IEC 61850 basics

IEC 61850 defines an architecture for meeting the needs of electrical substation automation. It defines a data model and the communication services for the interaction with and between elements of a substation such as feeders, breakers, protection devices etc. For engineering purposes a description language, system configuration language ( SCL ), is defined.

The goal of the standard is to provide a vendor-independent model for describing a substation and to ensure a vendor-independent interoperability between its elements. These elements are controlled via Intelligent Electronic Devices ( IED ).

The well defined data modeling and communication services like peer-to-peer communication makes the standard an important element of any modern substation automation system.

A detailed understanding of the standard and its requirements can be obtained by referring to the website http://webstore.iec.ch/

The implementation of the WinCC OA IEC 61850 client is based on the following parts of the standard and the documents referenced within these:

• IEC 61850 Part 1: Introduction and overview

• IEC 61850 Part 7-1 (ed2.0): Basic communication structure - Principles and models

• IEC 61850 Part 7-2 (ed2.0): Basic information and communication structure - Abstract communication service interface ( ACSI )

• IEC 61850 Part 7-3 (ed2.0): Basic communication structure - Common data classes

• IEC 61850 Part 7-4 (ed2.0): Basic communication structure - Compatible logical node classes and data object classes

• IEC 61850 Part 8-1 (ed2.0): Specific communication service mapping (SCSM) - Mapping to MMS (ISO 9506-1 and ISO 9506-2) and to ISO/ IEC 8802-3

An understanding of the engineering requirement can be obtained by referring to the following document:

• IEC 61850 Part 6 (ed2.0): Configuration description language for communication in electrical substations related to IEDs