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Testing protection relays based on IEC 61850 in Substation Automation

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Article · July 2015

DOI: 10.1109/EPE.2015.7161095

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 Testing Protection Relays Based on IEC 61850 in
Substation Automation Systems
Mayada Daboul
Department of Electrical Power Engineering
Faculty of electrical engineering and communication
Brno, Czech Republic
xdabou00@stud.feec.vutbr.cz
Tomáš Bajánek
Department of Electrical Power Engineering
Faculty of electrical engineering and communication
Brno, Czech Republic
xbajan00@stud.feec.vutbr.cz
Abstract—IEC 61850 standard has achieved the required
development for the communication in the Substation
Automation Systems (SASs) by allowing to apply the high-speed
peer-to-peer communications that is the basis of metering,
control and protection applications in SASs. Nevertheless, an
appropriate test method for performance testing of IEC 61850
compatible with protection relays and systems is an urgent need
to ensure the protection functions of relays will operate as
designed. This paper reviews requirements (software and
physical devices) of the conventional protective relay testing and
the performance testing of IEC 61850 based-relays. It also
describes a comparison between the functional testing of
conventional IEDs and testing of communications based IEDs.
Keywords—IEC 61850 standard; functional testing; GOOSE
messages; SASs.
I. INTRODUCTION
IEC 61850 international standard for substation
communications has met the requirements of protection,
control, monitoring, recording, data acquisition, etc. functions.
It is the basis for a set of applications that have improved the
functionality and at the same time have reduced the cost of
Substation Automation Systems (SASs).
Earlier, communication for the automation functions within
the SASs used was a traditional method through hard wiring
between protective relays and serial peer-to-peer
communications. However, the hardwired approach of
transmitting protection and control signals has its own
disadvantages such as complicated substation wiring.
IEC 61850 has defined two models based on peer-to-peer
communication, which are Generic object oriented substation
event (GOOSE) and Sampled values (SV). GOOSE has
magnificent features such as great flexible, high priority and
reliable mechanism for the fast transmission events of the
This research work has been carried out in the Centre for Research and
Utilization of Renewable Energy (CVVOZE). Authors gratefully
acknowledge financial support from the Ministry of Education, Youth and
Sports of the Czech Republic under NPU I program (project No. LO1210)
Jaroslava Orságová
Department of Electrical Power Engineering
Faculty of electrical engineering and communication
Brno, Czech Republic
orsagova@feec.vutbr.cz
Vojtěch Wasserbauer
Department of Electrical Power Engineering
Faculty of electrical engineering and communication
Brno, Czech Republic
xwasse02@stud.feec.vutbr.cz
substation (e.g. trips commands, alarms, indications etc.). SASs
originate from multiple components, which have multiple
functions, each component must be testable in order to perform
the multiple distributed applications as are designed [2], [3],
[4].
Generation and monitoring the communication services,
checking the data model files of Intelligent Electrical Devices
(IEDs) and system were unavailable with the conventional
testing system of SAS based on hard-wired cables. However,
IEC 61850 based protection system, has reduced the
engineering effort and time taken to test and commission the
protection system. Always, laboratory testing of protection
schemes is preferred before commissioning to debug the
interactions among IEDs in SASs [5], [6], [7].
This paper focuses upon the GOOSE message evaluation
performance advantage over conventional hardwired testing. It
also shows laboratory setup used for this purpose.
II. SUBSTATION AUTOMATION AND IEC 61850
One of the building blocks of modern utility protection and
control systems is Substation Automation Systems (SAS) that
are related with primary substation equipment such as bus bars,
transformers, breakers, transmission lines, and distribution
feeders. SAS contribute to provide measurements and status
information to the upper layers of the system hierarchy.
Moreover, SAS detect any abnormal system or condition and
execute the necessary action to prevent further deterioration of
a disturbance or damage to equipment.
A complex substation protection, control and monitoring
system has a hierarchical structure which may have a different
number of levels for the communications [1].
