CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO.
4, DECEMBER 2016
IEC 61850 as Backbone for Smart PAC Systems
Klaus-Peter Brand, Fellow, IEEE
Abstract—This paper discusses a working definition of smart-
ness in protection, automation and control systems (PACS) in
substations. A summary is given about the standard IEC 61850
features that support smartness, i.e., the data model, the multiple
communication services, and the system configuration description
language (SCL). With help of known examples of application
functions for control, supervision, and protection, the building of
smart systems out of the modules of IEC 61850 is demonstrated.
From the possible architectures, the standardized redundancy is
explained. The process bus is exploited in detail since it is seen by
users as the core of a smart substation. In this context, attention
is given also to the time synchronization in the µs range over
the communication network, a rather new part of the standard.
In the last part, all features are summarized and it is concluded
that IEC 61850 may really be named the backbone for smart
PAC systems.
Index Terms—Automation, communication, control, IEC
61850, process bus, protection, smart systems, substations.
I. I NTRODUCTION
T HERE are many terms to name the protection and control
aspects in the substations of the electrical power system.
In nearly all cases of power systems today both protection and
control are based on the same hardware and software platform
interconnected by a common communication network. The
system is named substation automation or — as used more
and more, e.g., by Cigre — PACS (protection, automation and
control system).
Communication is always included if the term “system” is
used. All other not explicitly mentioned application functions
performed in substations such as supervision and measuring
also belong to PACS, if not explicitly excluded. The system
acts on the switchyard devices of the substation. The operators’
place and the gateway to the remote control center are located
at the station level controlling and supervising the complete
substation. The protection and the control IEDs at bay level
(bay or diameter) that acquire data from the switchyard devices
(circuit breakers and switches, instrument transformers, power
transformers, lines, etc.) at process level also act on these
devices through commands and trips. The communication
between station and bay level is provided by the station bus,
and the communication between bay and the process level
is more and more provided by the process bus replacing the
copper wiring used mostly up to now.
Manuscript received September 22, 2016; revised October 31, 2016; ac-
cepted November 9, 2016. Date of publication December 30, 2016; date of
current version November 25, 2016.
K.-P. Brand (e-mail: klaus-peter.brand@ch.abb.com) is with ABB Switzer-
land, PGGA-AUA, Baden 5400, Switzerland.
DOI: 10.17775/CSEEJPES.2016.00044
2096-0042
c 2016 CSEE
15
II. W ORKING D EFINITION OF S MARTNESS
When do we call a human being smart? If he/she can not
only acquire all available data but also combine these data in a
comprehensive analysis for predictive and adaptive decisions.
Similarly, while technical systems are not smart by collecting a
big amount of data, they “become” smart by combining data to
information about the actual status of the system for an optimal
response from the automation system, i.e., the automation
system performs its tasks in a smart way. Therefore, individual
elements like stand-alone meters cannot be smart but they
may become part of a smart system. Smartness is a collective
property of systems [1].
III. S MARTNESS IN PACS
PACS consists of many functions that are used for au-
tonomous operations such as data acquisition, protection, or
automation, as well as for local or remote operator actions
such as control.
Functions realized by wiring of some very few sensor
values such as voltage or current to a standalone device with
a limited action range have no comprehensive view of the
overall system state and, therefore, would not be able to act
in a predictive and adaptive way. The functions realized by
microprocessors in intelligent electronic devices (IEDs), for
example, provide by definition, powerful communication for
the exchange of information via messages over local links
or LANS. These functions may be distributed between many
intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) or they may be combined
into very few ones; nevertheless, all data collected or created in
the PACS are in principle available for all interconnected IEDs
and respectively their hosted functions. Thus, smart actions are
possible.
Why are smart substations demanded? PACS have always
been the intelligent process interfaces for the centralized
operation and management of the overall power system.
Preprocessing of the acquired data and post-processing of
operational commands increase system performance. The fast
emerging concept and implementation of smart grids for a
highly ecological production and consumption of electrical
energy impact the power system at all levels and demand in
