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Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication

Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies


Session One:
SCADA and Substation Control Communication
By Andrew West

SCADA Communications Architect, Foxboro, Australia
Chair, DNP Users Group Technical Committee
Spokesperson, IEC TC57 WG03 (IEC 60870-5)
Introduction
Data telemetry and telecontrol systems cover a wide spectrum of industries and needs.
Some systems are relatively simple with modest needs while some are more complex,
with stringent requirements for data integrity and command validation.
This paper looks at the use of the current standard SCADA communication protocols and
their properties. Particular focus is given to the existing protocol standards prevalent in
electric power SCADA and the related field of substation automation.
The recently published IEC 61850 standard for communication for substation automation
introduces a new paradigm for interconnecting substation devices and for defining and
configuring their information sharing. This paper discusses and compares the capabilities
provided by the existing standards and IEC 61850. It investigates the benefits and pitfalls
of the new standard and will assist the reader to determine where it may be applicable or
appropriate.
What makes SCADA different from other control systems?
A primary differentiator between a SCADA (Supervisory Control And Data Acquisition)
system and other types of control systems such as DCS (Distributed Control System) is
the purpose to which the control system will be put:
In general DCS is focussed on the automatic control of a process, usually within a
confined area. The DCS is directly connected to the equipment that it controls and is
usually designed on the assumption that instantaneous communication with the
equipment is always possible.
A SCADA system is usually supplied to permit the monitoring and control of a
geographically dispersed system or process. It relies on communication systems that
may transfer data periodically and may also be intermittent. Many SCADA systems
for high-integrity applications include capabilities for validating data transmissions,
verifying and authenticating controls and identifying suspect data.
DCS often operates with a state paradigm: the system relies on the ability to obtain an
immediate view of the current state of the system at any time. SCADA systems in many
industries (especially electric power) rely on an event reporting paradigm where even
transitory or fleeting changes in the state of the plant are reported.
In view of this, different messaging protocols and formats are used in different industries
and applications. In the DCS arena, the Bus protocols (Modbus, FieldBus, ProfiBus,
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
etc.) and a slew of proprietary protocols are prevalent. These are suitable for the
requirements of DCS Input/Output (I/O). In the SCADA arena, the most commonly used
protocols are DNP3, IEC 60870-5-101, Modbus variants and proprietary protocols. Some
specific applications such as gas metering also have specific protocols designed to meet
their needs.
Telecontrol and telemetry are areas where installation-specific system design is required:
There is no single solution that is right for every situation.
SCADA: More than meets the eye
Many different industries rely on SCADA system functions. Each different industry and
individual systems within an industry will have different requirements. Meeting these
requirements dictates the functions and technologies that are implemented in successful
control systems. Some industries that use SCADA functionality include:
Electricity Transmission & Distribution
Oil & Gas Pipelines and Gas Distribution
Water & Wastewater
Railways & Road Transportation
Fire Protection & Security
Telecommunication
Factory Automation (PLC-type systems)
High-integrity SCADA system applications include electric power transmission &
distribution and pipeline monitoring & control systems. Electricity SCADA often
requires very short data latency (time delay for reporting new data) and accurate, high-
resolution time tagging of reported data.
When reviewing system implementations that meet the various requirements of different
industries, some patterns of common groupings emerge.
In general, systems that have requirements for large point counts, high data
communication and control integrity and high availability tend to use traditional
mainframe, super-mini or workstation computing platforms with operating systems such
as VMX, UNIX or LINUX. They tend to use synchronous or isochronous communication
systems (that readily allow the identification of message corruption); support the
reporting of transitory events and communicate with Remote Terminal Units (parallel-
executing multitasking field equipment).
Systems that meet less strenuous requirements tend to be based on COTS Windows
platforms, communicate over asynchronous links and use PLCs (typically single-threaded
looping execution) field equipment.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
This general separation of architectures for meeting different system requirements allows
for the differentiation of systems into High-End and Low-End SCADA systems. This
typical grouping is illustrated below in Table 1.
High-End SCADA Systems Low-End SCADA Systems

Operator Interface
Workstation or Mainframe PC
Unix, VMS, etc. DOS, Windows

Remote Devices
RTU PLC
Synchronous Communications Asynchronous Communications
Sequence of Event Processing State Processing

