The International Conference on Electrical Engineering 2009

Study of Communication Methods Between Digital Substations and Remote Control Centers
Li YongLiang, China Electric Power Research Institute
Abstract Lots of digital substations based on IEC 61850
series standards have been implemented all over the world. The Intelligent Electronic Devices have been interoperated each other from the different manufactures. So the communication methods between the substations and the remote control centers become important. Seamless

In IEC 61850 standard, the focus is the interoperation between the IEDs from the different manufactures, such as the protection relay, control device, HMI and intelligent primary equipments. The following figure shows the logical function interfaces in a substation automation system. IF10 is the interface of substation automation with the remote control centers (NCC) and not involved in the current edition of IEC61850, but it is necessary for the power utilities to monitor and control the operation of the substation from the remote control centers. As an intermediate protocol converter of IF10, normally should provide the following functions: Provide protocol conversion from IEC 60870-5, DNP3.0 or Proprietary to IEC 61850 and vice-versa. Support multiple communication interfaces, include the serial communication ports in low speed, also the Ethernet type ports in high speed. Provide the data storage and data exchange thereby providing data concentration capability. Provide the configuration file for the different protocol converting. This paper will discuss three communication methods of IF10 depending on the different applications and the different periods II. THREE COMMUNICATION METHODS BETWEEN THE
DIGITAL SUBSTATIONS AND THE REMOTE CONTROL CENTERS

communication of the power utilities is the objective of the new edition IEC 61850 standard.

Index TermsDigital Substation, Remote Control Centers,

Communication Method, IF10, Protocol gateway, Proxy Server, Seamless Communication.

I.

INTRODUCTION

IEC 61850, Communication Networks and Systems in Substation, published by the IEC working group TC57 as the new global communication standard in order to interoperate between the different intelligent electronic devices (IED) in substations, has been accepted by the manufactures and utilities all over the world. Lots of digital substations based on IEC61850 have been built and realized.

A.

Protocol Gateway

In this method, the IEC 61850 compliant substation automation has been built, but the SCADA system in the remote control center is traditional and cant support the new IEC 61850 standard, so the protocol must be selected
Fig.1 logical function interfaces of IEC 61850

in-service SCADA protocols, such as IEC 60870-5-101,

DNP 3.0, Chinese own CDT (Cyclic Data Transmission ) and so on. A protocol gateway has to be installed in the substation to act as the protocol converter. Protocol gateway means network interconnection devices that translate protocols to other protocols[1]. So the protocol gateway will concentrate the real-time information from the IEDs in substation by acting as a IEC 61850 compliant client, and send the commands from the remote control center to the related IED.
LAN Front End
M O D E M

converting configuration file. The configuration file can be created by a specific engineering tool.
TAB1: AN EXAMPLE OF IEC 61850 MAPPING TO IEC 60870-5-101

IEC 61850 Attr. Name Attr. Type Type

IEC 60870-5-101 Notes

IEC60870-5101, DNP, CDT

Station Bus
M O D E M

Protocol Gateway

IED1 IED2 IEDn

DPS.ST Mapping to ASDU Type 31( M_DP_TB_1, Double Point with CP56Time2a) intermediate-state | off stVal CODENUM DPI in DIQ | on | bad-state Seven octets with t TimeStamp CP56Time2a year/month/day/week /hour/minute/second/millisec ond Valididy->NT q Quality SIQ Source->SB operatorBlocked->BL

HMI Station

In the edition of IEC 61850 standards that will be published, there is a development guide named as IEC 61850-80-1 Guideline to exchange information from a CDC based data model using IEC 60870-5-101/104. This Technical specification will define the mapping rules of IEC61850 on IEC 60870-5-101/104 for a protocol gateway. B. Proxy Server

SCADA Server

Fig.2 communication method of Protocol Gateway

In this method, the most benefit is for the SCADA system, the operators in the control centers can monitor and control the remote substation as the ordinary way, and they are unaware of the fact that the substation protocols are different than previous designs that used IEC60870-5-101 and other protocols in the substation. But, there are two disadvantages using this method. First, Converting IEC 61850 protocol into traditional and legacy protocols is the dramatic increase in complexity. Because some of the new IEC 61850 protocols are more functional they have more features and attributes that do not exist in other protocols like IEC 60870-5-101 and CDT. Therefore, it is difficult to convert simple messages to perform actions that are more elaborate in the IEC 61850 protocols. Additionally, commands and other message transactions via IEC 61850 methods benefit from object-oriented data structures; however, some of these data structures include data types that are not available within the other protocol methods. Therefore, not only must missing data attributes somehow be created, existing data attributes often must be converted from one type to another. Because IEC 61870-5-101 protocol only can transform the process data with signal address in substation, so we can associate FC (Functional Constraint of CDC) of IEC 61850 with ASDU type of IEC 60870-5-101. For example, we can map the ST in DPS CDC to ASDU type 31. Of course, the signal address has to be assigned by a

In this method, the SCADA system in the control center can support the IEC 61850 communication protocol, so the SCADA server can directly access the IEDs in substation through the router. Considering of the security and connection limitation of IEDs, it is a good solution to add a proxy server in substation.
Station Bus
LAN SCADA Server
R O U T E R

IEC 61850-8-1

R O U T E R

Proxy Server

IED1 IED2 IEDn

HMI Station

Fig.3 communication method of Proxy Server

Proxy server is a special device that mirror logical devices located in other IEC 61850 physical devices. Hence, these logical devices are from a functional point of view transparent. They can be identified independently of their location (in a separate device connected to the network or in a proxy device) [1]. These logical devices in a proxy server shall have the data LPHD.Proxy.stVal of the LPHD set to TRUE, another logical device (PXY as shown in the following figure) shall be implemented to represent the information about the proxy server itself.

