1

IED Modelling for IEC61850 Based Substation Automation System Performance Simulation
T.S. Sidhu, Fellow, IEEE and Yujie Yin, Student Member, IEEE

Abstract This paper introduces the modeling of Intelligent Electronic Device (IED) on OPNET modeler, a communication network modeling and simulation tool developed by OPNET TECHNOLOGIES. These configurable IED models allow to easily build Substation Automation System (SAS) network model with different topologies for all kinds of substations so that the dynamic performance issues could be studied during the planning stage and network performance problem could be caught ahead of the deployment stage. An example of using those models to construct SAS network on OPNET Modeller as well as the network performance simulation results is also included in this paper. Index Terms---Generic models, IEC 61850, OPNET Moeller, Intelligent Electronic Device (IED), Substation Automation System (SAS).

I. INTRODUCTION UBSTATION Automation System (SAS), established using multifunctional Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) and advanced network communication technologies, could provide us with the effective substation monitoring, local & remote control, protection, primary equipment condition monitoring and many other functions that couldnt be realized with conventional protection and control devices. The key objectives for designing substation automation architecture are interoperability between IEDs, satisfaction of communication performance, and extensibility of the architecture. IEC 61850, the global communication standard for Substation Automation System, defines the communication between IEDs and not only solves the interoperation problem but also specifies other system requirements like message performance, information security in SAS network. According to the IEC 61850-5, the message transmission time requirements for SAS network must be ensured under any operating conditions and contingencies inside the substation. Dynamic performance of the SAS network must be studied during the planning stage in order to catch network performance problem ahead of the deployment stage. In IEC 61850-5, clause 13 specifies the message performance
T.S. Sidhu is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, CANADA, N6A 5B9 (e-mail: sidhu@eng.uwo.ca). Yujie Yin is with the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, the University of Western Ontario, London, Ontario, CANADA, N6A 5B9 (e-mail: yyin24@eng.uwo.ca).

requirements for all type of substation automation systems and clause 15 states two approaches that could be used to study the SAS network performancePICOM model and simulation of LAN performance. The calculation method and sample calculation for PICOM model is introduced in IEC 61850-5 I.1. Since this method doesnt consider the overhead, message structure and the background dataflow, it is only used for determining the total data rates of the network. For the dynamic performance of a physical SAS network, LAN simulation tools must be used. In IEC 61850-5 I.2, a SAS network s dynamic performance is studied using COMNET III simulation program without stating how the IEDs are modeled. Because it is based on the number of messages that flows at the specific scenario, the user needs to determine the number of messages flowing on the network for a given testing point. Therefore, the simulation result is compromised by the accuracy of the message estimation. Skeie et al. [5] have proved that Ethernet has the sufficient performance characteristics to meet the real time demand of SA system. Kern et al [6] have done the feasibility investigations and shown that IEC61850 communication approach satisfies the real time requirements for substation control and protection. The research presented here, however, differs from the above researches in the following aspects: The purpose of this research is to create IEC 61850 based IED models and setup a platform for substation communication network performance study, which could be used by engineers to answer the questions such as if a 220kV substation SAS network with 16 bays, expanded to 20 bays five years later, can still satisfy the performance requirements or not? In [5], UDP/IP is used for time critical messages, which is not the case for the IEC 61850 standard. However, the proposed OPNET models in this paper are constructed based on the IEC 61850 standard which means the data (GOOSE message, raw data, and client-server message) will pass the communication stack specified in IEC 61850. The proposed OPNET models, aim to simulate the various SAS network under different scenarios, allowing the user to set the raw sample rate, fault time, number of faults, background traffic and other configuration parameters. Substation Automation System consists of multiple

1-4244-0493-2/06/$20.00 2006 IEEE.

