IEC 61850: open communication in practice in substations

Owing to the large number of protocols for substation communication, devices from different manufacturers or of different generations can often not communicate with each other. The communication standard IEC 61850 permits interoperability without the use of gateways. Through the split of application and communication stack and through the standardized permitted extension of the supporting functions, the long-term validity of the standard is guaranteed. This approach leads to lower investment outlay, less training effort and lower life-cycle costs of substation automation systems. All automation functions as well as the single-line diagram of a substation are described by means of the substation configuration description language. Many migration paths are possible to allow a substation to be gradually IEC 61850-compliant. Existing equipment may be upgraded directly. Existing equipment may also be left intact, and an interface is established between this and any new IEC 61850-compliant equipment which is introduced when the substation is extended.