InFocus

he concept of substation is undergoing a

paradigm shift: from being a pure energy hub
to an information hub. Apart from delivering energy
to a large grid at a certain voltage level, the substation
also monitors, protects and controls the grid many
control operations from the grid control center today
are focused on substations. Therefore, in the wake
of this tectonic shift in concept, the substation
today may more aptly be defined as a subsidiary
station of an electricity generation, transmission
and distribution system providing monitoring and
protection of the associated grid, and functioning
as the main connection point for grid control and
monitoring functions.
While substations are evolving around the concept of
centralized protection and control functionalities, it is
important to note that bay-level protection and control
IEDs are not replaced by those functionalities. In fact,
protection and control terminals are still seen as the
backbone of the secondary system and they handle
time-critical basic protection functions along with
communicating with a centralized system. Station
level primarily handles all advanced functionalities.
As the primary protection is covered by the
bay-level IEDs, the functionality in the station level
can be updated through the cloud without affecting
the safety of the network, thus allowing fast, dynamic
and smooth updates. The station level holds two
important functionalities of its own: a) time-critical
protection functionality, which needs real-time process
data and directly affects network safety, and b) offline

42

functionality to operate on historic information. This

function indirectly affects grid safety via condition
monitoring and fault analysis functions.

Ethernet network switches

Emerging evolution in networking communication
equipments is leading to improvised network
performance and reduced downtime across the
substation network system. This will result in less
outage for customers and therefore greater customer
satisfaction and improved revenues for utilities. The
good news is that these technologies are available
today, and even if they all are not used today, they
provide us an excellent migration path to new
applications in modernizing substations. The first
option to improving network performance is to use
Ethernet network switches that are capable of gigabit
speeds. Gigabit speeds are not new in enterprise
networks parlance but so far they were not widely
deployed in substation networks. This is simply
because the protection and control equipment has,
so far, not required at high levels of bandwidth to
perform their functions. Remember that Ethernet
networks have been deployed in the substations
for only past fifteen years or so but large-scale
deployments of Ethernet network has started in the
substation communication arena only in recent times,
so the need for increased bandwidth across the
network is going to be more critical with the passage
of time. The next stage in creating digital substation,
by using IEC 61850 design, has the potential to

May 2015

InFocus

demand more network bandwidth and lower network

latency. Moreover, substation network may also be
utilized for other applications using high amounts of
bandwidth such as condition based monitoring, new
types of emerging field sensors, and security via IP
video surveillance systems.
IEC 61850 utilizes layer 2 multicasts for different
protocols and applications such as GOOSE
messaging, IEEE 1588 time synchronization and
Sampled Measured Values (SMV) on the process bus.
Multicast is a networking feature that allows a layer 2
message from a single source to be propagated to
multiple receivers on the network. It is implemented
across the network through the managed network
switches that receive the multicast message on one
port and flood the message out on desired egress
ports. This, in turn, gets propagated to all switches
and nodes in the network that want to subscribe to

that data traffic. Multicast messaging therefore needs

to be managed by using either some or all available
technologies including VLANs to segregate multicast
domains, dynamic multicast filtering or providing
increased available bandwidth. Gigabit speed
switches capable of managing multicast should be
used in substations to suffice the requirements of IEC
61850 networks. Packets that are forwarded through
network switches are clocked out serially over the
Ethernet network. Since gigabit switches clock the
message out at 10 times the speed of 100mbps
switches the latency time can be significantly reduced.
Properly designed networks - using high speed
gigabit, managing multicast with VLANs and dynamic
multicast filtering - are essential to prevent network
flooding, congestion and dropped packets along with
ensuring proper operation of protection and control
algorithms. Communication through Layer2 Gigabit

Conceptual Architecture of a Future Substation

May 2015

43

InFocus

switches can also reduce network communication

latency ensuring time sensitive messages are received
on time and additionally can provide the capacity
to support other substation applications such as
physical security. Another important required feature
of network switches in the substation communication
is field replaceable modules which significantly
reduces mean-time-to-repair (MTTR) by allowing
technicians to repair a problem by swapping out a
faulty module with a working spare without having to
remove the whole unit.