Requirements
Large Point Count (10,000s) Moderate Point Count (1,000s)
Short Data Latency Longer Data Latency
Extremely High Availability High Availability
Two-Pass Control Strategy Single-Pass Control Strategy
Significant Levels of Redundancy Little or No Redundancy
Extensive Applications Capability Few or No Applications
Many tags per point Few tags per point
Table 1 System Capability Grouping
The electric power heritage
The standardization process in SCADA communication protocols has been primarily
driven by the special requirements of electric power SCADA. This process began with
the International Electrotechnical Commission in the 1980s. IEC Technical Committee 57
(Power System Control and Associated Communications) set up a Working Group
(WG03: Telecontrol Protocols) to look at the standardization of communication between
substations and control centres. This committee produced a standard, IEC 60870, in many
parts, to address requirements and definitions for SCADA communications for electric
power control. The first part of the standard was published in 1988 and work on the series
is still continuing. The various parts cover:
Basic concepts
Environmental characteristics
General principles of data integrity
A three-layer stack architecture
Data link services
Application functions
Data formats
Application objects
Testing
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
The IEC 60870-5-1 through 60870-5-5 series of standards present a general recipe
book for defining communication protocols. IEC 60870-5-101 is a companion
standard that presents a worked example profile for an Electric Power SCADA
protocol based on the earlier parts of the series. It was first published as in 1995 and
updated to the second edition in February 2003. The new edition is almost twice the size
of the first edition and the extra content is mainly explanatory material that clarifies the
standard. In 2000, IEC 60870-5-104 was published. This standard describes the transport
of IEC 60870-5-101 application data over network transports such as TCP/IP. Specific
application standards for electrical metering (60870-5-102) and substation protection
devices (60870-5-103) have also been produced. The IEC 60870-5-101 and -104
standards are now widely adopted in Europe and some other regions (notably the Middle
East and Latin America) for electric power SCADA.
While the IEC was progressing with the development of the 60870 series, vendors,
particularly those in North America, were well aware of the power industrys requirement
for standardized SCADA communication. Many utilities were aware of the IECs work
and were requesting IEC compliant SCADA protocols. Several vendors responded to
this challenge by taking the early parts of IEC 60870-5 and providing these as an
underpinning to their proprietary protocols. DNP3 (then called DNP V3.00) was one such
offering developed by Westronic Inc., an RTU manufacturer based in Calgary, Canada.
One significant distinction between DNP3 and its IEC-compliant contemporaries was that
Westronic chose to place the protocol specification in the public domain under the control
of a users group in 1993. The DNP Users Group appointed a Technical Committee in
1995 to assume technical responsibility for the extension and enhancement of the
protocol. This strategy gained significant market acceptance in North America. A
specification for using DNP3 over LANs and WANs was published in 1998. Since the
beginning of the current millennium, virtually every substation automation device sold in
North America supports DNP3. DNP3 is also well supported in the electric power
industry in Australia. DNP3 shares the electric power SCADA market with
IEC 60870-5-101/-104 in Asia, Africa and South America.
While IEC 60870-5-101 is specifically an electric power-oriented protocol (with specific
objects for things such as Transformer Tap Positions), DNP3 is a more generic SCADA
protocol. As such it has found acceptance in a wider set of industries, including oil & gas
pipeline control systems and water & wastewater systems. While IEC 60870-5-101 is
used in the UK for electrical transmission SCADA, in an unusual departure from the
European norm, DNP3 is often used there for distribution SCADA because of its
capability to make efficient use of multi-drop radio communication networks.
All the other SCADA protocols are now relegated to also ran status in the electric
power SCADA protocol race. The September 2002 Newton-Evans report on the electric
power market reported that DNP3 was the most used protocol within substations in North
America (52% of utilities), followed by Modbus Plus (31%). Between the substation and
the control centre, DNP3 serial is in use at 32% of utilities; DNP3 over LAN/WAN
(TCP/IP or UDP/IP) is in use at 19%. The next highest groupings are other TCP/IP at
9% and Modbus Plus at 6%. The majority of existing systems use one of the many legacy
proprietary protocols. DNP3 on serial and LAN/WAN transports remains the most
specified protocol in North American Electric Power for new and upgrade installations.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
DNP3 and IEC 60870-5
Both DNP3 and IEC 60870-5-101/-104 serve similar functions. They both:
Reliably and efficiently transfer field data (including information about transitory
events) to the master station or the control centre
Allow commands to be issued to the field with a very high degree of control security
(verification and rejection of errors) by using the high-integrity select-before-operate
command strategy
Suit medium-bandwidth communication channels (e.g. 9600-baud serial connections)
Include good data link frame integrity checking
Support application layer data object identification
Include data validity checking flags
Support the transmission of digital (on/off) and analog data (in integer or floating-
point formats), counters and digital and analog control commands or setpoints
Support transfer of files, setting of clocks, etc.
IEC 60870-5-101/-104 also supports some electric-power specific objects related to
transformers and substation protection devices.
The protocols support the transfer of report-by-exception (RBE) where only changes in
field data are reported. RBE improves the efficiency with which data can be transferred
under normal operating conditions. The protocols are also capable of transmitting data
with millisecond-resolution timestamps, allowing accurate identification of the sequence
of actions in the field. These event-reporting capabilities are useful for accurate analysis
of power system events. They are also useful in other industries (such as pipeline or water
monitoring systems) where relatively infrequent scanning can be used to recover an audit
trail of field activity.
DNP3 supports an unsolicited reporting mode where a field device can report events
without being polled by the master. Unsolicited reporting can be very useful for a large
electrical distribution network where (for example) pole-top reclosers can report activity
on a shared radio bearer without being polled. IEC 60870-5-101 also supports an
unsolicited reporting mode, but only with a dedicated point-to-point communication
channel using a balanced data linkunlike the DNP3 model that can support
unsolicited reporting on multi-drop communications channels.
Substation Automation Communication
Recent years have seen a proliferation of Intelligent Electronic Devices in substations that
perform various monitoring, metering and protective functions. Some of these devices
replace earlier electromechanical devices that performed equivalent functions and some
provide entirely new capabilities such as calculation of power system harmonic levels or
distance to a fault.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
Relationship between standards
In the electric power control arena, the working groups of IEC TC57 have produced a set
of protocols that cover the transfer of data through all parts of electric utility control
systems. The various working groups also interact with other standards bodies as
illustrated in Figure 1.
OLE
Process
Control
(OPC)
EPRI
CCAPI
Project
WG14
DMS
SPAG
WG13
EMS
Object
Mgmt.
Group
Standards &
Technology
____________
ISO ODP
IEEE
CIRED
Open GIS
DistribuTECH
GITA
T&D
Component Container
Technology
_________________
CORBA (OMG)
Enterprise Java Beans
DCOM (Microsoft)
WGs 3,10,11,12
Substations
Utility
Integration
Bus
Open
Application
Group
WG7
Control
Centers
TC57
WG9
Distribution
Feeders
EPRI
UCA2
Project
WG3
RTUs

