Previous versions of Monitoring Reports

• RDI Monitoring Report 2015
• RDI Monitoring Report 2013
• RDI Monitoring Report 2012

Previous versions of Implementation Plans

• Implementation Plan 2017-2019
• Implementation Plan 2016-2018
• Implementation Plan 2015-2017
• ENTSO-E RDI Roadmap 2013-2022

Previous versions of Roadmap

​The Third Energy Package stipulates that ENTSO-E adopts an RDI plan. By showing the importance of ENTSO-E member TSOs RDI for electricity consumers and stakeholders, the RDI Roadmap is another important EU official mandate for the association.

ENTSO-E RDI Roadmap aims at creating a supportive stakeholder environment for TSOs in conducting RDI. It covers a large amount of TSO RDI activities and shows how necessary they are in realising Europe’s climate and energy policy targets, but also how they support other TSO tasks related to EU network codes and ten-year network development plans.

ENTSO-E RDI roadmaps outline a methodology to achieve EU objectives and lay groundwork for the upcoming electricity highways, smart grids and the change to a low-carbon electricity system.

Defining a comprehensive RDI Roadmap is challenging. Implementing it is even more challenging. TSO cooperation is key as well as TSO collaboration with universities, research institutes, DSOs, generation companies, consumers, and industrial manufacturers. This way, not only are the RDI Roadmap targets met, but results are optimised as knowledge is quickly disseminated and shared among stakeholders and interested parties.

ENTSO-E RDI Roadmap 2017-2026

Related Links

• ENTSO-E RDI Roadmap 2013-2022
• ENTSO-E RDI Plan 2011
• ENTSO-E RDI Plan 2010
• Summary of consultation results 2012
• Summary of consultation results 2010

Partnered Projects

• EEGI - The European Electricity Grid Initiative: to create an adequate European grid (both transmission and distribution systems), to achieve the European energy policy goals.
• GRID+ Project: implementing and supporting the European Electricity Grids Initiative (EEGI) between the years 2012-2014, both within and beyond European borders.
• TDX ASSIST: To improve information exchange between Transmission System Operators, Distribution System Operators and market interaction based on use cases and IEC standards.
• e-Highway2050 Project: to build a modular development plan of the European transmission system for 2050.

EEGI - The European Electricity Grid Initiative

EEGI is one of the European Industrial Initiatives under the Strategic Energy Technology Plan (SET-Plan). The EEGI mission is to create an adequate European grid (both transmission and distribution systems), to achieve the European energy policy goals.

ENTSO-E is a key member and coordinator of the transmission RDI component of the EEGI Roadmap and Implementation Plan. Other members include the European Distribution System Operators’ Association for Smart Grids (EDSO-SG) which coordinates the distribution component of the EEGI Roadmap, and Member States and other stakeholders.

The EEGI strategic objectives are:

• to transmit and distribute up to 35% of electricity from dispersed and concentrated renewable energy sources by 2020, and a completely decarbonised electricity production by 2050;
• to integrate national networks into a market-based, truly pan-European network, to guarantee a high-quality of electricity supply to all customers and to engage them as active participants in energy efficiency;
• to anticipate new developments such as the electrification of transport; to substantially reduce capital and operational expenditure for the operation of the networks while fulfilling the objectives of a high-quality, low-carbon, pan-European, market-based electricity system.

Related Links

• EDSO website

GRID+ Project

The GRID+ Project aims at implementing and supporting the European Electricity Grids Initiative (EEGI) between the years 2012-2014, both within and beyond European borders. The GRID+ Project covers both pan-European and national initiatives of smart grid projects.

Thanks to the GRID+ project, the EEGI will enhance producing competence and knowledge needed to deploy Smart Grid solutions in the most effective way possible by the European network operators.

ENTSO-E is a consortium partner and a member of the management Board of the Grid+ project.

TDX ASSIST

Coordination of Transmission and Distribution data eXchanges for renewables integration in the European marketplace through Advanced, Scalable and Secure ICT Systems and Tools

TDX ASSIST project aims to enhance TSO-DSO coordination tools, implement novel features for ICT Tools and techniques and enhance market participants, all through deployment, testing and evaluation. Under the coordination of Brunel University of London and with the participation of several countries of the European Union, the project is totally driven for the integration of the European energy system.

• ENTSO-E is a key participant of the TDX ASSIST project. The objects are:
• Improve information exchange between TSOs and DSOs based on use cases and IEC standards;
• Novel scalable tools, to receive new users and increasingly larger volumes of information and data, with protection against external threats and attacks, to enable information exchange and communication based on existing and emerging smart grid ICT standards.
• Improve DSOs and market interaction and build a market portal, based on
• Transparency Platform;
• Testing and evaluation of use cases, processes and interoperability.

