For most Relay & SCADA engineers and technicians in the United States working at a power company that owns and operates substations, IEC61850 is an unknow quantity that is talked about at conferences by consultants or OEM reps for relays, test equipment or software tools. And even for companies that have employed it, many of their folks still have limited knowledge of what is happening “Under the Hood”
The two primary reasons for this are:
- Day to day job functions consists of calculation, print review, event analysis programming relays/HMI’s/Data Concentrator and or field work (Commissioning, Preventive Maintenance or Corrective Maintenance).
- Limited knowledge base on installing and troubleshooting IP based networked systems & LAN’s.
As such, this paper is intended to help the average Relay & SCADA Engineers get a basic understanding of IEC61850, as it applies to GOOSE Messaging, MMS and SV, but do it in a way that is simple and relatable. Note this paper will largely be driven by our experience installing and maintaining 61850 enabled substations.
So what will be covered?
First, we will review the three basic applications of IEC61850: GOOSE, MMS and SV. What is the purpose of each, their modes of operation (Test, Block and Simulation) and how this compares to a standard wired scheme. We will include our opinions about what is and isn’t easy, based on our installed substations.
Next we will cover basic network design and layouts. This will include switch types, LAN topologies and some application notes we have picked up from experience.
We then cover setting up each of the three applications in a file called the SCD. This file creates a map between relays sending of information to the relays / SCADA receiving information. This will include a quick breakdown of the IEC61850 data model structure.
We finally finish up with a simple break down of a GOOSE frame structure (what the 1’s and 0’s are doing) so the readers can see what is being set up and how it actually flows on the network.