Introduction

The First Phase or Initial Vision: Development and application of IEC 61850 to the power system and industry in Brazil may be described in three phases.

The introduction of IEC 61850 in Brazil started in the 2004 - 2005 period, when the new standard was first published. The response of BPAC was of technical curiosity. Practically nothing was known about the subject and BPAC had no idea of whether this standard would be accepted and practically applied in other countries. The huge size of the standard printed Parts 1 to 10 led any prospective reader to run away from it. The strong activity of the Brazilian SC B5 was very important then, helping BPAC to get acquainted with the standard. A Brazilian Mirror Group was created in 2004 to follow what was under way in WG B5.11. A preliminary study of the standard was initiated. Also, Brazilian SC B5 started presenting a series of conferences and training courses, given by highly skilled international specialists or by experienced manufacturer engineers.

Another initiative was the creation of a Joint Working Group (SC B3, B5 and D2) involving countries of RIAC -Region Ibero Americana del CIGRÉ, to study IEC 61850 applications under the viewpoint of the respective countries. A joint report will be available by the end of the year.

The Second Phase:  Along the second phase of development (2006 to 2008), several applications of IEC 61850 were started. A common characteristic of this phase was the use of a conventional functional specification, stating that the substation protection and automation system should comply with IEC 61850.

In 2008, WG B5.11 mirror group promoted a workshop in Rio de Janeiro, inviting specialists from manufacturers, utilities and large consumers. The subject was "Applications and Projects Applying IEC 61850 Standard in Brazil". The main conclusion was that IEC 61850 number of applications was much larger than initially considered. The applications reported varied from large EHV substations to distribution and industrial substations, including sugar cane alcohol (methanol) refineries.

A huge oil company now working also with gas generation, decided to apply IEC 61850 in many important plants and substations. Its projects have a lot of functionalities using IEC 61850 principles: automatic load shedding; motor re-acceleration; generation control and automatic synchronization; interlocking; start-up and shut-down of motors; source automatic transfer with or without instantaneous paralleling; bus protection using reverse blocking; breaker failure protection; measurement of electrical quantities; SOE recording; supervision of circuit breaker tripping circuit and oscillography. All the logic and other information among the protection IEDs employ GOOSE messages. These messages are used even between different voltage levels of a substation or power plant. GOOSE messages are used even for critical functions such as tripping and blocking. For security reasons, these critical messages have hard wiring as a back up in the first projects.

The Third Phase: It has been characterized by deeper knowledge from utilities about IEC 61850 potentialities and preparation of functional specifications establishing the main principles and criteria to be followed by manufacturers. Specification preparation has been often preceded by a wide discussion among technical personnel of operation, maintenance, fault analysis and protection areas, about the advantages of applying the new standard and what is the impact of this new technology in the professional profile and on the organizational structure of the companies.

Now saying that the digital system must comply with the IEC 61850 standard is clearly not sufficient. The necessary definitions and criteria to facilitate the future expansions must be stated. It is also important that protection, automation and control engineers participate more deeply in the definition of the different aspects and details of the projects.

One example is the initiative of a distribution company which decided to make a Master Plan to establish basic criteria for using Smart Grid and IEC 61850. A more detailed technical specification with application of IEC 61850 is under way. Figure 1 indicates, in a simplified way, one of the alternatives considered for the LAN configuration.

Another example is the decision of a transmission utility to start a study to modernize its EHV large substations through IEC 61850. Many other utilities are also developing studies and preparing criteria and specifications to apply the new standard to their substations in the correct way.

The new technological stage represented by IEC 61850 still does not have the necessary development in Brazilian universities, as well as in many other South American Countries. Several knowledge areas - electrical, communication and computer science engineering - shall be urgently joined within an IEC 61850 environment, so they can be researched, developed, taught and put into practice for the benefit of professors and students. Specific R&D IEC 61850 based projects are still very few at universities, but some more will begin next year, involving the students in this new technology and preparing the required manpower for the real projects. The correct functioning of an integrated protection and automation system which complies with IEC 61850 and IEDs of different manufacturers requires the execution of functional and interoperability tests, preferably in a commercially neutral environment.

A university laboratory is a nice place to have a small pilot project. There, it shall be possible to verify whether the SAS, including the communication network and the IEDs, will adequately execute the protection and automation functions in use, maintaining the specified performance. The most critical point will be the operation of the distributed functions involving IEDs from different manufacturers and considering the most unfavorable scenarios for data flow and other signals which may occur in the communication LAN. The availability of a laboratory environment also allows the simulation of faults on each IED, like wrong logical node parameters and their impact on functionality and performance. Component faults can be generated in order to avail test case coverage, or its capability to detect any kind of failure. This can be instrumental, for instance, to generate and test maintenance procedures, and for training purposes. The authors have been calling attention to the need for suitable preparation of technicians and engineers who will be involved with the areas of substation PA&C, so that IEC 61850 can be more readily assimilated and used in all possible applications