any node of the power grid contributions to the overall system
smartness.
Between some functions may exist no interactions at all, but
between others very essential ones exist e.g., between control
and interlocking, between protection and auto-reclosing, and
between point-on-wave switching, monitoring, supervision,
current/voltage acquisition and circuit breaker. The result is
a smart and safe control or a smart protection with minimal
power interruption in case of faults, or a smart point-on-wave
16 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2016
switching with minimal impact on power system stability.
IV. S UMMARY OF IEC 61850 F EATURES S UPPORTING
S MARTNESS
The standard IEC 61850 provides a data model [2], [3]
consisting of logical nodes (LN, 4 letter acronym), which refer
to the functions and describe all data that may be exchanged
by these. It also describes the communication services to be
applied for the data exchange between the IEDs (publisher-
subscriber mode) and between IEDs as servers and HMIs
(operator places) and Gateways (to remote operator places)
as clients [4].
The LNs that describe a function only from the data point
of view cannot be declared as smart. But since all functions
described by LNs are in some way interconnected, they may
form together a smart substation, or in other words, a smart
PACS. Since the exchanged data and the exchange mechanism
are standardized [4], the many LNs (about 100 in Edition
1, more than 250 in Edition 2, and presumably much more
in future editions) and the communication services are a
comprehensive kit for building nearly any combination of LNs
to create the needed functionality and, therefore, any level of
smartness for the substation.
The client-server communication is slow because the com-
plete seven layer ISO/OSI stack with all its hierarchical
coding (information to messages) and decoding (messages to
information) is used. This may be accepted because behind the
client is a local or remote operator or an archiving function
with response times of ≥ 1 s. Therefore, the client-server
functions contribute to substation smartness not by speed
but by supporting with reliable communication the demanded
functionality.
The communication between IEDs is of type publisher-
subscriber, i.e., the sending IED is publishing data and the
receiving IEDs are subscribing all published data needed for
their own functionality. This communication is fast (< 100 ms)
since no human interference is needed and only the two
lowest layers of the seven layer stack are applied for coding
and decoding, i.e., the basic Ethernet. Mostly binary data are
exchanged by the so-called generic object oriented substation
event (GOOSE) messages triggered by data change (event
driven). Analogue data sampled at the source are transmitted
as fast sampled value (SV) data stream. This allows to build
fast automatic system functions with the IEDs hosting the
application functions, i.e., a smart PAC system. It should
be noted that in the substation environment with its many
electromagnetic interferences the communication has to be
fiber optic based at least for communication links outside the
cubicles.
In Edition 2, there are three mechanisms in the standard
for communication recovery, defined in [5]. For single port
devices there is the rapid spanning tree protocol (RSTP)
which was used as de-facto standard already with Edition 1.
For dual port devices, there are both the parallel redundancy
protocol (PRP) and the high-availability seamless redundancy
protocol (HSR) as sketched in Fig. 1. The same message is
sent over the dual ports in two different channels (PRP) or
in two different directions over the same channel (HSR). The
messages arriving first is used by the destination IED and the
second one is discarded. There is no switchover delay if one
channel is lost.
IHMI
RSTP
IED IED IED
IHMI
HSR
IED IED IED
IHMI
PRP
IED IED IED
Fig. 1. Recovery mechanisms for single port devices (RSTP) and for dual
port devices (HSR, PRP) as defined in IEC 61850.
The standard IEC 61850 defines logical nodes containing
data objects (DO) and data attributes (DA), multiple com-
munications services and the powerful system configuration
language (SCL [6]) for engineering. These are the convenient
building blocks for smart systems. The use of IEC 61850 for
interconnected application functions in PACS i.e., for systems
with different smartness is described in the emerging Technical
Report IEC 61850-7-500 [7].
V. A PPLICATION E XAMPLES
A. Examples for Control Functions
One of the simplest system for operating a circuit breaker
or disconnector is modeled with the LNs IHMI (operators
place at station level or remote), CSWI (control at bay level)
and XCBR (circuit breaker) or XSWI (disconnector, earthing
switch). XCBR and XSWI represent the switch per single
phase. The examples in this paper are focused on the LN
XCBR. If the three phases are strongly coupled and operated
always together and if no details from the three phases
are of interest, only one XCBR is needed for modelling;
otherwise four instances of XCBR (three for the phases and
