# IEC 61850 – Features and Advantages

- Link: https://studyelectrical.com/2016/11/iec-61850-features-and-advantages.html
- Published: 2016-11-02T10:53:00+00:00
- Author: 

IEC 61850 is a standard for the design of [electrical substation](https://studyelectrical.com/2019/04/electrical-substation-equipment-types-components-functions.html)
automation. It has been defined in cooperation with manufacturers and users to create
a uniform, future-proof basis for the protection, communication, and control of 
substations. 

Communication plays an important role in the real-time operation of a power system.

In the beginning, the telephone was used to communicate line loadings back to the
control center as well as to dispatch operators to perform switching operations 
at substations.  With the entry into a digital age, we needed the technology to 
cater to the hot requirements, which are;

 * High-speed IED to IED communication
 * Multi-vendor interoperability
 * Support for File Transfer
 * Auto-configurable / configuration support
 * Support for security

[⌊sas new⌉⌊sas new⌉[

Given these requirements, work on next-generation communication architecture began
with the development of the Utility Communication Architecture (UCA) in 1988.

The result of this work was a profile of “recommended” protocols for the various
layers of the International Standards Organization (ISO) Open System Interconnect(
OSI) communication system model. 

The concepts and fundamental work are done in UCA became the foundation for the 
work done in the IEC Technical Committee Number 57 (TC57) Working Group 10 (WG10),
which resulted in the International Standard – IEC 61850 – Communication Networks
and Systems in Substations.

Today, IEC 61850 is a standard for the design of electrical substation automation
and it has been defined in cooperation with manufacturers and users to create a 
uniform, future-proof basis for the protection, communication, and control of substations.

 

IEC 61850 meets the requirements for an integrated Information Management, providing
the user with consistent Knowledge of the System on-line rather than just Gigabytes
of raw data values.

IEC 61850 defines standardized Information Models across vendors and a comprehensive
configuration standard (SCL – System Configuration Language).

Read: [Fundamentals of IEC 61850](https://studyelectrical.com/2015/12/iec-61850-substation-automation-basics-fundamentals.html)

## Features of IEC 61850:

Some of the features of IEC 61850 are given below.

 * **Data Modeling**:
    - Primary process objects, as well as protection and control functionality in
      the substation, is modeled into different standard logical nodes which can
      be grouped under different logical devices. There are logical nodes for data/
      functions related to the logical device (LLNO) and the physical device (LPHD).

 * **Reporting Schemes**:
    - There are various reporting schemes (BRCB & URCB) for reporting data from 
      server through a server-client relationship which can be triggered based on
      pre-defined trigger conditions

 * **Fast Transfer of events**:
    - Generic Substation Events (GSE) are defined for the fast transfer of event
      data for a peer-to-peer communication mode. This is again subdivided into 
      GOOSE & GSSE.

 * **Setting Groups**:
    - The setting group control Blocks (SGCB) is defined to handle the setting groups
      so that the user can switch to any active group according to the requirement.

 * **Sampled Data Transfer**:
    - Schemes are also defined to handle the transfer of sampled values using Sampled
      Value Control blocks (SVCB)

 * **Commands**:
    - Various command types are also supported by IEC 61850 which include direct&
      select before operate (SBO) commands with normal and enhanced securities.

 * **Data Storage**:
    - Substation Configuration Language (SCL) is defined for complete storage of
      configured data of the substation in a specific format.

## Advantages of IEC 61850

The main advantages of using IEC 61850 include:

 * Offering a complete set of specifications covering all communication issues inside
   a substation.

 * Meeting the requirement for integrated information management providing the user
   with consistent knowledge of the system on line, rather than just gigabytes of
   raw data.

 * Inter-operability between various manufacturers’ IED’s, thus forming an integrated
   system.

 * [Substation Configuration Language(SCL)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Substation_Configuration_Language)–
   Substation Configuration description Language (SCL) is the language and representation
   format specified by IEC 61850 for the configuration of electrical substation 
   devices. This includes representation of modeled data and communication services
   specified by IEC 61850– 7 –X standard documents.

 * Lowering installation and maintenance costs, with self-describing devices that
   reduce manual configuration.

 * Support for functions difficult to implement otherwise.

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