Substation integration and automation can be divided into
five levels [8] as is shown in Figure 1.

Fig. 1. Layers of substation integration and automation
 The lowest level (the primary equipment), which is an
integral part of every substation, includes power system
field equipment in the switch yard. The functions of this
level are like analogue signals, binary status signals or
binary control signals.
 The second and most important part is the IED
implementation that replaced with the
electromechanical relays. These IEDs have the ability
to exchange data and execute control commands.
 The third level is IED integration. IEDs has allowed to
integrate the protection, control, and data acquisition
functions into a minimal number of platforms, thus has
resulted to reduce capital and operating costs and panel
and control room space requirements.
 The fourth stage is SA applications in which the
intelligent alarm processing or adaptive relaying relay
coordination can be implemented.
 The fifth level is the utility enterprise that consist of
third-party enterprise software which in both of
operational and non-operational data being analysed.
In addition, the analysed historical data contributes to
obtain the predictive maintenance instead of periodic
maintenance thus, this reduces maintenance cost.
Transmitting primary functional data from the
substation to the utility enterprise can be achieved by
three paths. The first one is that of transmitting the
operational data to the SCADA system. While the
second data path is that of transmitting the non-
operational data to the data warehouse, and the third is
remote access to IEDs.
In earlier days, the conventional automated substation used
the serial communication buses or proprietary communication
media associated protocols. With the development of different
protocols, IEC 60870-5 series and the DNP3 (Distributed
Network Protocol) have made effort for standardization the
communication protocols. These protocols have achieved some
conformity and interoperability within a substation and for
remote telemetry between multivendor systems [9].
IEC 61850 standard has provided a basis for substation
communication and engineering, thus allowing interoperability
as well as standardizing substation engineering and substation
solutions.
III. CONVENTIONAL TESTING OF PROTECTION IN
AUTOMATION SYSTEMS
Testing of protection in automation systems is significantly
necessary in order to guarantee the proper operation of the
engineering solution. The interconnectivity tests, which are
included in the protection tests, can specify whether the devices
are able to exchange information or not. Moreover, the overall
performance tests is required to determine whether the
components of the solution meet the requirements defined
during the design stages.
Fig. 2. Conventional IED testing
Fig. 2 presents the conventional testing of hard-wired
protection and automation systems. Laboratory setup testing
consists of two protection relays REF543-ABB, CMC 256 plus
- Omicron (Test Set) for testing the relays, Cap 505 software
for configuration the relays and Universe Test software tool to
demonstrate the measured results.
The test device has to simulate the process of substation
through hard-wired interface between the analogue and binary
outputs of the test device and the analogue and binary inputs of
the test object. At the same time, the closing of relay outputs of
the tested device IED2 have to be monitored by the test device
to detect the operation of the IED and analyse it in order to
determine if the performance meets the specification [4].
Fig. 3 shows a functional diagram of the "PROTECT" for
protection function of the IED2. At the input of the block
"NOC3High_1" (non-directional overcurrent protection) are
supplied three phase currents, which in fact flow through the
bus bars. At the output of this "NOC3High_1" there is START
that will be activated (TRUE) if the current in one or more
phases exceeds the set start current; then the TRIP signal will
set TRUE immediately or after delay time (selectable mode in
the function block). Furthermore TRIP signal will activate
when other protection (IED1) fail through the activated input
"PS1_4_B11"which is connected with the output of IED1.
Fig. 3. Protection function configuration in IED2
After programing the protection function of relays using
Function Blocks, the operating time of the tested function can
be measured.
When the relay IED1 operates under abnormal system
conditions (e.g. overcurrent) the output START signal of
"NOC3High_1" will active to allow the device to carry out the
protection; But if the circuit-breaker of this protection device
failed, the second relay will trip this fault by TRIP signal due to
the activated input "PS1_4_B11".
Fig. 4. Test set results
Fig. 4 is showing the time of fault detection at IED1 and the
trip signal for circuit breaker of IED2. Thus, the delay time of
these signals is computationally 18ms.
