Benton Vandiver

An Overview of the IEEE Standard C37.118.2—Synchrophasor Data Transfer for Power Systems

Synchrophasor Standards have evolved since the introduction of the first one, IEEE Standard 1344, in 1995. IEEE Standard C37.118-2005 introduced measurement accuracy under steady state conditions as well as interference rejection. In 2009, the IEEE started a joint project with IEC to harmonize real time communications in IEEE Standard C37.118-2005 with the IEC 61850 communication standard. These efforts led to the need to split the C37.118 into 2 different standards: IEEE Standard C37.118.1-2011 that now includes performance of synchrophasors under dynamic systems conditions; and IEEE Standard C37.118.2-2011 Synchrophasor Data Transfer for Power Systems, the object of this paper.

IEC 61850 GOOSE applications to distribution protection schemes

The industry is going through significant changes due to the increased requirements for improved quality of power supplied by the utility in order to avoid costly interruptions of manufacturing or other processes caused by voltage sags, swells or unbalanced conditions when a short circuit fault occurs in the distribution system.

Requirements for testing of power swing blocking functions in protection IEDs

The 2003 North American blackout demonstrated the importance of power swing detection, blocking and tripping for the development of a wide area disturbance into a system-wide blackout.

IEEE/PES PSRC report on design and testing of selected System Integrity Protection Schemes

This paper is a summary of an IEEE/PES Power System Relaying Committee (PSRC) report [2] on the design and testing of selected System Integrity Protection Schemes (SIPS). The report includes high level general considerations in SIPS design and testing, and the industry practice in design and testing of the following selected SIPS with example implemented schemes: (1) Generator rejection; (2) Load rejection; (3) Adaptive load mitigation; (4) Dynamic braking; and (5) System separation.

Virtual isolation of IEDs for testing in IEC 61850 based substation protection systems

Edition 2 of IEC 61850 introduced many new features that further enhance the power of the standard. There are new features that should make the life of the end user easier - assuming the features are supported by future products. They are designed to support not only automated configuration and execution of test procedures, but also remote testing for some specific test cases. It is expected, that interoperability between engineering tools will be improved - something that is urgently needed. New features supporting functional and system testing should facilitate the ways lEC 61850 based installation needs to be isolated - during commissioning, in case of maintenance problems, as well as for routine testing.

Summary changes in 2013 IEEE/IEC Dual Logo COMTRADE standard

The globally used COMTRADE standard was initially developed by IEEE and later adopted by IEC. The first IEEE version was published in 1991 and was later revised in 1999. The IEC version was adopted in 2001. The 2013 revision of the COMTRADE standard is an IEEE/IEC Dual Logo standard planned for publication during the first quarter of 2013. The main motivations for the current revisions are: 1) to remove restrictions that were only relevant for computing technologies of the 1990s and 2) to satisfy the requirement of universal time information in COMTRADE files. The second need was identified during the 2003 Northeast Blackout analysis to time synchronize data from different substations. The working group has also addressed other issues, including the availability of a single file. Industry users feel very strongly about this need to easily exchange and manage COMTRADE files, and the working groups recommendations address these concerns.

Trust in a digital world — Examples of why we still test

This paper reviews the principles of digital design in protection and control systems across many industries - not just Power Systems - and explores why we still test them. The test methods used by other industries and the processes that mandate them are presented. Comparisons are made to our own energy industry and parallels made to what we should be improving on as an industry to ensure system security and reliability as the result of any test we do perform.

Standards based engineering of protection schemes and systems

A significant part of the engineering of a substation automation system is related to the architecture and configuration of the primary and secondary equipment in the substation. This requires the development of a formalized format that allows the description of all different elements and their relationships. An object-oriented standardization process based on standard bay types can help improve the efficiency and quality of the protection and control systems. A four step standardization process takes advantage of the IEC 61850 Substation Configuration Language that allows standard representation of the system design and interoperability between different engineering tools. IEC 61850 provides an excellent opportunity for the formalization of standards based object-oriented approach to the design of substation protection schemes or systems.