one checking for phase discrepancy) are needed for correct
BRAND: IEC 61850 AS BACKBONE FOR SMART PAC SYSTEMS
modeling. The connection between IHMI and CSWI is typical
of type client-server connection. The link between CSWI and
XCBR is either hardwired (CSWI and XCBR together in the
bay controller IED) or realized by a process bus. The process
bus approach results in the need for dedicated process near
IEDs hosting LNs representing switchyard devices like XCBR.
No automation is active between the LNs and, therefore, only
a low level of smartness may be assigned (Fig. 2).
IHMI
Command
Station bus
CSWI
Process bus or wires
XCBR
Local switchgear
Fig. 2. Minimal circuit breaker control scheme.
The simple approach described by Fig. 2 is normally not
used since a lot of conditions have to be checked before
the circuit breaker (XCBR), or any other switch (XSWI) is
allowed to be operated. The interlocking conditions have to
be fulfilled to avoid harm to persons and destruction of the
switchyard equipment. For example, the following has to be
avoided in any case: an energized part of the substation is
connected to ground or two energized parts are connected or
disconnected by a disconnector instead of by a circuit breaker.
The switchyard states represented by the actual single line
diagram (topology of the substation) have to be calculated
from the position of all contributing switches (XSWI, XCBR)
in the substation. This function is represented by the LN CILO
(per switch) providing a release or block both for opening
and closing. In addition, the closing of a circuit breaker
(XCBR) has to be released also by the synchrocheck function
represented by the LN RSYN, which checks if the amplitude,
frequency, and phase angle of the voltage (TCTR) on both
sides of the circuit breaker are within a narrow, predefined
window.
Some special smartness is needed if no voltage instrument
transformer exists at the busbar and this voltage has to be
acquired from another connected bay.
The check of these conditions is made by the bay control
function described as CSWI (Fig. 3).
In addition, the circuit breaker must be able to open in any
case as response to a fault (O). Therefore, as an additional
local condition, there must be enough energy in the switch
drive for the intended operation “open” (O) or “close” (C). But
the closing (C) of a circuit breaker may result in closing onto
a fault. Therefore, enough energy for the switching sequence
CO or OCO has to be available. This information about the
17
IHMI
Command
Remote switchgear
positions Station bus
Remote
voltage
CILO CSWI RSYN
Process bus
TVTR XSWI XSWI XCBR
Local voltage Local switchgear (positions)
Fig. 3. Circuit breaker control with interlocking and sychrocheck.
energy in the drive is available as data object in the XCBR
since it must be checked also if no other supervision functions
are implemented. The local effect is a blocking of the intended
position change and is available as a reason for the negative
acknowledgement of the command issued.
To avoid any operation delay and risk, these checking
functions run continuously without human interference, i.e.
they comprise a smart automatic operator support, depending
on a lot of communicated data and deciding by processing all
this data. This automation for control is shown in Fig. 4 and
consists of a comprehensive state machine.
If the mentioned LNs are not implemented commonly in
one IED and not hardwired to the switchyard, the required
fast communication is performed by GOOSE messages (block,
releases, switch positions) and by SV streams (remote voltage
samples for the synchrocheck). The smartness for this com-
municating subsystem is indicated by the working definition
of smartness for PACS (see Section III).
B. Examples of Monitoring and Supervision Functions
There is no clear difference between monitoring and su-
pervision. For IEDs, the term self-supervision is commonly
used. If problems in the software or in the hosting hardware
are detected, appropriate blockings and alarms are created.
Monitoring may refer more to the continuous operation of the
system. The logical nodes with the first letter S refer to super-
vision as seen, e.g., SCBR is referring to the supervision of
the circuit breaker. It should be noted that for any supervision
function, the appropriate sensors have to be available.
As seen in the control examples, these supervision functions
may result in the blocking of started functions or provide some
detailed information for a more smart operation (Fig. 5).
One of the most important supervisions is of redundant
communication channels used both by HSR and PRP as
introduced earlier. If the same information is sent in two
separate messages, the first one that arrives at the receiver
is used and the second one is discarded. If one channel is lost,
the application function continues to operate with one channel
same as before. But this behavior is possible only once, since
a second loss would result in a total communication break.
Therefore, the channel supervision represented by the LN
18 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2016

