Interoperability testing for IEC61850 based substation automation system

Over the last years, the standard IEC 61850 related to automation systems within electrical substation has been considered as a promising solution to provide better quality of power supply and to cope the issue of increasing energy demand. IEC 61850 as a communication protocol in the substation automation provides efficient performance through the exchange information in real-time. Moreover, one of the main motivations of using this standard is interoperability. However, connecting several IEDs manufactured by different vendors which are compliant with IEC 61850 standard is not a trivial task. This paper presents a method for interoperability testing of multivendor IEDs based on the IEC61850 standard and includes the laboratory results of the testing.