IEC61850 protocol - practical applications in industrial facilities

A new standard, defining protocols has been evolving since 1997, called IEC61850. This standard enables several industrial benefits when using an Ethernet network, such as high speed device-to-device communications (i.e. peer-to-peer communications both digital and analog values) within cycles and between different vendors, high-speed processing of analog signals and a common database naming format and structure. This paper will review the fundamentals of IEC61850 protocol including network requirements. It will also discuss three practical applications of IEC61850 protocol such as zone interlocking protection scheme, main-tie-main bus transfer scheme and load shedding scheme. Bus zone interlocking scheme, is an efficient application of IEC61850 GOOSE messaging. In this scheme, the main relay will use definite time overcurrent element and the feeder relay will use time overcurrent element. The main relay selectively is allowed to trip or block depending on location of faults as identified from feeder relays. Main-Tie-Main bus transfer is a common application in industrial facilities. Voltage Main-Tie-Main bus transfer is a very common transfer scheme within industrial facilities. Main-tie-main automatic bus transfer can be applied using two protective relays and IEC61850 GOOSE messaging. A fast load shedding (FLS) scheme rapidly sheds load in a large industrial facility in response to loss of one or more incoming sources in order to avoid complete system collapse while maintaining supply to as much of the process as practical. Unlike undervoltage, underfrequency, or rate of frequency decay load shedding schemes, the fast load shedding scheme can initiate load shedding before the system frequency/voltage declines, which in many cases is essential for maintaining system stability. The fast load shed scheme uses IEC61850 GOOSE communications to collect load and incoming source power information from a very large number of end units at very high speed.