Extending IEC 61850 Communication Standard to Achieve Internet-of-Things in Smartgrids

Advanced communication has become an indispensable part of modern power systems, a.k.a. smartgrids. Thanks to continuous connectivity between electrical equipment, constant monitoring and control can be utilized to operate these systems in a more efficient and productive way. Novel applications that enable transmission lines to utilize a larger portion of its capacity, demand side management schemes that coordinate power use with respect to available energy and electric vehicle charge-discharge management solutions are all products of increased integration of information technology with power system infrastructure. However, this integration involves different equipment that perform various operations in completely isolated domains. Furthermore, there are numerous vendors that manufacture the same equipment with subtle differences. Establishing a full connectivity among these devices is a very big challenge. In order to tackle this, different communication standards have been proposed. Due to its ability to handle large volume of data exchanges and object-oriented modeling, IEC 61850 has become the de facto standard for advanced communication networks in power systems. The original standard includes some basic equipment present in power networks such as circuit breakers, relays and transformers. In order to cover the new equipment such as smart meters, electric vehicles or fault current limiters, the published standard needs to be extended. Only in this way, can a fully connected, interoperable communication be achieved in future smartgrids.