Preparing to Teach IEC 61850 Digital Substations: A Laboratory Approach

The digital revolution is fully influencing operation of power substations. With the suite of IEC 61850 standards, there is now a method to replace copper connections between substation control buildings and yard equipment with digital fiber optic Ethernet networks. This new technology motivates new topics for training. This paper presents the creation of a 61850 digital substation laboratory for training power system students. The training lab consists of three merging units, two SDN switches, three microprocessor protective relays equipped with IEC 61850 support and a GPS clock. A Cleveland State University undergraduate senior design team designed, built, and successfully tested the digital substation as their capstone project.The training rack is based on a physical substation model consisting of a transmission line, power transformer, and substation bus. The laboratory successfully demonstrated that the protection and control functions could be securely and reliably performed in a digital substation connecting hardware together through a software-based network. The hardware and software used to create this portable digital substation are explained in detail.Experience in the development of this laboratory reveals that Electrical Engineers focusing on Power Systems and Protective Relaying will need additional skills in Computer Networks and Digital Communications from the Computer Science and Computer Engineering Departments at their Universities to be prepared for digital substation deployment and support.