Testing Challenges of a Complete PAC Digital Substation

Two editions and ten+ years of global effort to standardize the substation data models has resulted in a positive transformation in our industry towards digitizing the power grid. With many vendors in this sector whole heartedly developing products and tools to comply with the IEC 61850 standard, the ease of engineering and deploying a complete PAC digital substation have improved over this period [1]. From a user perspective, to reap the full benefits of this standard, they are totally reliant on the ways and methodologies utilized by the system integrator who implement their design. In this paper, we look at the capabilities of some of the trending tools commercially available today in the market to test and maintain a complete digital substation and the testing challenges faced. We will compare and co-relate these tools with traditional ways and methodologies used in a conventional PAC substation.