Related Links

• brunel.ac.uk
• eles.si/en/TDX-ASSIST-project

Standardisation

ENTSO-E, with Working Group Standardisation having a central role, engages in various standardisation activities in support of reliable and stable system operation and processes for the smart grid environment. Current ENTSO-E standardisation activities include:

• The Common Information Model (CIM) of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) for network modelling and market data exchange;
• The IEC61850 Standard for Substation Automation;

2016

IEC61850 Update: May 2016

​Adhoc Group 61850 recently (10 May) held a webinar to describe the work to date on the Interoperability Specification Tool which the group is focussing on. IEC61850 Update: April 2016 The Ad Hoc Group 61850 is proposing to present a webinar based on IEC 61850 and the Interoperability Specification (IS) Tool Development project managed by Gregory Huon (Elia) in conjunction with it4power, as well as some proposed IEC 61850 Standard developments. IEC 61850 is a communication standard for electrical substation automation systems. Multiple protocols exist for substation automation. Interoperability (or the ability of two different systems to communicate with each other) from different vendors would be an advantage to users of substation automation devices. IEC 61850 aims to reach interoperability at 3 levels: not only at communication level (cfr classical protocol), but as well at both information (enhanced semantic) and engineering process levels. ENTSO-E, through Adhoc Group 61850, aims to contribute to the IEC 61850 improvement from the user side. In order to achieve this aim, a tool (the Interoperability Specification Tool) is being developed by AdHoc Group 61850 in conjunction with it4power. The tool will define an ENTSO-E profile which will be a superset of all the elements belonging to the different TSOs’ (bay) templates. A webinar will be provided by the Ad Hoc Group 61850, in conjunction with it4power,on Tuesday 10 May 2016 between 1pm – 3pm. The webinar will provide further information on the IEC 61850 standard as well as describing the Interoperability Specification Tool and its development. All interested parties are welcome to attend and should contact info@entsoe.eu for more details.

ENTSO-E Position on IEC SyC SE Document Status​

On 26th February 2016, ENTSO-E is publishing the following position on the status of documents being issued by the IEC System Committee (SyC) on Smart Energy.​

Download Position

2015

​​​​​IEC61850 Update: November 2015

ENTSO-E would like to give an update on what has happened around IEC 61850 during the 2 important events that occurred respectively in September and October:

• IOP 2015, organized by UCA International User Group (Iug) in Brussels, Hotel Crowne Plaza, 26.9-2.10 – Key note speaker at closing ceremony: Carlo Sabelli (Chair of RDIC)

• IEC TC57 WG10(-17-18) meetings, hosted by and at ENTSO-E premises, Brussels , 5-9.10 - Key note speaker at opening ceremony: Gerald Sanchis (Chair of WG Standardisation)

Here are the highlights from an ENTSO-E perspective.

UCA Iug – IOP (Interoperability Testing Event) 2015

• Engineering process testing was encouraging: this is the first time the SCL (Substation Configuration Language) area was so deeply tested during an IOP (Interoperability Testing Event) and ENTSO-E is glad to see the progress and willingness of stakeholders to evolve to a top-down and vendor-independent engineering process, as targeted by ENTSO-E members.
  • Improvement point for next IOP: ENTSO-E hopes to see more participants at the testing of specification file (ssd files) exchange between vendors
• In a general way, a global statement can be made that the standardization issues decrease and that the IOP focuses now on the detailed technical issues of implementation
• Finally, ENTSO-E appreciated the involvement of the vendors in this IOP in order to let the industry progress, while being competitors
• ENTSO-E looks forward to participation at the next IOP 2017 where probably testing and versioning areas would join the engineering one.
• As a conclusion, ENTSO-E sees the IOP being the ideal playground to help
  • vendors to improve their products,
  • users to understand the standard and technologies/products developed around it, and be aware and active in technology evolution and finally,

The main findings and lessons learned during the event can be summarised as follows:

• The event was successful through:
  • Substantially increased overall participation and interest in, and commitment to, the IOP compared to the 2011 IOP.  
  • Education/learning by all participants and test witnesses.
  • Achieved a common understanding of the standard that can lead to users applying to the standard in a better manner, and also to product improvements.
  • Identifying the key roles that users, UCAIug and IEC need to assume.
  • WG10 to improve the standard
• Experience in Brussels showed that it is ideal to organize WG10 meeting just after IOP in order to fasten the IOP issues solving/allocation process.

IEC TC57 WG10(17-18) meetings

• IEC is now looking back on 20 years of history to develop and make IEC 61850 progress

• The joint meeting of all three WGs related to IEC 61850 allowed coordination of the overall IEC 61850 work

• The work on various areas is progressing; two task forces completed their work (90-3/ Condition Monitoring and 90-2/Substation to Control Center) and the other task forces have well defined scope and milestones planned

• CDV for Ed 2.1 of the core parts of IEC 61850 will be ready before the end of this year; FDIS closing end of July 2016 and finally, IS about August/September 2016

• A majority of the issues found at the IOP 2015 could be solved during the WG meeting: for many of them, a solution was worked out; if not, the residual issues were allocated to their corresponding taskforces. Solution of course has to be incorporated in the standards documents. That is for instance one of the reasons part 6 Ed 2.1 CDV was delayed, such that the solution can already be included in the next edition of the standard.