Proxy Server To NCC Own LD PXY

Mirror

IED1

Fig.5 Model harmonization of seamless communication

LD1

D.
IED2 Feature Communication Protocol

Comparison of three communication methods

Protocol Gateway IEC 60870-5-101/104, DNP, CDT No No delay difficult today None Proxy Server IEC 61850-8-1 IEC 61850/IEC 61970s Model harmonizing IEC 61850-90-2

TAB2: COMPARISON OF THREE COMMUNICATION METHODS

LD1 LD2 LD2

Fig.4 Mirroring of Local Devices in Proxy Server

C.

IEC61970/IEC61850s models harmonizing is the international standard of

IEC61970

API(Application Program Interface) for EMS (Energy Management System). In spite of all adopting the objective-modeling to describe the component of power utility, IEC61850 and IEC61970 have the different data models. How to be harmonized with the CIM model in particular in IEC61970 and the LN model and DATA model in IEC61850 is the key technology. IEC TC57 WG19 are currently discussing this technical specification will be published as IEC 61850-90-2: Using IEC 61850 for the communication between substations and control centers. It will include model and SCL extensions, communication mapping and required topology for seamless access to substation information. Sharing information between IEC 61850 and IEC 61970 include two parts: one is the configuration information. IEC 61970 has a total description for the grid topology, equipments, physical devices and asset management that are needed by substation engineering. Other is the real-time process data from the substation field that are necessary for Network Planning, Network Operation, Operational Optimization, Meter Reading, . The following figure shows mapping IEC 61850s LN to CIMs Equipment by the topological view.
North China Grid ShunYi 500kV Substation Equipment Breaker 12 MMXU1 A PhV Map IEC 61850 LN to CIM Equipment A PhV From IEC 61850

Data integrity Data model Response time Difficulty of engineering Application period Requirements of SCADA System Unified models for power utilities

Yes Yes fast medium future Supporting IEC 61850 Client No

Yes Yes fast Simple future Supporting IEC 61970 & IEC 61850 Yes

No

III. SEAMLESS COMMUNICATION IN THE FUTURE With the updating of IEC 61850 standard series, the information models have been extended to other power industries, for example: IEC 61400-25: Communications for monitoring and control of wind power plants IEC61850-7-410: Communication for monitoring and control -hydroelectric power plants IEC61850-7-420: Communications systems for distributed energy resources (DER) - Logical nodes IEC 62271-3: High-voltage switchgear and control gear Part 3: Digital interfaces based on IEC61850 IEC61850-90-1: Use of IEC61850 for the communication between substations IEC61850-90-2: centers[2] That means IEC 61850 standard series will become the seamless communication protocol of power utilities, so the new edition IEC 61850 has a new title of Communication networks and systems for power utility automation. The following figure shows the seamless Using IEC61850 for the communication between substations and control

Instantaneous Overcurrent Relay for Breaker 12 Relay1 PIOC1 MMXU1

From IEC 61970

communication of future IEC 61850 for power utilities

phsA phsB phsC Cval ang

phsA phsB phsC Cval ang

f f IEC 61850 Run Time GID View

Fig.6 seamless communication based on IEC 61850 Standard.

IV. CONCLUSION This paper tries to explain the IF10, communication methods between the substations and the remote control centers. Taking account of the different applications and different periods, we can select the different solution to realize data exchanging. The specifications about the communication method between the substation and the control centers will be included in the new edition IEC61850, and to realize the data sharing between the substations and the remote control centers will be the real seamless communication in power utilities. V. REFERENCES

[1] IEC 61850 Part 7-1: Basic communication structure for substation and feeder equipment Principles and models [2] Christoph Brunner: IEC 61850 is Growing. PAC.SMNNER.2008 [3] IEC 61850 Part 8-1: Specific communication service mapping (SCSM) Mappings to MMS (ISO/IEC 9506-1 and ISO/IEC 9506-2) and to ISO/IEC 8802-3 [4] IEC 61850 Part 7-4: Basic communication structure for substation and feeder equipment Compatible logical node classes and data classes [5] Victor Manuel Flores and Daniel Espinosa, Comisin Federal de Electricidad and Julian Alzate and Dave Dolezilek, Schweitzer Engineering Laboratories, Inc: Case Study: Design and Implementation of IEC 61850 From Multiple Vendors at CFE La Venta II. [6] IEC 60870-5-101: Companion standard for basic telecontrol task. [7] IEC 61970. Energy Management System Application Program Interface. VI. VII. BIOGRAPHIES Li YongLiang:
Male, born in 1969, received the BSET degree from

Tongji University, Shanghai, from 1988 to 1993; the Master degree from China Electric Power Research Institute, Beijing, from 1999 to 2001. Now, is employed as development engineer of Digital Substation by China Electric Power Research Institute.