Digital Substations with the IEC 61850 Standard

Abstract

The IEC 61850 protocols for intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) are becoming popular in various applications of power systems, such as protection, control, monitoring in real-time operation, and integration of modern devices like IEDs, analog merging units and Ethernet networks. To address the problem of the interoperability of devices from various vendors, IEC standards play a vital role. Other than protection functions, the IEC 61850 protocol has a wider role in the communication of devices in an integrated system. With the implementation of IEC 61850 standards, a substation with IEDs may be upgraded as a digital substation. In this chapter, the basics of the IEC 61850 standard with the architecture of a digital substation and applications in power systems are discussed. Hardware devices in block diagram layout and the software needed to develop a digital substation laboratory model have also been included. The chapter discusses the IEC 61850 standard in preference to other standards because the other standards do not have the capability of covering the operational aspects of different levels of substation. All other standards in substation automation use master–slave communication, whereas IEC 61850 uses the client–server communication model. The time lag for master–slave communication in a large system is huge as compared to that for client–server communication. Also, the IEC 61850 standard is self-descriptive, so fetching any information in future will be easy. This study on the IEC 61850 standard and digital substations with real-time hardware condition monitoring will provide readers with a clear idea about IEC standard-based substations and their operation in real time.

Hardware Development and Interoperability Testing of a Multivendor-IEC-61850-Based Digital Substation

“…The omicron had settings of turn ratios for CT and PT inputs, which were performed using test universe software. With the turn ratio settings, the line values in the secondary of the omicron kit were V line = 100 V and I line = 1 A [38]. The input values that were injected from the omicron secondary to the model are voltage and current phase values that can be calculated using Equations ( 2) and (3) corresponding to the line values.…”