Remote/bus process level Local/bay process level

Synchrocheck Instrument
Instrument transformer
transformer TVTR RSYC TVTR bay/line
bus voltage Voltage Voltage
voltage
Interlocking
Remote Local
disconnector (s) XSWI CILO XSWI disconnector (s)
Position Position
Release/block Release/block

Select Select

Selected
Selected Ack+
Remote
or local IHMI Ack+ Circuit
CSWI XCBR breaker
HMI Operate
Operate
Ack+
Ack+ Position
Position changed
changed Switch
controler
Station level Bay level Process level

Fig. 4. Minimal circuit breaker control scheme.

LLCH has to create an alarm to trigger via the operator or mechanical behavior of the circuit breaker. This dedicated
directly in the maintenance center a repair action in time. control function is represented by CPOW (see Fig. 6). It should
be noted that not in any application both opening and closing
IHMI are controlled by CPOW and all supervision data are needed.
Remote switch- Command
gear positions
The point-on-wave switching capacity may be lost also due to
Station bus
ageing of the circuit breaker.
Remote voltage

IHMI MMET
CILO CSWI RSYN Remote switch- Command
gear positions Station bus
Remote voltage
Process bus and current
and meteorol-
Information ogical data
Blockings CILO CSWI CPOW RSYN

TVTR XSWI XSWI XCBR SCBR SOPM SIMG

Local voltage Local switchgear (positions) Local switchgear supervision Process bus
Information
Fig. 5. Circuit breaker control with interlocking, synchrocheck and switch- Blockings
gear supervision.

TCTR TVTR XSWI XSWI XCBR SCBR SOPM SIMG

C. Point-on-wave Switching
At very high voltage levels, a very precise operation of
the circuit breaker is requested i.e. at a certain instant of
time corresponding to a certain point of the sinusoidal wave
of current or voltage in order to minimize the stress on
both the HV equipment and the power system as whole.
The goal is to open the breaker at current zero to minimize
the arcing time or to close at a pre-calculated point of the
sinusoidal voltage to avoid very expensive closing resistors
for potential equalization before conventional closing. The
problem is that for such precision, the mechanical behavior
of the circuit breaker is the decisive factor. This means that
all information has to be provided and considered in the
point-on-wave switching algorithm, which may influence the
Local voltage Local switchgear Local switchgear
and current (positions) supervision
Fig. 6. Point-on-wave switching circuit breaker control.
The blocking and release of CILO and RSYN will be the
same as before. Switch supervision, which is used in the
case of normal operations as shown in Fig. 4 for blocking
or release, provides now all the information continuously
over time, which may influence the calculation of the circuit
breaker contact operating time from operation to operation.
In particular, the information from the last operation such as
the switched current and the contact operating time have to
be considered. Also environmental data like temperature and
BRAND: IEC 61850 AS BACKBONE FOR SMART PAC SYSTEMS 19

humidity (represented by MMET) may influence the exact Substation A IHMI Line IHMI Substation B
timing of the circuit breaker contact movement. The history of Information Information
any operation has to be recorded to detect ageing and allow for
compensation as far as possible. The attribute “smart” looks Station bus Station bus
already appropriate for the point-on-wave function CPOW
but this smartness can only emerge together with all the per zone per zone
PDIS
PDIS PDIS
PDIS
information from the other LNs that is provided either locally PDIS PDIS
or over communication links.
PSCH PSCH
D. Examples of Protection Functions
PTRC PTRC
Simple or local protection functions consist of an instrument
transformer (TCTR or TVTR representing the source of cur-
rent or voltage), common or single per phase and a function Process bus Trip Trip Process bus
such as an overcurrent protection (represented by PTOC)
creating a trip via PTRC (trip conditioning i.e., marshalling the
start and trips of many protection functions, defining the trip TVTR TCTR XCBR XCBR TCTR TVTR
pulse length if applicable, etc.) for the circuit breaker (XCBR Local voltage Local switchgear Local switchgear Local voltage
common or single per phase). Such a protection function chain and current and current
acquires instantaneous currents, detects the fault, and then trips
the circuit breaker to clear the fault. This represents a first level Fig. 8. Distance protection scheme with communication link.
of protection smartness (Fig. 7).
used is redundant i.e., the same difference is calculated at both
IHMI
sides.
Information
Substation A IHMI Line IHMI Substation B
Station bus Information Information

Station bus Station bus

PTOC
RMXU RMXU
PTRC
per phase per phase
PDIF
PDIF PDIF
PDIF
PDIF PDIF

Process bus or wires Trip

PTRC PTRC

TCTR XCBR Process bus Trip Trip Process bus

Local current Local switchgear
per phase per phase
Fig. 7. Over-current protection scheme. TCTR
TCTR TCTR
TCTR
TCTR XCBR XCBR TCTR