components. Each component serves multiple functionalities. In order to simulate the dynamic performance of SAS network, OPNET IED models are constructed to represent the specific characteristics of SAS network. The study of SAS network on OPNET is separated into two levelsprocess level and station level. The message types that flows on the network are based on IEC 61850 standard. Background traffic such as file transfer can also be created by adding extra work stations. II. IED MODELS IN SAS NETWORK Figure 1 shows a typical power system transformer bay unit for protection and control in SAS. The secondary devices consist of Breaker IEDs, Merging Unit (MU) IEDs, and combined Protection & Control IEDs. The MU IED first processes and combines the signals from field CT and PT. Then it transmits the digital voltage and current output to the process bus (a high speed field Ethernet bus). The Breaker IED, which not only controls the breakers open/close but also monitors the state and condition of circuit breaker, receives the trip/close command from the protection IEDs or HMI and sends state change event to HMI and corresponding protection IEDs through the process bus. The combined protection & control IED, a universal device, integrates all substation protection & control functionalities. OPNET models for those IEDs are simplified for the performance simulation purposes. Priority tagging is not supported, however, in future work the IED modeling will be improved to support priority tagging. The procedures to construct the IEDs on OPNET modeler are discussed in the following paragraphs.

A. OPNET Model of Merging Unit IED The Merging Unit IED is to merge three phase current and voltage and then transmit the raw data sampled values to the LAN network as described in the IEC 61850-5. For SAS network performance simulation purpose, it in fact serves as a traffic generator. The raw data sample rate could be configured according to IEC 61850 based on the substation performance type (Table 1).
TABLE 1 RAW DATA FOR PROTECTION AND CONTROL Data type Voltage Current Voltage Current Voltage Current Performance Class P1 P2 P3 Transmission Time (ms) defined by trip time 10.0 3.0 3.0 Rate Frequency (Samples/s) 480 960 1920

The current and voltage raw data will be put into an Ethernet packet and then sent to the corresponding protection devices through multicast messages. The user can configure the sample rate, start time, stop time, packet size, address, multicast group address and transmission type (P2P, multicast, broadcast). OPNET modeler constructs the models using objectoriented modeling approach. Network devices like IEDs, switches and workstations are called node models in OPNET modeler. Node model consists of Modules connected by packet streams or static wires. Each module is assigned to a process module to achieve the required behaviors. Figure 2 shows the node model diagram for MU IED. The model in Figure 2(a) is for bus topology and the one in Figure 2(b) is for star topology. The small squares in the model represent the process models. OPNET modeler has the node model editor and process model editor that facilitate the model design.

(a) Fig. 1. 69kV substation single line diagram

Fig. 2. MU IED OPNET models

(b)

The raw data source module allows the user to define the packet format, packet size, and packet rate the user wants to generate. The sink module will first calculate the packet transferring time, collect other statistical data for all the packets that come from the network and then destroy them so that memory space could be freed. The eth_mac_intf, defer and mac modules implement the Ethernet protocols and algorithms. This is the place where OPNET processes the incoming and outgoing packets. The hub_rv0 and hub_tx0 are OPNET symbol for point to point receiver and transmitter. And the bus_rv0 and bus_tx0 are bus receiver and bus transmitter. They are used for nodes to be connected to the switch or bus. OPNETs process model uses finite state machine (FSM) approach to support the implementation of protocols, resources, applications, algorithms, and queuing policies. States and transitions graphically define the progression of a process in response to events. Each state of a process model contains embedded C/C++ code, supported by an extensive library of functions designed for network programming. Figure 3 shows the process model for the raw data source in MU IED model.

The Node Models (Figure 4(a)) for breaker IED and protection IED (Figure 4(b)) in Normal/Fault mode are similar with MU IED. Besides sending out fast and medium speed message such as trip, process state, r.m.s. value, they also receives the message from the network. Therefore, the behaviors of those IEDs are different with MU IED, the process modules with embedded C/C++ code, which are used to define those behaviors, are different.

(a) Fig. 4. Breaker IED and protection IED for star topology

(b)

Since the aim is to observe the transferring time delay or ETE delay for the trip message, raw data samples and other time critical messages in SAS network, OPNET will collect the statistics and draw an ETE delay diagram, which could be used to create a simulation report. Figure 5 is a raw data sample ETE delay diagram obtained from one of the protection IED. From this diagram, it can be clearly observed that maximum message delay is around 0.048s which happened at around 2 seconds.
Fig. 3. Raw data generation process model

B. OPNET Model of Circuit Breaker IED and Protection IED The functionalities of Circuit Breaker IED are to receive the trip message, calculate the end to end delay [ETE delay], and send a multicast GOOSE/GSSE event to other protection IEDs. Similarly as the MU IED, user can configure the event packet size, address and transmission type (P2P, multicast, broadcast). The Protection IED could be configured as Normal or Fault mode. If it is in Normal mode, it generates constant rate packet and send it to the station PC. If it is in Fault mode, it will send trip message at a specified time. The trip message will be multicast to the corresponding breaker IEDs. For it to work properly, the user also needs to configure its address, multicast group address, destination address and other parameters according to the simulation requirements.

