IEC 61850 based substation automation system: A survey

Power systems are undergoing an evolution similar to what telecommunications sector went through several decades ago. Analog and hard-wired systems are replaced with automated digital ones. Infrastructure designs are not static anymore and are geared towards accepting new deployments as easily as possible. Limited data exchanges of the past are giving way to detailed data collection, reporting and analysis. When equipped with smart algorithms and techniques such as machine learning, these significantly enhance the capabilities of smart grids. Substations are core component of smart grid, where communication system is integrated. However, achieving a standard substation communication system that can operate with the principles of plug-and-play (PnP) is not a trivial task. Considering the cyber-physical nature of power system equipment, integration requires more diligence for safe operation. Furthermore, there are many different types of substation equipment which are manufactured by, again, countless many vendors. Achieving a common language and interoperability between them is a difficult task. IEC 61850 standard has been taking strides towards that goal. Its object-oriented structure makes its versatile while well-defined modeling blocks ensures compatibility. Recent work has focused on IEC 61850 based modeling of substation equipment, developing message exchange formats for substation functionalities as well as investigating the performance of different communication technologies when they are used to implement IEC 61850 based models. This paper reviews these efforts, their benefits to substation operation and possible future work, including cybersecurity considerations.