The use of information from more interconnected LNs
improves the smartness of any function. Distance protection
(one PDIS instance per protection zone) uses both the local
current and voltage (TCTR, TVTR). This may be done at
one line side only through staggered time delays that confirm
the faulted zone. But to detect the fault location quickly,
the PDIS on both sides of the line have to exchange simple
fault information (e.g., the direction and resulting blocks and
releases) over the so-called tele-protection link (Fig. 8).
Communication between functions represented as LN en-
ables and improves smartness. Line differential protection
functions at both line ends (one PDIF instance per line end
and phase) compare the currents from both sides (Fig. 8).
Without fault the currents at both line ends have to be the
same, respectively the current the difference zero. It is seen
from Fig. 9 that the line differential protection as commonly
Local current Local Local Local current
per phase switchgear switchgear per phase
Fig. 9. Line differential protection scheme.
The busbar differential protection (represented also by
PDIF) compares the currents from all connected bays. The
special smartness is the response to the actual busbar config-
uration represented by the so-called busbar image.
There are many other protection functions that should be
better named as protection systems or protection schemes with
different levels of smartness. They may all be realized by
a dedicated composition of communicating protection LNs
(Pxxx) and protection related ones (Rxxx).
E. Special Role of the Process Bus
In spite of the existing smartness in the interconnected
20 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2016
functions discussed here, very often substations are named
smart substations only if they have a process bus. The process
bus connects the switchyard HV devices with the bay units of
the PACS and transfer switchgear positions, the voltage and
current samples, as well as the protection trips and commands.
The pre-requisites for such a communication are near process
IEDs. The process bus was already defined in Edition 1 of IEC
61850 but de facto its use was started at time of Edition 2. One
benefit is the amount of data that can be transmitted over this
fiber optic bus. As a result, existing and future supervision data
can be transported without restrictions. The bus may be real-
ized as point-to-point connection or as a local network. These
fiber- based solutions provide a perfect galvanic isolation,
avoiding pick-up of electromagnetic interferences and reduc-
ing the risk for the people maintaining the IEDs for protection
and control. The local network solution allows sending of the
acquired data to places where needed. The applied architecture
has to fulfill the main 1/main 2 requirements which may result
in separated process bus segments for each (Fig. 10). This
raises the question of dedicated XCBR per circuit breaker trip
coil and the redundancy of control (CSWI). Improved circuit
breaker modelling may be an issue for the future Edition 3 of
IEC 61850.
F. Process near IEDs and Communication Features
Since the key goal IEC 61850 is interoperability, it must
be provided also at the process bus level, which is in line
with requests from most users. Binary information (positions,
commands, etc.) will be transmitted over the process bus via
standardized event driven GOOSE messages and analogue
sample values as standardized data stream (SV). It should be
noted that analogue values may be also change driven and also
be transported by GOOSE messages and as reverse sampled
binary values may be also transported in the SV data stream.
Any IEC 61850 compliant IED has to be able to receive and
send also this kind of data message if needed for the functions
hosted by the IEDs. The transported data are defined by data
sets. All the potential data in GOOSE messages are defined by
Pmain 1 PTRC CSWI 1
Coil 1
TVTR TCTR XCBR
Process bus segment 1
Example for merging unit
TVTR
Analogue
values TVTR
4×voltage TVTR
4×current
TVTR
Fig. 10. Process bus with indicated segments and merging unit example.
the communication service model (data set, GOOSE control
block) including the triggering conditions.
IEC 61850 also includes a standardized option for pro-
prietary data. Standardized model extensions may be created
whenever needed. For example, the product committee TC17
(switchgear) has already defined the supervision data in SCBR
and is now requesting the extension of the name plate infor-
mation. Extensions have no impact on backward compatibility.
If they cannot be processed by older IEDs, they have only to
be “neglected” in system engineering.
The process near IEDs that convert analogue current and
voltage measurement to digital sampled values and create the
SV data stream according to IEC 61850 are named merging
units (MU). The term refers to the fact that in addition also
data from different measuring points may be combined in one
telegram. This conversion process has some impact on the
transmission characteristics (frequency curve, step response),
which changes the measured HV primary analogue current and
voltage values as already known from the use of conventional
instrument transformers. Without the process bus, the analogue
secondary voltages and currents are A/D converted and sam-
pled in the protection IED, and the protection algorithms is
defined by the ability to cope with the resulting characteristics.
With the process bus, the A/D and sampling characteristics
are independent from the protection algorithm. Therefore, the
protection has to know the exact relation between the primary
HV signals and the data in the SV stream. This is outside
the scope of IEC 61850. It is standardized by the instrument
transformer product committee TC 38. The new standard is
the IEC 61869 family [8], which is in progress and contains
besides parts of the former IEC 60044 [9] also electronic
instrument transformers. This standard is especially important
for the process bus, since it contains also a special part about
the MU.
Therefore, by the process bus the smartness of the data
acquisition and the sending of commands and trips is improved
in a standardized way, which supports full interoperability
between the components of the different suppliers.