Fig. 5. Sample ETE delay diagram generated by OPNET

C. Station PC, Switches and Network Link The SAS network based on OPNET Modeler uses the standard Ethernet workstation model, switch and links. The details of those models could be obtained either from OPNET modeler or its user manual [3]. III. TRAFFIC FLOW ON SAS NETWORK According to IEC 61850, messages are classified into 7 categories. Table 2 summarizes those messages and transfer time requirement range. The messages with critical transferring time requirement such as type 1, type 2, type 4 and type 7 are the focus of research reported in this paper.
TABLE 2 MESSAGE TYPE AND PERFORMANCE REQUIREMENT IN SAS NETWORK [1] Message Type Example Messages In PICOM Transfer Time Range ( ms ) 10 - 100 10 - 100 1 10 - 100 1 50 - 1000 10 - 100 1 - 100 1 - 100 100 1000 1000 -5000 0.1 - 5000 100 - 1000 10 - 100 100 - 1000 10 - 1000 100 - 1000 0.1 -10

performance. Therefore, upon completion of the SAS network modeling on OPNET, correct analysis of network flow at a given scenario is critical to the performance simulation. The amount of traffic could be decided by investigating the SAS network at a given scenario and asking the following questions: what are the sample rates or polling rates? What is the packet size? How many messages need to be sent out for a fault? Are there any other messages that could flow at this testing point? Once this is done, the IED models could be easily setup to generate those messages and determine their transfer times. IV. SAMPLE SUBSTATION AUTOMATION SYSTEM CONSTRUCTED ON OPNET MODELER The selected substation is a standard 69kV distribution station. There are two 69 kV lines connected through an isolator bridge and six 13.8 kV lines connected into a sectionalized straight bus. There are two 69/13.8 kV transformers. The stations single line diagram is shown in Figure 6. The IED configuration for each bay unit in the substation is given in Table 3. The simulation networks are configured as follows: For 13.8kV line, the raw data, GOOSE messages are transmitted among the MU IED, protection IED and breaker IED using P2P. For Transformer bay and 69kV line bay, MU IED multicasts raw data message to 2 protection IEDs. The transformer bay protection IEDs also multicast trip messages to two breaker IEDs. Protection IEDs and breaker IEDs are configured to send polling messages such as metered values, breaker status to station PC.

1. Fast Message

Trigger Complex Block or Release, Fast Broadcast Message, Process State Changed Trip Process Value in r.m.s. Request for synchrocheck, interlocking Process State External State Measured Value or Meter Value such as Energy Non-electrical Process Value e.g. temperature Fault Value e.g. fault distance Event/Alarm Mode of Operation Set Point Acknowledgement by Operator or auto. Date and Time Process Value (sample voltage & current)

2. Medium Speed Message 3. Low Speed Message

4. Raw Data Message 5. File Transfer

Report such as Calculated Energy List Mixed Fault Information Mixed Fault Data such as Disturbance Recording Event/Alarm List ID Data, Setting Diagnostic Data

1000 -5000 1000 -5000 5000 100 - 1000 1000 -5000 5000

6. Time Synchroni zation Message 7. Command Message with Access Control

Synchronization Pulse

0.1 - 10

Command

1 1000

The amount of traffic on the LAN network and the network throughput could be two factors that affect the network

Fig. 6. 69kV substation single line diagram

5 TABLE 3 IED CONFIGURATIONS FOR THE 69KV SUBSTATION Bay Name MU IED 1 1 1 1 Protection IED 2 2 1 1 Breaker IED 1 2 1 1 Num. of Bay 2 2 6 1 Total

69kV line Transformer 13.8 kV line Bus -section

8 10 18 3 39

For the bus topology (see Figure 7), 15 protection and control IEDs, 11 MU IEDs, 13 Breaker IEDs are connected with the process bus (divided into two segments). IEDs related with the two 69 kV lines and two transformer bays share one process bus segment. The six 13.8kV feeders and 13.8kV bus-section share another process bus. This arrangement can minimize the data to be transferred between the segments. The station bus will connect 15 protection IEDs and a Station PC. CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access with Collision Detection) is implemented in each IED connected to the communication bus. With this technique, each IED listens to the bus and sends message when it has detected that the bus is idle. If a collision occurs with another IED, the transmission will be stopped, and after a random time period of time, the IED will retry. Collisions are a normal part of CSMA/CD networks. It will slow down the system significantly when excessive collisions happen. And this could also be observed in the following simulation results.