IV. FUNCTIONAL TESTING OF IEC 61850-BASED
AUTOMATION SYSTEMS
Protection system based on IEC 61850 depends on the
communication infrastructure and in the ability of the systems
components to properly interoperate and communicate with
each other. The communications in this case use the IEC 61850
GSSE or GOOSE messages.
A. The goose message service
IEC 61850-7-2 has defined a generic substation event
service that provides a fast and reliable distribution of input
and output data values, including both digital and analogue
values [15]. This service is depended on the concept of an
autonomous decentralization method that supports an efficient
way allowing the simultaneous delivery of the same event
information to more than one physical device by using the
multicast services.
IEC 61850-7-2 has defined two classes of messages
expressed as:
a) Generic object oriented substation event (GOOSE):
supports the exchange of a wide range of possible common
data organized by a Date-Set
b) Generic substation state event (GSSE): provides the
capability to convey state change information (bit pairs) [15].
Type of exchanged information is the major difference
between GOOSE and GSSE services. The GSSE service only
supports a simple list of status information; while the GOOSE
service provides a flexible means to specify which information
is to be exchanged. In this paper, only GOOSE service is based
on the implemented applications.
GOOSE messages, which have become a flexible
communication model for exchanging generic substation
events within IEDs, have various features that can be listed as
following:
 Handshaking and automatic retransmission
mechanisms to make sure that all GOOSE messages
has not lost during transmission.
 Predefined destinations to reduce the roaming time of
message.
 Peer-to-peer and multicast communication methods to
allow variety applications.
 High priority of communication level to minimize the
transmission delay.
 Easy to design, mapped to current communication
technologies through SCSM (Specific Communication
Service Mapping) service [10].
 Easy for expansion, monitoring, maintaining, and
upgrading.
 Transmission time depends on the network situations
and on the IED’s local information forwarding
abilities.
 Achieving economic benefit by replacing conventional
wires with digital communication cables
Digital communication speed and the stability basically
must be taken into account when GOOSE service in a power
system protection and control scheme is implemented.
 GOOSE service in the field of protection is being used for
implementation the major applications such as transmission of
signals for autoreclosing, inter-tripping and interlocking.
B. GOOSE Configuration
It is important to have an idea about the data modelling of
IEC 61850 to understand how to integrate IEC GOOSE in the
substation. IEC 61850 device modelling consists of a physical
device that contains one or more logical device. Each one of
the logical device contains many logical nodes which are
considered the core of the data model [5]
There are many steps for integration GOOSE in the sub-
station as are following:
1) Configuration DataSet in individual IEDs
Different Data in IED is grouped as DataSet which is
always accompanied with the GOOSE message. Changing in
the value of any Data Attributes of DataSet causes a new event
and sent new GOOSE message [11].
2) Configuration Individual IEDs
After a published Data set has been set, the configuration
shall be downloaded for at least all the subscribing IEDs. IEDs
must be configured to obtain the System Configuration
Description (SCD) files necessary for system configuration. All
information about the configured relay and the
published/subscribed GOOSE messages, are provided by the
(SCD) files.
3) System Configuration for GOOSE
System configuration is the final and most important step
that can be either via an independent IEC61850 configurator, or
via the relay specific software. In order to generate a (SCD) file
and define GOOSE mapping, an independent system
configurator can be used.
Fig. 5. System configuration for GOOSE
Fig. 5 illustrates that generated IED Capability Description
(ICD) files are sent to the System configuration to create SCD
file. An SCD file includes all the Configuration IED Description
(CID) files, (ICD) files and the single line diagram of the
substation [12].
A simple verification test of GOOSE messages can be
achieved using IEDScout. Local Area Networks (LAN) is used
to interrogate and acquire the right GOOSE message during the
testing processes.
C. Performance Evaluation of Goose Messages
The evaluation the timing performance of the GOOSE
message transmission is crucial to realize their use in real time
protection applications. Where, the transmission time is the
maximum time that is allowed to exchange the data via a
communications system.