CSWI 2 PTRC Pmain 2
Coil 2
XCBR TCTR TVTR
Process bus segment 2
TCTR
TCTR SV value stream
TCTR
Process bus
TCTR
BRAND: IEC 61850 AS BACKBONE FOR SMART PAC SYSTEMS
G. Time Synchronization
The time synchronization of the clocks in the IEDs regard-
ing the 1 ms accuracy needed for time tagging is provided
according to IEC 61850 through the simple network time
protocol (SNTP), which is easily used over the substation
LAN. The master clock is mostly represented by a satellite
clock receiver such as for the GPS system (US). Other satellite
systems are GLONASS (RU), GALILEO (EU) and BEIDOU
(CN). The use of a satellite system is not requested by
IEC 61850 but very convenient for most substations.
If analogue instantaneous values acquired at different mea-
suring points have to be compared or used for other calcula-
tions, especially by protection functions (two or more currents
for PDIF, voltage and current for PDIS,), the sampling of these
values has to be done synchronously i.e. at the same time with
an accuracy of the order of 1 µs. The synchronous area may
be extended over the complete substation or beyond. This time
synchronization over the LAN of the PACS has been achieved
up to now by 1 pps (UCA User Recommendation [10])
and in future with precision time protocol (PTP) defined in
IEC 61850-9-3 [11] as profile from IEEE 1588. Because of
the mission critical role of such high precise synchronized
samples, IEC 61850 recommends the use of two redundant
master clocks. Depending on the state of the art, not only
global satellite based clocks but also local atomic clocks or a
signal via an interstation link may be used as a master clock.
H. Transmission and Responses Times
The communication system contributes strongly to the
smartness of the substation particularly in PACS since it
provides the required data to all functions hosted by the
IEDs of the system to create the actual information about the
system. The response times of the functions are determined by
the communication architecture (fibers, switches), including
coding and decoding of the messages and the application
function algorithm in the IEDs. The transmission time in the
fiber optic cables is about two-thirds of the speed of light
and, therefore, any latency by fibers may be ignored in the
substation. The Ethernet switches process electrical messages
and, therefore, all optical messages have to be recreated at
the output port. The order of the delay in switches may be
guessed by the length of the message and the bus speed. The
10 kbit for a GOOSE message and the 100 Mbit/s bus speed
as defined by IEC 61850 result in a delay of about 100 µs. The
coding/decoding is about 0.5 ms each. Therefore, the response
time may be in most situations controlled by the smart function
itself. The fastest response time class is defined as 3 ms from
application to application.
I. Reliability of PACS
Many factors contribute to the reliability of PACS. One
factor is the design and the implementation of the application
software, which has to be guaranteed for any IED hosted
function by type tests in the product development. Other
factors are the design of the communication system with
its option in IEC 61850 for dual port redundancy, including
21
channel supervision and the IEDs providing self-supervision,
including communication supervision. An important factor
related to reliability comes also from the testability of the
system, which is possible with Edition 2 of the standard. This
is also applicable for systems in operation. With the process
bus, wiring errors may happen only through the hardware
connection of the switchyard devices with the near process
IEDs.
VI. C ONCLUSION
Technical systems are not smart by collecting single data
but by a combination of data as information base for the right
response from the system. Then the system may solve its
tasks in a smart way. Smartness is a collective property of
the system.
IEC 61850 provides a large set of logical nodes representing
process interfaces, automatic functions for protection, control
and supervision, HMIs and communication interfaces. The
standardized data are exchanged by a communication service
out of the standardized set. The physical implementation is
based on mainstream communication means with different
dual port redundancy features. The SCL allows for the creation
of powerful specification tools, as well as engineering, testing,
and maintenance tools.
The free allocation of LNs to IEDs supported by IEC 61850
allows a broad variance of architectures, from highly decen-
tralized systems with process interfaces in the switchyard
devices to highly centralized systems with one redundant
computer. The selection of a dedicated project architecture
is outside the scope of IEC 61850 because it is influenced
also by the system philosophy of the users, its maintainability,
governmental rules, site restraints, and also cost issues.
With all these modular features of IEC 61850, smart PACS
that fulfill any requirement may be set up. The limitation
is normally the system components offered on the market.
Limitations to exploit the standard may also result in an
incomplete implementation of the standard. Interoperability
that allows the capability to combine from different suppliers
in PACS components mitigates such limitations. The high
number of more than 10,000 PACS based on IEC 61850 in
operation today shows that essential requirements are already
fulfilled.
Nevertheless, the implementation of missing IEC 61850
features has to be requested by the users from the suppliers,
and the modelling of any missing function to increase the
smartness has to be requested from the IEC working groups
that are responsible for the evolution of the standard IEC
61850. The goal for future evolution of IEC 651850 should
not be to make the standard simpler, but the PACS that use it
smarter.
R EFERENCES
[1] L. Andersson and K. P. Brand, “Smart Grid meets IEC 61850,” in
International Conference on Advanced Power System Automation and
Protection (APAP), Paper 227, Oct. 18-21, 2009.
[2] Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation –
Part 7-4: Basic Communication Structure – Compatible Logical Node
Classes and Data Object Classes, IEC Standard 61850-7-4, Ed. 2, Mar.
2010.
22 CSEE JOURNAL OF POWER AND ENERGY SYSTEMS, VOL. 2, NO. 4, DECEMBER 2016