Figure 1 Standardization Activities
The standards produced by the TC57 working groups are shown in Figure 2. The
philosophy adopted by the IEC is that each different application area should be addressed
by a single standard, so that no two standards provide alternate ways of achieving the
same purpose. To support this philosophy, the various standards should support each
other and have clear interfaces. The IEC TC57 has created a reference architecture shown
in Figure 3 that shows where the various standards are applied to the interfacing of
information from substation devices through to dispatch centres.
The IEC 60870-5-101 and -104 SCADA protocols connect the substation to the control
centre. These are augmented with IEC 60870-6 (Inter-Control Centre Protocol) for use
when the substation automation system provides the functionality of a control centre. IEC
60870-5-102 transmits metering data and 61334 provides transmission across power line
carrier.
IEC 61850 (Communication Networks and Systems in Substations) is intended for
sharing of data between substation devices. IEC 60870-5-103 transfers protection device
data within the substation while 60834 transfers protection coordination information
between substations. IEC 61850 can also be used to transfer data between substation and
control centre, but it is not optimized for that application.
Once SCADA data has been collected by the master station, it can be shared with other
control centres using IEC 60870-6 and can interface with EMS, DMS and MIS
applications using the Common Information Model (IEC 61970) and Component
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
Interface Specification for Information Exchange (IEC 61968). Prior to 2004 there was an
impediment to the integration of the reference model due to a fundamental
incompatibility of the object models described in IEC 61850 and those described in IEC
61970. The committees responsible for these standards have since agreed to extend their
respective models in order to provide for compatible interchange of data.
Switchgear, Transformers,
Instrumental Transformers
6
1
3
3
4
6
0
8
7
0
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2
Protection, Control, Metering
Communication Bus
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8
61970
Substation
Automation
System
6
0
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0
-
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Inter-CC
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EMS
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m
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Control Center A Control Center B
60870-6
RTU
Substation /
Field Device
1
60834
Substation /
Field Device
n
60870-5-103 61850
61850
61970 61970