Fig. 6 describes the transmission time involved in the
transfer of information between two devices
Fig. 6. Overall transfer time[14]
Where, ta is the time of the communications processing
algorithm within the Physical Device1 (IED1) to publish
GOOSE. This algorithm processes the data received from the
input and logic processing of IED1 to create and publish the
message. Moreover, f1 includes the typical functions such as
detecting, processing, and time-stamping the state change of
physical contact input in IED1.
Time tb is the actual transmission time of the message across
the network from the publisher to the subscriber.
Time tc is the communication processing time within
physical device 2 (IED2), which receives and processes the
GOOSE message from IED1. The function f2 symbolize the
message contents that are received from IED1 such as
subsequent closure of a physical output contact, and associated
time stamp.
The message transmission time during creation and
delivery messages between IEDs is:
t = ta + tb + tc (1)
The information transfer time form publishing information
in IED 1 until act on it in IED 2 after delivery it via a protocol
message is:
tTransfer = t + tf2 (2)
The transmission time of GOOSE message depends on a
variety of factors such as communications network parameters,
network situations and the processing capabilities of the
devices used. Moreover, the measuring GOOSE performance is
related with the bandwidth, data rate, network load conditions,
network configuration and several other factors that must be
considered [13].
 IEC 61850-5 has introduced the terms "overall transfer
time" about the measurement of the overall transfer time within
the protection testing. IEC 61850-5 has specified that transfer
time should be less than 3ms for a Trip GOOSE command and
20ms for a Block GOOSE command.
In the laboratory test setup for performance measurement of
GOOSE based protection scheme, where protective relays and
a PC are connected to an Ethernet Switch to form a
communication network, IEDScout software has been used.
Immediately upon completion of the GOOSE configuration
process, GOOSE messages exchanged become ready to test.
GOOSE messages are transmitted with reason for circuit
breaker trip that is caused by simulating the overcurrent in the
power system.
Fig. 7. Test set result of GOOSE
Since each condition can cause an incorrect result for the
fat GOOSE message test, a different method to calculate the
transmission time has been used in this article as in “(3)”
tGOOSE = ½ (tsend – treceive),
where
tGOOSE is transmission time of GOOSE,
tsend is initial GOOSE starting time in the publisher,
treceive is confirmation GOOSE receiving time in the publisher.
Initially, the GOOSE message has been generated by the
publisher relay, and then it has been routed to the predefined
destinations. When the subscriber receives this special GOOSE
message, it performs a local logical calculation and sends a
confirmation GOOSE message back to the publisher. All these
events will be precisely recorded into the log files for
calculating the transmission time and the local forwarding time
for each device.
The difference time between fault inception and trip signal
received at circuit breaker has been defined as 5ms (one cycle).
Considering that time of Start is equal to the time of Trip that
will give the time of each message as:
tGOOSE = ½ (4589.5 – 4594.5) = 2.5ms
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V. CONCLUSION
Conventional testing methodologies are based on tests
scenarios, selected equipment, and analysis tools, preferably
executed in a laboratory environment, under well-controlled
conditions.
Functional testing based on IEC 61850 has proved that
GOOSE provides a very flexible and fast, high-priority and
reliable method for the exchange of substation events among
IEDs for interlocking and protection purpose.
Moreover, during the testing it was observed that the
configuration software tool acts an important role, by providing
an overview of the substation system, loading configuration
files from each IED, mapping logical functions to IEDs,
constructing logical connections, and performing a complete
system level operation.
Finally, it can be said that modern relay based on IEC
61850 takes less time in processing the received data thus the
sent respond as messages require a shorter time delay.
Comparison between two methods illustrated that IEC
61850 can be successfully used to replace conventional
substation control and protection systems without any
degradation in the overall performance of the system.
Future work will determine the delay time of GOOSE
messages with the existence of traffic in network included
larger number of equipment.
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