The migration of substation automation technology from classical to digital

Reconstruction and revitalization process of electricity facilities necessarily leads to implementation and integration of modern technologies into already existing infrastructure. The protection and control (P&C) system must be able to respond to all current exploitation conditions as well as foresee the future needs of the same. With emergence of an international standard for substation automation, IEC 61850 has defined a set of functionalities and rules that perfectly fit into the whole migration process of the P&C system from a classical to a digital principle. This article describes the process of technology transition from classical to digital P&C systems in concrete transformer stations in Bosnia and Herzegovina with a special review of design phase, use of IEC 61850 GOOSE messages, commissioning and integration in the SCADA system. Also, important aspects discussed in this paper are: communication redundancy, system availability, reliability and interoperability.