Fig. 8. SAS network with star topology Other topologies such as ring topology could also be constructed using the proposed OPNET IED models. V. SIMULATION RESULTS Simulations are performed for the LAN speed of 10MBits/sec, 100MBits/sec for both bus topology and star topology under the following scenario. It is worth noticing that this scenario may not be the worst case scenario for the given substation. The worst case scenario, however, could be decided during the planning or design stage based on the substation operating environment, protection and control scheme, and other factors that could affect the substation and communication network. There is no bay controller in the SAS network. The protection IED actually means the protection & control IED. It is assumed that the fault causes two protection IEDs to send trip messages to corresponding breaker IEDs. The message size is 256 bits. Each trip message is sent four times to ensure correct delivery of message. Other protection IEDs and Breaker IEDs are sending polling response message to station PC at a rate of 50 ms so that station PC could acquire all the data from those IEDs in 2 seconds. These messages are type 2 messages related with process values such as r.m.s. voltage & current and breaker status. The message size is 256 bits. Each polling message is sent once to the network. MU IEDs are sending raw data message (type 4) at specified sampling rate. The message size is 256 bits. Each raw data message is sent once to the network. The size of message and retransmission of message is arbitrarily selected. However, in future work, recently published implementation guideline for the use of IEC 61850-9-2 to decide the size of raw data message will be evaluated.

Fig. 7. SAS network with process bus and station bus

For the star topology (Figure 8), three switches are used. The IEDs connected to Process Bus 1 in bus topology (Figure 7) are now connected to switch 1. Other IEDs are connected to switch 2. Switch 3 connects station switch 1, switch 2 and station PC.

First, the networks shown in Figure 7 and Figure 8 were simulated. Then, the situation of using one process bus and one switch for all 39 IEDs was simulated. This was done to observe the effect on performance with the increasing of IEDs for the bus and star network. The trip message ETE delay and raw data message ETE delay under this scenario for both the Bus and Star topology for the sample SAS network were determined. Tables 4 and 5 show the results for bus topology, and Tables 6 and 7 show the results for star topology.
TABLE 4 MESSAGE DELAYS ON BUS NETWORK (TWO PROCESS BUSES) LAN Speed (MB/s) Raw Data Sampling Rate (sample/s) 480 * 960 * 1920 100 480 960 1920 Raw Data Message Delay (ms) Ave. 10 0.35 0.39 4.60 0.11 0.11 0.12 Max. 0.84 3.00 66.75 0.15 0.26 0.26 Trip Message Delay (ms)

TABLE 7 MESSAGE DELAYS ON STAR NETWORK (ONE SWITCH) LAN Speed (MB/s) Raw Data Sampling Rate (sample/s) 480 960 1920 100 480 960 1920 Raw Data Message Delay (ms) Ave. 10 0.25 0.30 0.31 0.04 0.04 0.04 Max. 0.39 0.46 0.49 0.05 0.05 0.05 Trip Message Delay (ms)

Trip 1 1.01 1.15 1.58 0.06 0.06 0.07

Trip2 0.59 0.67 1.08 0.03 0.03 0.03

Trip1 0.47 0.45 11.75 0.27 0.17 0.28

Trip2 0.64 1.84 0.79 0.14 0.22 0.19

TABLE 5 MESSAGE DELAYS ON BUS NETWORK (SINGLE PROCESS BUSES) LAN Speed (MB/s) Raw Data Sampling Rate (sample/s) * 480 * 960 ** 1920 100 480 960 *1920 Raw Data Message Delay (ms) Ave. 10 1.83 63.13 0.32 0.33 0.84 Max. 68.60 476.82 0.61 0.77 3.11 Trip Message Delay (ms)

