Functional testing of substations according to IEC 61850 — A new approach

Since IEC 61850 became the widely used standard for substation communication with a lot of implementations testing is an important issue. Edition 2 is available since 2012 and offers a wide range of possibilities and sophisticated details. Due to the huge amount of prospects and different places where testing can be located and marked systematization might be helpful and will presented as an introduction. Test bits, test quality, test indications, test mode and test behavior will be practically explained briefly. Experiences in current implementations are combined with requirements for future testing solutions. On-going discussions with utilities especially in Germany have been shown, that the wide choice of possibilities requires user recommendations. This paper describes an approach, how to combine the new possibilities with existing testing procedures for protection and control in substations. A sequencer visualization of testing feeders utilizing distance protection with backup protection and auto-recloser is presented and discussed. Because of its high flexibility the approach can be adapted to solutions utilizing Sampled Values as well as conventional wiring. A proposal for a practical implementation into existing tools finalizes the paper.