Testing and configuration of IEC 61850 multivendor protection schemes

The IEC 61850 standard has many benefits such as replacing the traditional copper wiring with a GOOSE (Generic Object Oriented Substation Events) message sent via Ethernet over fiber optic cable. Conventional hardwired inputs and outputs for control and protection functions are no longer necessary. The traditional methods of substation interlocking and tripping a breaker via a contact can be replaced by GOOSE messages. Power substations designed around the IEC 61850 standard, which underpins the high level of automation associated with the Smart Grid initiative, leads to a requirement for complex protection schemes which create significant testing challenges. One major challenge currently facing IEC 61850 is defining testing procedures. How is an IEC 61850 device supposed to be tested? What is required in order to test these devices? How does the time performance of a GOOSE message compare to that of a conventional hardwire relay output? This paper provides information which may answer some of the questions mentioned above. Discussed in this paper are some of the challenges encountered during the multivendor IED engineering process, testing, and overall system configuration. A distributed communications assisted breaker failure scheme using multivendor IEDs is shown as an example to illustrate some of these challenges and provide solutions to these problems. At the end of this paper, a time comparison between an IEC 61850 based breaker failure scheme and a traditional hardwired scheme is shown.