[3] Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation – Klaus-Peter Brand (SM’87–F’11) got his Master
Part 7-3: Basic Communication Structure – Common Data Classes, IEC (Dipl.Phys.) and his PhD (Dr.rer.nat.) from the Uni-
Standard 61850-7-3, Ed. 2, Dec. 2010. versity of Bonn. 1976, he joint the Plasma Physics
[4] Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation – Group (SF6) of BBC/ABB Corporate Research Cen-
Part 7-2: Basic Information and Communication Structure – Abstract ter in Baden, Switzerland. From 1982, he was
Communication Service Interface (ACSI), IEC Standard 61850-7-2, Ed. in different positions strongly involved developing
2, Aug. 2010. substation automation systems and building up this
[5] Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation – business in ABB, Switzerland. He is co-author of the
Part 8-1: Specific Communication Service Mapping (SCSM) – Mappings Substation Automation Handbook (2003). He was
to MMS (ISO 9506-1 and ISO 9506-2) and to ISO/IEC 8802-3, IEC the head of product management in the local power
Standard 61850-8-1, Ed. 2, Jun. 2011. system division. Now he is working at the ABB
[6] Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation University Switzerland as instructor and consultant. He is board member of
– Part 6: Configuration Description Language for Communication in CIGRE SC B5. From 1995, he is member of the AHWG and WG10 of IEC
Electrical Substations Related to IEDs, IEC Standard 61950-6, Ed. 2, TC 57 and worked from the beginning defining the standard IEC61850. He
Dec. 2009. is acting as expert, editor and co-editor of different parts of this standard
[7] Use of Logical Nodes for Modelling Applications and Related Concepts regarding maintenance and evolution to future extensions. He is fellow of
and Guidelines for Substations, IEC Standard 61850-7-500TR, 2016, to IEEE and chair of the Swiss chapter of IEEE PES.
be published.
[8] Instrument Transformers – Part 1: General Requirements, IEC Standard,
61869-1, Ed. 1, Oct. 2007. Available: https://webstore.iec.ch/publication
/6047
[9] Instrument Transformers – Part 1: Current Transformers, IEC Stan-
dard 60044-1, Ed. 1.2, Feb. 2003. Available: https://webstore.iec.ch/p-
preview/info iec60044-1%7Bed1.2%7Den d.pdf
[10] UCA International Users Group. (2004, Jul.). Implementation guideline
for digital interface to instrument transformers using IEC 61850-9-
2. [Online]. Available: http://iec61850.ucaiug.org/Implementation%20
Guidelines/DigIF spec 9-2LE R2-1 040707-CB.pdf
[11] Communication Networks and Systems for Power Utility Automation -
Part 9-3: Precision Time Protocol Profile for Power Utility Automation,
IEC Standard 61850-9-3, Ed. 1, Jun. 2016.