IEC 61850 Data Transfer Evaluation over Public Networks

Smart Grids emerged as a means to provide more intelligent management of the electrical grid. The IEC 61850 standard, based on several communication protocols including Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS), Generic Object Oriented Substation Event (GOOSE) and Sampled Values (SV), allows better interoperability between Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED), albeit designed to operate within substations. This paper addresses the potential of IEC 61850 communications to go beyond substations and actually use different commercial access technologies such as ADSL, Optical Fibre and 4G-LTE, comparing them for remote communications using IP or VPN. The objective is to provide a useful reference for operators and solution developers working on the interconnection of IEDs, by going beyond previous related works which were performed using only network simulators. Results are analysed, concluding on the impact over IEC 61850 signalling time requirements, providing new insights, as previous works have focused on simulations, laboratory testbeds or Ethernet links.