Substation automation and SCADA systems

In the last decades, utility companies have been increasing the investment in Substation Automation Systems (SAS). The reason behind this is the intention to decrease the number of interruptions and its durations, with fast detections of faulty conditions, selective fault tripping and automatic restorations of power supply, improving the quality

of the energy supplied to end users.

The IEC 61850 standard has been defined in cooperation with manufacturersand users to create a uniform, future-proof basis for the protection,communication and control of substations.

These SAS systems were until now, vendor proprietary, as there was no standard approach that could be followed. This leaded to closed systems, with narrow functional

scope and with its own serial communication, where to integrate a third-party device or application, protocol converters had to be used.

The first benefit from applying the IEC61850 to SA systems is clearly the installation of

interoperability between IEDs of different brands. A global market needs global

standards, where each device must have the ability to be integrated in any system with its

own global principle of operation. Thinking global means cost reduction by equalizing

competitors and their specific functions and by standardizing maintenance and operation

procedures.