Figure 2 TC57 Standards
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
Inter-Application Messaging Middleware
61970/61968 Common Information Model (CIM)
61970 Component Interface Specifications (CIS)
61850
ACSI
S
C
S
M
-
1
SCSM: Specific
Communication Service
Mappings
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EMS Apps DMS Apps
61968 SIDMS
60870-6
OSI Protocol Stacks
(ISO/TCP)
61850 Station Bus
Control
Center
SCADA
Inter-CC
Data Links
Inboard
Interface
Outboard
INterface
Substation/
Field Devices
Switchgear, Transformers
RTU
61850 Process Bus
External IT
Apps

Figure 3 Reference Architecture
In those parts of the world where DNP3 is dominant for electric power SCADA, it is
often also used for interfacing the substation IEDs (switchgear, protection relays,
metering devices, etc.) with the RTUs, station computers and substation automation
devices. There have been a number of demonstration installations in North and South
America using the UCA2 design models. The UCA2 designs and concepts were passed to
the IEC for inclusion in IEC 61850 and the UCA2 program has been wound up.
The functions supported by some types of IED do not conform to the normal SCADA
model of objects having values that should be reported to a master station. For example,
protection devices report data associated with a protection event, such as the tripping of
a circuit breaker due to overload. The nature of these events is that they do not have a
normal state that is continuously reported, but may have information to report when an
event occurs. Such information only comes into existence because of the protection
event. Additionally, when an event occurs, there may be a large number of separate
measurements captured (such as the magnitude of the currents in each phase at the time
of the trip, the total load tripped, etc.). These various measurements constitute a complete
set or record of values associated with a single event. Some devices may also capture
oscillographic information (waveform traces) when an event occurs. Much of this data is
not reported through a SCADA system but is retrieved and analyzed separately by
protection engineers following a protection event. Because of the special requirements
and data types of these systems, some specific protocols such as IEC 60870-5-103 have
been produced to transfer this data.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
The primary difference between the adoption of DNP3 and the IEC series of protocol
standards in different parts of the world seems to be driven largely by political forces. In
areas where technical innovation and market forces dominate, DNP3 is widely used. In
some parts of the world, national treaties, trade agreements and even government
legislation bind utilities to the use of the IEC standards. The other determining factor is
often the relative influence of European or American manufacturers in each particular
marketplace: When given the choice European vendors will tend to offer IEC interfaces
while American vendors will tend to offer DNP3 interfaces.
SCADA protocols continue to evolve
As evidenced by the new edition of IEC 60870-5-101, work is still going on to improve
these protocols. The DNP3 Technical Committee has published a series of Technical
Bulletins and other documents since 1995 that contain clarifications and extensions to the
protocol. The DNP3 protocol specification is presently being updated to incorporate this
material. The new specifications have been progressively released in draft since 2003 and
should be complete in 2006.
Standardized conformance testing has boosted the end-users confidence that devices
from different vendors will work together. The DNP3 Technical Committee first
published a conformance test for outstation devices in 1998. It is presently developing a
test procedure for master stations, scheduled for completion in 2006. The IEC working
group is currently preparing test procedures for IEC 60870-5-101 and -104 that will be
published as IEC 60870-5-6, probably in 2005. An amendment to IEC 60870-5-104 is
currently in production to clarify various matters associated with connection
management.
Other development work continues in SCADA protocol standards today. Current work
items on both committees lists include:
Improved security (especially validation of authorization of control commands)
Configuration definition (machine readable/automatic configuration) to simplify
system integration
IEC 61850
IEC 61850 is a substation automation protocol designed to allow sharing of data between
substation devices. It is specifically intended to support the sharing of high-speed
protection information between protection devices. Protection schemes require sharing of
data between devices to occur in a very short time, typically less than 4ms. IEC 61850
was also envisaged as a general way for all substation devices to share all real time data.
The US Electric Power Research Institute set up a research program in 1992 to develop a
Utilities Communication Architecture (UCA) that had similar goals. After
implementing a number of demonstration tests, the outcomes of this work were passed
over to the IEC as inputs to IEC 61850. Some of the UCA concepts have been adopted
directly into IEC 61850. The development of IEC 61850 has been continuing since 1994.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies

Figure 4 IEC 61850 Levels

Figure 5 Protocols
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
IEC 61850 provides for the interconnection of substation devices on a high speed
Ethernet network. The substation equipment is functionally modeled in the standard
European manner of substation-level (e.g. interlocking), bay level (e.g. protection or auto
reclose) and process level (e.g. measuring devices, switchgear, etc). This is illustrated in
Figure 4. Typical interface between devices in this model is via hard-wired field I/O (e.g.
CT and VT measurements) or by data interfaces using various protocols. Some
commonly used protocols (including IEC 61850-compliant protocols) are identified for
various functions in Figure 5.
The design presented in IEC 61850 includes data models called Logical Nodes (LN).
These are divided into two groups that represent primary equipment and substation
functions. For example: the switch logical node has representations for the switch state
(open or closed) and permits commands to request change of state of the switch. Table 2
lists the logical node groups defined in IEC 61850.