Communication Technologies
Modular switch design with field replaceable
hardware modules also facilitates future upgrades.
Communication technology is developing at very
fast pace, new applications may require new
protocols and new physical interfaces which may
not be always feasible to be updated by software or
firmware upgrades. So, a hardware design allowing
interchangeable module will surely help in futureproofing the network and thereby protecting the
CAPEX. Keeping in mind the flexible application
perspective of substation automation system - e.g.
new communication standard or new physical
interfaces like different type of connectors, modulation,
sampling rate etc network equipment manufacturers
are expected to develop new communication line
module compatible with the network chassis and the
device backplane. Thus an upgrade or migration to a
new technology would be possible by exchanging or
adding newly developed modules without the need
to replace the entire network infrastructure in the
substation. Such flexibility of the networking hardware
can significantly extend the life cycle of a substation
automation system. Redundant load sharing hot
swappable power supplies have been available in
substation rated networking equipment for several
years and should be used whenever possible. These
power supplies should be connected to independent

Example of substation grade Ethernet switch with hotswappable power supply modules and field-replaceable
communications media modules

44

power sources such as AC supply and substation

battery to protect from both supply failure and
equipment failure.
The new intelligent substation under IEC 61850
frameworks is expected to witness an increased
adoption of process bus networks using merging
units (MU) and sampled measured value (SMV) data
streams. SMVs are digitized real time measurements
of the power network that require an accurate time
stamp. IEEE 1588 is the recommended technology to
provide the precision time stamping required for SMV
and Ethernet switches supporting IEEE 1588 are an
essential part of the precision timing network. Ethernet
switches with transparent clock functionality preserve
the accuracy of the time signals as they propagate
through the network. Even if process bus and SMV
are not deployed today, ensuring the implementation
of IEEE 1588 support now will allow an easier
migration in the future. Another substation application
that requires high precision time signal in the range
of microseconds is Wide Area Monitoring based on
Synchrophasors or PMU (Phasor Management Units).
While utility grade Ethernet switches with IEEE 1588
precision network based time synchronization have
been available for more than 5 years, it is not widely
supported by protection and control relays. In the
past, distribution of precise clock signal required
dedicated wiring and could be achieved either with
IRIG-B standard or PPS (pulse per second IEEE
1588 protocol provides the advantage of having
a single networking infrastructure both for critical
protection, control and measurement data as well as
for highly accurate time signal. One of the valuable
features of networking equipment is the capability
of having legacy IRIG-B and PPS interfaces in order
to support smooth migration to IEEE 1588. In such
scenario an electrical utility can deploy IEEE 1588
based communications network even if they would
still have to use non-IEEE 1588 aware IEDs, as for
those IEDs a local last meter conversion from IEEE
1588 to IRIG-B or PPS can be done. We can envision
a native IEEE 1588 network across the substation
switchyard built with IEEE 1588 transparent clocks
(Ethernet switches with hardware time-stamping
capability) which, if needed, can provide legacy
timing outputs justW to the desired IEDs in the bay
protection and control cabinets. The only required
component in such scenario would be IRIG-B / PPS
output card in the IEEE 1588 network switch.
Apart from functional requirements for next generation
of substation Ethernet switches need to support
IEC 61850 Process Bus, Synchrophasors and other

May 2015

InFocus

the adoption of new technologies is just a matter of

time before it all becomes a reality in the evolution
of an intelligent future substation; optical sensors
are already emerging technologies in electrical
grids but there will be more and more sensors to
monitor all kind of apparatus, be it in the application
of circuit breakers, transmission lines, measurement
transformers, power transformers, detection of faults
etc to name a few. In summary, the substations of
future will be all digital, meaning analog information
will have to be digitized by intelligent sensors (e.g.
merging units) and streamed at high frequency to
protection IED, and in the mid-long term future to
computer based protection and control servers. This
will definitely require lots of processing power and
bandwidth in the network.
Migration Strategy towards IEEE 1588 aware substation network

applications of tomorrow along with a robust hardware

design. The wide temperature ratings and high
immunity to EMI will ensure flawless operation in the
unprotected and harsh substation environment. Lastly,

May 2015

Author
Mr. Sumit Deb
Senior Manager - Business Development (PD PACI)

Siemens Ltd

45