Power System Protection Modelling with IEC 61850 and IEC 61499

Abstract: The nature of the power system is changing; what was once a clearlydened generation-transmission-distribution-consumer power ow is nowshifting towards a distributed infrastructure, with great amounts of variablerenewable sources in the system. The penetration of alternative energieslike solar and wind have represented a game changer for the electricpower industry, diminishing the traditional dominance of fossil fuel basedsources, and moving towards a more renewable mixture. All this wasmade possible due to severe climate regulations, both in the Europeanand global framework, as well as ever decreasing installation, operationand maintenance costs for these novel technologies.However, the penetration of renewable energies brings challenges to thereliability and stability of the power system, which must be tackled accordingly.Fortunately, the tools are there, standards like the IEC61850 andIEC61499 were independently designed, and for dierent purposes. TheIEC61850 standard strives for inter-operability and vendor-independencewithin the substation design eld, specically in regards to the data objectsexchanged between the devices. On the other hand, the IEC61499standard is used for the design of industrial distributed systems.This report aims to answer the question: is it possible to generate anIEC61499 description which complements an IEC61850 substation speci-cation? To this end, an IEC61850-IEC61499 interface was created, whichtakes an IEC61850 substation specication description, as well as a seriesof conguration les (rules, connections, allocation, parameters) andgenerates extended descriptions of the substation, as well as a fully operationalIEC61499 system specication. This can be directly imported inthe 4DIAC tool, and executed to evaluate the performance of the designedprotection systems, in a network of distributed or centralized devices.A series of test cases were evaluated, and the obtained results demonstratethat it is possible to bridge the gap between IEC61850 and IEC61499,thus enabling power system engineers to assess the performance of a certainprotection scheme, before actually implementing it in the substation.This potentially reduces human errors and development times. The interfacewas implemented in Java p.l. and is distributed as an open sourceproject.