Integrated testing platform for protection bay solution utilising IEC61850

It has always been a challenge to perform extensive functional tests on protection and control panels, encompassing both most likely and unlikely scenarios that could happen in a substation environment. The traditional way of testing using boxes with switches, variacs and phase shifters, has always been a difficult and time consuming task, requiring multidiscipline resources to finalise the tests plus a lot of test wiring. With the advent of the new substation communication standard IEC61850, this testing challenge can be overcome. One IEC61850 based plant simulator, an IEC61850 SCADA control system, plus one IEC61850 secondary injection test set, make up a very powerful integrated testing platform for all protection bay types. Once all the information needed for testing is made available in an IEC61850 format, it is very easy to start building up repeatable test sequences, for all conceivable testing scenarios. The purpose of this paper is to share experiences of how extensive functional tests on protection and control panels can be conducted, utilising the new substation communication protocol, IEC61850, in a fully repeatable, traceable and succinct manner.