Performance Evaluation of IEC61850-90-5 Over a Non-Commercial4G LTE Network

Abstract: Old electrical power grids with unidirectional power flow are transforming intoenhanced smart grid systems with bidirectional power flow. Advancements incommunication infrastructure can offer new ways on how communication can beutilized within the grid. The standardized communication protocol IEC 61850 definesdata models and services designed for communication within a substation. Smart gridapplications will require communication over wider areas and between substations.The IEC 61850-90-5 addition to the standard defines how data can be sent overwider areas by utilizing Internet protocol, which is necessary if public communicationnetworks such as 4G long term evolution is used. This thesis evaluates the applicability of the IEC 61850-90-5 protocol when used overa non-commercial 4G LTE network. A prototype that emulates an intelligentelectronic device was derived from an IEC 61850-90-5 open source project and wasused transmit and receive data over the network. To evaluate the applicability of theIEC 61850-90-5 stack and the performance of the non-commercial 4G LTE networkdifferent metrics such as reliability, availability, latency, and throughput was evaluated. The overall result is promising and indicates that the IEC 61850-90-5 protocol incombination with 4G LTE would be suitable for most applications within the smartgrid. It is concluded that cellular technologies such as 4G LTE will play an importantrole for smart grid applications, even though it does not fulfill the most stringentapplication requirements. The IEC 61850-90-5 protocol will be a key component insmart grids since it enables routing of standardized GOOSE and SV messages in IPpacket format, which is needed when using commercial networks such as 4G LTE.