A Utility Perspective

Substation Automation projects have offered many lessons on many fronts for utilities and the success of recent projects have clearly demonstrated the value of utilizing IEC 61850 technology. The degree of engineering effort and expertise which has been required to make these facilities operationally viable however, has been well beyond what the glossy visions of trade shows might lead one to believe. This article takes a close, pull-no punches look at the trials and tribulations encountered in projects which have implemented the full suite of IEC 61850 in a multi-vendor environment. With the first round of projects complete, the time for speculation and estimation has passed.

“Clearly defined points of interoperability…” Conscious or not, this mantra has for many years been used as the foundation of substation design, operations, and maintenance. Voltages, currents, a-contacts, and b-contacts are as rudimentary to the substation as the alphabet is to the English language and the value they provide the utility is flexibility… flexibility to modularize a problem, distribute the associated work, and select the “best in class” solution for every individual piece of the overall system. While these items may seem trivial to some, their absence will challenge even the most savvy of utilities when deploying new technologies such as IEC 61850 as part of a substation automation system. And if you think the challenges stop there, then think again as tools and techniques will need to be examined and revamped nearly every step of the way.

Such has been the experience of at least one utility in its efforts to shift to utilizing IEC 61850 technology for new transmission facilities.  With the project schedule and budget being the most likely casualties of this type of change in design philosophy, accepting up front that the use of the technology in the project would require a different approach was the first step.  Even with this “eyes wide open” approach, unanticipated challenges still found their way into the project. And not just the obvious technical challenges one would expect to encounter in this type of effort, but challenges in organizational responsibilities, processes used, engineering tools, as well as the method and type of documentation required.

The goal here is that the details presented in this paper will aid utilities which are just starting the migration to utilizing IEC 61850 technology by providing some perspective on the experiences of other utilities.