacities at the Energy Automation and
Information business of ALSTOM (presently AREVA).

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