Group Indicator Logical Node Groups LNs defined
A Automatic Control 4
C Supervisory control 5
G Generic Function References 3
I Interfacing and Archiving 3
L System Logical Nodes 3
M Metering and Measurement 8
P Protection Functions 28
R Protection Related Functions 10
S
a)
Sensors, Monitoring 4
T
a)
Instrument Transformer 2
X
a)
Switchgear 2
Y
a)
Power Transformer and Related Functions 4
Z
a)
Further (power system) Equipment 15
a)
LNs of this group exist in dedicated IEDs if a process bus is used. Without a process bus, LNs of this group
are the I/Os in the hardwired IED one level higher (for example in a bay unit) representing the external device
by its inputs and outputs

Table 2 Logical Node Groups
In a similar manner to advanced SCADA protocols, each quantity in these data models
has associated quality flags, a time of measurement, etc. The standard also presents a
structured naming convention that all devices adopt. The standard provides for devices to
have self-description capabilities, identifying to other devices what data they contain and
can provide. For example: the Group Indicator listed in Table 2 is the first letter of the
Logical Node type for each LN in that group. The protocol supports a high-level object-
oriented data access mechanism to allow interrogation of data in other devices, searching
for data in other devices and subscribing to data in other devices. In the publish-subscribe
model, the publisher provides the requested data to each subscriber whenever the data
changes or on a periodic basis, as requested by the subscriber.
The standard describes a methodology for specifying configuration parameters using
XML to allow the sharing of configuration data between engineering tools and devices
from different vendors. It also provides for an automatic project documentation process.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
The conceptual model of the standard is closely associated to functionality typically
required in some factory automation systems. The Manufacturing Message Specification
(MMS: ISO 9506) was adopted as the basis for the high-level functions. MMS uses
TCP/IP as its transport. IEC 61850 also describes some special services that operate
directly at the Ethernet level: GSSE (Generic Substation Status Event), GOOSE (Generic
Object Oriented Substation Event) and SV (Sampled Values). These messages use a high-
speed repetition broadcast mechanism to ensure prompt data delivery. IEC 61850 species
SNTP over UDP/IP for time synchronization.
SV GOOSE SNTP MMS Protocol Suite GSSE
ISO / IEC 8802-3
ISO/IEC 8802-3 Ethertype
ISO CO
T-Profile
UDP/IP TCP/IP
T-Profile
GSSE
T-Profile
ISO/IEC 8802-2 LLC

