IEC 61850 basics

IEC 61850 defines an architecture for meeting the needs of electrical substation automation. It defines a data model and the communication services for the interaction with and between elements of a substation such as feeders, breakers, protection devices etc. For engineering purposes a description language, system configuration language ( SCL ), is defined.

The goal of the standard is to provide a vendor-independent model for describing a substation and to ensure a vendor-independent interoperability between its elements. These elements are controlled via Intelligent Electronic Devices ( IED ).

The well defined data modeling and communication services like peer-to-peer communication makes the standard an important element of any modern substation automation system.

A detailed understanding of the standard and its requirements can be obtained by referring to the website http://webstore.iec.ch/

The implementation of the WinCC OA IEC 61850 client is based on the following parts of the standard and the documents referenced within these:

  • IEC 61850 Part 1: Introduction and overview

  • IEC 61850 Part 7-1 (ed2.0): Basic communication structure - Principles and models

  • IEC 61850 Part 7-2 (ed2.0): Basic information and communication structure - Abstract communication service interface ( ACSI )

  • IEC 61850 Part 7-3 (ed2.0): Basic communication structure - Common data classes

  • IEC 61850 Part 7-4 (ed2.0): Basic communication structure - Compatible logical node classes and data object classes

  • IEC 61850 Part 8-1 (ed2.0): Specific communication service mapping (SCSM) - Mapping to MMS (ISO 9506-1 and ISO 9506-2) and to ISO/ IEC 8802-3

An understanding of the engineering requirement can be obtained by referring to the following document:

  • IEC 61850 Part 6 (ed2.0): Configuration description language for communication in electrical substations related to IEDs

Chapter Description
IEC 61850 basics Basic information related to the IEC 61850.
Communication services Description related to communication services in the IEC 61850 standard on WinCC OA platform.
Report control blocks and datasets Basic information related to report control blocks and datasets.