Benefits of IEC 61850 standard for power monitoring and management systems in forest products industries

The IEC 61850 standard, using Ethernet as its primary communication architecture, can be utilized in a fashion to significantly benefit pulp and paper process users. While IEC 61850 defines three types of communication: Generic Object Oriented Substation Event (GOOSE), Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS), and Sampled Measured Values (SMV), this paper will focus on the benefits of Manufacturing Message Specification (MMS) communications. Utilizing the IEC 61850 communications, measurands can be gathered into a central system. This repository of data can be accessed by multiple users anywhere on the factory or enterprise networks. This data can be used for energy management, load shedding, and complete power system monitoring and control. Additionally, IEC 61850 allows for the command and control, or actuation of protection equipment in the system; therefore reducing start time between failures while also increasing safety levels as remote actuation does not require local access and the use of Personal Protection Equipment (PPE). In modern Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition (SCADA) systems, the measurands and targets are visually displayed providing a visual representation of the electrical and process control system performance. This paper will discuss the merits of constructing an IEC 61850 based monitoring and management solution for forest products and pulp and paper process industries.