Figure 6 Mapping of Services
A specific application function, such as the implementation of a protection scheme,
typically involves logical nodes in one or more physical device. For example, a
measurement unit might directly monitor the values of the power system voltage, current
and phase angle quantities and provide these to the device that performs the protection
function. The device performing the protection function also communicates with the
circuit breaker controller to which it will issue a command to trip when required. The
protection function may also communicate with a station computer (HMI) to show its
status, etc. Each logical node may be used as part of one or more functions. The IEC
61850 standard describes the logical nodes and their interfaces but does not describe the
application functions that they are used for, nor does it describe which logical nodes
should be provided in any specific piece of equipment. These are matters left to the
equipment vendor.
The first field deployments of IEC 61850 were completed in November 2004 when
Siemens and ABB commissioned one substation each in Switzerland.
The goals of IEC 61850 include the standardization of substation control system designs
to reduce the amount of effort required in engineering each installation. This should lead
to improved economies over the life of a substation control system. It is recognized that
equipment that supports IEC 61850 has a higher capital cost than equivalent equipment
that does not. Early design studies suggest that there are modest reductions in engineering
effort required to configure substation control systems using IEC 61850. As the tools
mature, it is expected that the level of automation of the design process can be increased,
leading to further reduction. It is expected that the ongoing cost of configuration
maintenance should be significantly reduced.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
These benefits are best seen when considering a complete control system replacement or
new installation. There is less benefit to be gained from partial retrofit of IEC 61850-
compliant equipment, and no initial benefit from the installation of individual orphaned
IEC 61850 compliant equipment. There may, however, be justification for such
piecemeal approaches to substation refurbishment, as reengineering workload should be
reduced in the long term when significant amounts of the control equipment can use the
common interfaces.
Whats next?
The IEC 60870-5-101/-104 and DNP3 protocols were purpose-designed for their SCADA
roles. They probably have a service life of another 15 to 20 years. It is not yet clear what
will replace them. The IEC 61850 substation automation protocol might take over their
role. Much could depend on a revolution or evolution in communications bandwidth and
processing power. The existing protocols that were specifically designed for robust and
efficient reporting of SCADA data are optimized for that role.
The trend for expansion of SCADA applications to collect field data for corporate IT
systems will have an impact on system requirements. The future seems to promise greater
integration and data sharing between devices with less manual configuration effort.
Recent trends have shown a continual increase in substation equipment capability and a
concurrent increase in the number of parameters and variables they use or can monitor
and report. Some of this data is useful for the real-time operation and monitoring of the
substation, some can be useful for post-mortem fault analysis. The capability of IEC
61850 to transport complex data objects may make it ideal to transport more of this ad-
hoc data.
It is possible that future systems will see support for interfaces where a combination of
protocols can used. This would permit each interface to be optimized for its particular
function, while allowing for the breadth of features that are provided by the different
protocols. The expansion of TCP/IP into the substation and between substations and
control centres will support multiple parallel information sessions. New mechanisms and
new protocols will undoubtedly be designed to serve specific applications. In the same
way that there is no single solution that fits every problem, it may be foolish to assume
that any single protocol will be the optimum mechanism for supporting every substation
control function.
Are there standards for SCADA and Substation Automation?
Some of the protocol standards that are commonly used in electric power SCADA and
Substation Automation have been discussed here. Electric power data communication
usually imposes more stringent requirements than other industries; thus some of the
issues mentioned above may not be applicable everywhere. Adhering to standards
generally results in more flexibility, vendor-independence, cost savings and a degree of
future-proofing. As always, it is up to the end user to decide how important they are in
any particular application.
Session One: SCADA and Substation Control Communication
Southern African SCADA & MES Conference 2005 IDC Technologies
Bibliography
DNP3 Specification Volume 1 DNP3 Introduction, DNP Users Group, 2002
IEC 60870-5-101 (2003-02) Telecontrol equipment and systems - Part 5-101:
Transmission protocols - Companion standard for basic telecontrol tasks, IEC, 2003
The World Market for Substation Automation and Integration Programs in Electric
Utilities: 20022005, Newton Evans Research Company, Inc., 2002
Reference Architecture for TC57, KPMG Consulting, 2002
IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems in substations, IEC, in various parts
since 2002
Websites
DNP Users Group Website: http://www.dnp.org
IEC Webstore: http://www.iec.ch
IEC 60870-5 Maillist: http://www.TriangleMicroWorks.com/iec60870-5/
SCADA Maillist: http://www.iinet.net.au/~ianw/mailst.html
IEC 61850 & UCA Users Group: http://www.ucausersgroup.org/
About the Author
Andrew West received Bachelors degrees in Engineering, Science and Arts from the
University of Queensland. He spent ten years with the Queensland Electricity
Commission as a control system software engineer working on both master stations and
transmission substation control systems and six years with Leeds & Northrup as firmware
system architect for the Foxboro RTU products. He has worked for Triangle
MicroWorks, Inc., a provider of software source code libraries for SCADA
communication protocols and is now SCADA System Architect for Invensys in Brisbane.
He also spent two years in the Maldives as an Australian Volunteer Abroad. He is a
Graduate member of the Institution of Engineers, Australia and is a Member of the IEEE.
Andrew has been involved in SCADA systems for over 20 years and has participated in
SCADA protocol standardization activities since 1996. He co-authored IEEE standards
1379 (IEEE Recommended Practice for Data Communication Between Remote Terminal
Units and Intelligent Electronic Devices in a Substation) and P1615 (Draft Standard
Environmental and Testing Requirements for Communications Networking Devices in
Electric Power Substations). He is a member of the Standards Australia working group
EL-050: Power System Control and Communication and its predecessor IT/24 (SCADA).
He has been a member of IEC TC57 WG03 since 1998 and spokesperson for that
committee since 2001. He has been a member of the DNP Users Group Technical
Committee since 1996 and Chair of the committee since 1999.

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