Unified Information Models in Support of Location Transparency for Future Utility Applications

For future scenarios of power system operations, like the self healing grid vision, system and communications architecture are key. Applications will require unlimited access to a large variety of information and to a large amount of information. One important architectural feature is location transparency of its applications. The latter should be designed as components that can be run at any location where processing power is sufficient and the relevant data available. Key to location transparency is the agreement on a data model comprehensive enough to endure the foreseeable time to come. In order to safeguard current development investments, applications must already now be designed with such features in mind. This paper discusses how the data models of the IEC 61970 and IEC 61850, when integrated, can be used as a start towards such a uniform information model. However, inconsistencies and gaps justify a concerted effort in further extending such a basis.