A Simulation Study on the Ethernet Communication of a Substation Automation System based on EPOCHS

This paper investigates communication protocols used to implement the network-103 substation communication protocol, which is generally applied in China, simulates a representative substation communication system, and presents an experimental comparison of different transport protocols used to transmit network-103 traffic. Simulation studies in the article make use of the EPOCHS (Electric Power and Communication Synchronizing Simulator) platform, which enables the simultaneous study of substation data flows according to both electric power, using PSCAD/EMTDC, and communication network, using NS2, perspectives. EPOCHS allows users to see how faults in the power network, modeled in PSCAD/EMTDC, impact communication traffic levels, within NS2, within and between substations and other power data sources. EPOCHS can be used to strictly simulate the time field characteristics of emergent events such as relay actions and breaker trips. At present, the network-103 protocol is often adopted in conjunction with the 104protocol/TCP communication protocol. This paper creates a 104protocol/UDP scheme, and compares its real-time performance with that of the 104protocol/TCP scheme within a simulated substation using the EPOCHS platform.