IEC/TS 63266 Ed. 1.0 en:2023

Representation of communication in power utility automation

IEC TS 63266:2023 specifies a structure for representation of exchanged information that is essential for testing and maintenance of the devices in power utility automation systems. It is mainly intended to be applied to communication equipment that communicate information in accordance with IEC 61850 (all parts) in at least one part of their communication flow.

The following communication equipment is included within the scope:

• optical instrument transformer;
• conventional instrument transformers related to IEC 61850 traffic;
• merging unit;
• stand-alone merging unit;
• protection, control and measuring devices with at least one IEC 61850 interface;
• switchgear control unit (breaker IED);
• switchgear providing IEC 61850 interface;
• IEC 61850 time synchronization device;
• IEC 61850 gateway (RTU) and station HMI;
• digital disturbance recorder / digital fault recorder;
• digital communication protocol gateways with at least one IEC 61850 interface;
• protection, control and measuring devices that utilise a proprietary protocol for communication with devices that have at least one IEC 61850 interface.

The following communication equipment, scheme and protocols are excluded from the scope:

• IEC 61850 Ethernet switches and network topology;
• PMU phasor measurement unit with at least one IEC 61850 interface;
• the full path of substation-to-substation communication;

EXAMPLE 1: The description of R­GOOSE Publisher in substation A does not include the description of R GOOSE Subscriber in substation B.

• functions with only hardwired communication, e.g. direct analogue copper wired connection;

EXAMPLE 2: A current transformer connected to a protection relay with hardwired tripping of a circuit breaker.

• functions using only proprietary communication protocol systems;

EXAMPLE 3: A dedicated system for collecting disturbance recorder files with courier protocol or path from IEC 60870­5­103 to IEC 60870-5-101 will not be presented in this document.

• protocol mappings to XMPP (IEC 61850-8-2).

This document forms a supplement to other documentation standards in power utility automation. It also harmonizes the representation of the logical data flow structures based on IEC 61850 communication among different devices in order to provide a reference document that can be created for any IEC 61850 substation.

This document focuses in principle on the visualization of the digital information exchanged between IEDs and control or measurement devices in a power utility automation system. The information visualization does not refer to any graphical modelling but to a tabular format of presentation. The data in tabular format can be used as a basis for other kinds of visual presentation outside the scope of this document.

For representing all kinds of substation information, a single suitable tabular form is not possible to find. This document instead presents a limited number of high visual performance representation formats.

Presentation formats described in this document provide interactive visualization that assists users in analysing data and identifying some important and essential information in a more efficient way.