It was another productive set of IEC 61850 Working Group meetings with lots of ground being covered last week. Many of the punch-list items identified in the IEC 61850 User Feedback Task Force were addressed/assigned, and other initiatives are making great progress such as the Logic Modeling Task Force (90-11), Alarm Handling Task Force (90-18), and Functional Acceptance Testing Task Force (10-3). The concept of Basic Application Profiles was thoroughly discussed, and it’s exciting to see this initiative come to fruition. We also heard from two large USA utilities (AEP & SCE) who have deployed IEC 61850 and appreciate the practical feedback from both of these presentations. SCE should be credited for what they have accomplished with their standardized HMI, which has extended IEC 61850’s Substation Configuration Language (SCL) to incorporate the HMI/RTU Application. These utilities are true IEC 61850 ambassadors, and ought to be proud of their accomplishments. SCE have developed a working solution for their standardized HMI/RTU that allows it to be modeled in a set of XML structured files – with a supporting schema – that are machine readable, which allows the HMI/RTU application to be automatically built within minutes, compared to months with traditional HMI/RTU applications. If you’re interested in supporting this initiative within the IEC, please contact us and we’ll put you in touch with your National Committee representative.
All in all it was a seamless set of meetings in Cathedral City, and it was great to have so many utilities participate from around the world. Many thanks to Alex and Christoph for hosting the meetings in this special/hot/beautiful place!