Research on IED Configurator Based on IEC 61850

IEC 61850-6 defines Substation Configuration description Language (SCL) for Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) in a substation. An SCL file containing a large amount of IED data is always too big to be processed by common means, and the standard itself is so complicated that makes IED configuration difficult. To solve this problem, a specially designed configurator should be introduced to improve performance and provide a user-friendly interface. This paper analyzes SCL file's structure, types and object models. It presents IED configuration's design principles and the software architecture, as well as the key technologies and the functions. After introducing an improved XML parser and graphical user interface in the configurator, users can configure IED in a more efficient and effective way. An IED configurator was developed in C#, the test result indicated its resource utilization was confined to a reasonable level and its visual interface helps users to browse and configure SCL files in a convenient way.