IEC 61850 configuration strategy for substation control and protection

Standard communication protocols have been used for substation automation for many years. The applications are mainly on the station level communication to indicate alarms and events within a substation and make them visible to the operator. However the configuration and implementation of the protocols have differed widely between manufacturers leading to difficulties when attempting to support product interoperability during asset replacement. IEC 61850 is a protocol which can be used within a substation for both station level communication (Station Bus) and bay level communication (Process Bus) among protection and control IEDs. This paper offers guidance on the configuration of IEC 61850 substations where protection and control devices from different manufacturers may interoperate with each other without the need of hard wired connections.