Learn IEC 61850 configuration in 30 minutes

The myth says IEC 61850 is too complicated to use with a steep learning curve. The traditional IEC 61850 learning path is to go through IEC 61850 standard then start IEC 61850 configuration. User spent days to go through massive content of the standard, which includes 10 parts, 27 documents, and more than 4,000 pages. The standard adopts modern communication and computer science technologies like 7-layer communication model, XML (Extensible Markup Language), Unified Model Language (UML), Object Oriented Design (OOD) and others. Many potential users are discouraged with the overwhelming information during the IEC 61850 training. One of IEC 61850 standard's goals is to shorten system engineering time. Learning the know-how presented a challenge with such massive content. It is possible to get a fundamental understanding of standard and be ready for IEC 61850 configuration in 30 minutes. Two basic questions from protection relay engineer's point of view are “Where is the data?” and “How to get the data?” This paper provides an alternate approach to comprehend core components of IEC 61850: Semantic Hierarchical Object Data model and two communication services: Client - Server and Publish - Subscribe. IEC 61850 configuration is demonstrated as preparing the data list following the data model and setting parameters for communication services. This approach has been well received and has provided satisfactory results in recent IEC 61850 configuration training sessions.

I. Traditional Way

The traditional way of learning IEC 61850 configuration starts with reviewing IEC 61850 standard. With an unofficial count of 10 parts, 27 documents and more than 4, 000 pages [2]–[30], it takes more than 3 weeks to read the full content of the standard with normal reading speed of 2 minutes per page. Being exhausted, little energy is left to practice IEC 61850 configuration on the IED. More than half of potential users in IEC 61850 class would give up or decide to look at it later before the class ends. Those who intend to study IEC 61850 standard later will keep postponing until it is no longer fresh and interesting.