From the results, it can be observed that the bus topology is viable for small and low sample rate SAS network in P1 or P2 class as defined in IEC 61850-5 [1]. Sampling rate will affect the performance when the network LAN speed is low for bus topology. With the number of IEDs increasing, the network performance will also decrease sharply for 10MB bus. Therefore if process bus is to be used especially for 10MB bus, to satisfy the performance requirement, an analysis of the network and proper segmentation of the process bus is needed. Star topology offers a better performance than bus topology. The sampling rate of raw data doesnt have obvious affect to the ETE delays. The network performance is only slightly affected by increasing of IEDs. VI. CONCLUSIONS The use of IED models based on OPNET modeler to build the SAS network and simulate network performance has been shown to be an effective tool for solving critical performance problems in SAS network. Through the simulation, the protection & communication engineers could observe the message delay inside the network so that network performance specified in IEC 61850 could be achieved by selecting proper topology and network configurations. VII. REFERENCES
[1] [2] IEC 61850-5 Communication requirements for functions and device models 2003. First Edition pp. 43-48. Klaus-Peter Brand. Volker Lohmann. Wolfgang Wimmer Substation Automation Handbook, 2003 Utility Automation Consulting Lohmann , pp. 152-182. OPNET Modeler-- OPNET Technologies. Information Available at

Trip1 0.35 0.43 0.44 0.28 0.16

Trip2 6.30 10.00 0.12 0.66 7.79

*Those network configuration should be avoided as some message ETE delays violate the IEC 61850 standard.

**The time is not shown as the messages jammed and the ETE delay went crazy.
TABLE 6 MESSAGE DELAYS ON STAR NETWORK (TWO SWITCHS) LAN Speed (MB/s) Raw Data Sampling Rate (sample/s) 480 960 1920 100 480 960 1920 Raw Data Message Delay (ms) Ave. 10 0.22 0.24 0.23 0.03 0.03 0.03 Max. 0.33 0.34 0.34 0.04 0.04 0.04 Trip Message Delay (ms)

[3] [4]

http://www.opnet.com .
Alexander Apostolov, Christoph Brunner, Kay Clinard, Use of IEC 61850 Object Models for Power System Quality/Security Data Exchange. 2003. CIGRE/PES 2003. CIGRE/IEEE PES International Symposium. Tor Skeie, Svein Johanessen and Christoph Brunner, ETHERNET in Substation Automation. IEEE Control Systems Magazine, Edition June 2002. F. Engler, T.L. Kern, etc, IEC 61850 based digital communication as interface to the primary equipment, CIGRE 2004, paper B3-205.

Trip 1 0.51 0.45 0.75 0.05 0.04 0.05

Trip2 0.22 0.18 0.39 0.02 0.02 0.02 [5]

[6]

VIII. BIOGRAPHIES
Tarlochan S. Sidhu (M90 -SM94, F04) received the B.E (Hons.) degree from the Punjabi University, Patiala, India, in 1979 and the M.Sc. and Ph.D degrees from the University of Saskatchewan, Saskatoon, and SK, Canada in 1985 and 1989, respectively. He worked for the Regional Computer Center, Chandigarh, India, Punjab State Electricity Board, India, and Bell-Northern Research Ltd., Ottawa, ON, Canada. From July 1990 to June 2002, he was with the Department of Electrical Engineering, University of Saskatchewan, where he served as Professor and Graduate Chairman of the Department. He is currently Professor & Chair of the Electrical and Computer Engineering Department at the University of Western Ontario, London, ON. He is also the Hydro one Chair in Power Systems Engineering. His areas of research interest are power system protection, monitoring and control. Dr. Sidhu is a Fellow of the Institution of Engineers (India) and a Fellow of the Institution of Electrical Engineer (U.K). He is also a Registered Professional Engineer in the Province of Ontario and a Chartered Engineer in the U.K

Yujie Yin received the B. E. on Electrical Engineering from the Hefei University of Technology, Hefei, China, in 1993 and the B.Sc. on Computer Science from the University of Western Ontario, London, Canada, in 2005. He has been an M.E.Sc. candidate at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering in the University of Western Ontario since May, 2005. He worked as an electrical engineer and researcher for China Nonferrous Metals Processing Technology Co., Ltd from September 1993 to April 2002. His research interests include computer-based power system protection and control, IED, Substation Automation System, and SAS Network Communication and Security.