Comprehensive Analysis of Reliability and Availability of Sub-Station Automation System with IEC 61850

IEC 61850 standard has been used in recent years for modern sub-station automation system (SAS) which enabled the interoperability among communication devices from different vendors. However, it is not specified in the IEC standard for any certain type of communication architecture for a certain type of substation. Certainly, it demands zero points of failure with a particular time limit of transferring the message. So, it is very important to find a comprehensive analysis of reliability and availability of the communication architectures for modern digital SASs. In this paper, a mathematical approach is used to analyze the reliability and availability in detail and finally propose a suitable design for efficient operation. For simulation, an Optimized Network Engineering Tool (OPNET) has been used.