Next steps for AdHoc Group 61850

• ENTSO-E is now focusing on two main steps in its IEC 61850 improvement program:
  • The ISTool (Interoperability Specification Tool) development process. Notably, the WP3 (basic tool functionalities) was finalized in October and ENTSO-E looks forward to boost the realization of enhanced functionalities (IEC 61850 data model integration and export capabilities), in partnership with it4power/IFF. The target is to initiate ISTool fill-in process (profile construction) by ENTSO-E members at the beginning of Q4 2016.
  • The ENTSO-E engineering process validation. ENTSO-E targets to validate the current draft proposal by end of this year the latest
• ENTSO-E is considering to introduce a NWIP (New Work Item Proposal) through its liaison D with IEC TC57 WG10 in order to emphasize the absolute need to develop new specification means, vendor independent and flexible in granularity. The goal of this NWIP is to enable efficient and transparent DSAS (Digital Substation Automation Systems) purchasing and engineering processes for TSOs.

IEC61850 Update: August 2015

This is a summary of the progress made by the ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC 61850 since the last update published on September 2014.

Communications

The last meeting of the ENTSO-E AhG IEC 61850 in Lyon on 18-19th of June allowed the AhG to consolidate encouraging results:

• At the information level of interoperability, the ENTSO-E Interoperability Specification Tool (ISTool) development is on-going. The work package delivering the basic functionalities of the tool should be validated at the next RDC meeting at the beginning of September. A tutorial for the use of the tool will be made available in the short-term in order that each ENTSO-E member can start the profiling work that is expected to start at the beginning of 2016.
• At the engineering level of interoperability, ENTSO-E AhG developed a generic engineering process that has the ambition to cover each specific engineering process of the ENTSO-E members, strongly promoting the top-down and vendor independent approach, and that will complete the ENTSO-E profile, as a very important piece of it. Indeed, this ENTSO-E engineering process will feed into the IEC TC57 WG10 work (input for part 6/SCL amendment) and has been derived from test cases that will be performed from 26.9-2.10 at the UCAIug IOP 2015 organized in Brussels.
• ENTSO-E AhG has drawn up an IEC 61850 roadmap from an ENTSO-E perspective in order to give a comprehensive view on the “what” has still to be done to reach the targeted objectives, and the “how”, potentially impacting the level of the different stakeholders organizational structure and/or processes. The next IEC TC57 WG10 meeting hosted by ENTSO-E in Brussels (5th – 9th of October) will give the opportunity for the stakeholders to discuss this roadmap more in details. ENTSO-E already expressed some comments on the IEC TC 57 WG10 roadmap, among others the utmost importance to ensure backward compatibility and the need to make available new specification means (eg ISD file) that will make the engineering process transparent and efficient. Testing part of the standard is also key for end user acceptance of the standard and should be therefore available, pragmatic and oriented to the user needs.

For sure, there is still work but the above results are encouraging. ENTSO-E strongly confirms its intention to be an important stakeholder in the IEC 61850 improvement process and will actively contribute, mainly through the profiling work of the IEC 61850 standard. This should lead to reach the final objective as expressed in the ENTSO-E statement on IEC 61850 standard, as a reminder (1) multi-vendor interoperability (2) over systems lifecycle, (3) in an efficient way.

The next update will be focused on the main conclusion of both important events for ENTSO-E, the UCA Iug IOP 2015 and TC57 WG10 meetings.

​

Substation Automation – The IEC61850 Standard

​​​​​​​Multiple protocols currently exist in the area of substation automation, but which are often not compatible with each other.

The IEC61850 Standard for the design of electrical substation automation addresses many crucial aspects of TSO communications, data modeling and engineering in order to reach seamless interoperability of different vendors’ subsystems within the TSO system management architecture.

IEC61850 Update: May 2016​

Adhoc Group 61850 recently (10 May) held a webinar to describe the work to date on the Interoperability Specification Tool which the group is focussing on.

IEC61850 Update: April 2016

The Ad Hoc Group 61850 is proposing to present a webinar based on IEC 61850 and the Interoperability Specification (IS) Tool Development project managed by Gregory Huon (Elia) in conjunction with it4power, as well as some proposed IEC 61850 Standard developments.

IEC 61850 is a communication standard for electrical substation automation systems. Multiple protocols exist for substation automation. Interoperability (or the ability of two different systems to communicate with each other) from different vendors would be an advantage to users of substation automation devices. IEC 61850 aims to reach interoperability at 3 levels: not only at communication level (cfr classical protocol), but as well at both information (enhanced semantic) and engineering process levels.

ENTSO-E, through Adhoc Group 61850, aims to contribute to the IEC 61850 improvement from the user side. In order to achieve this aim, a tool (the Interoperability Specification Tool) is being developed by AdHoc Group 61850 in conjunction with it4power. The tool will define an ENTSO-E profile which will be a superset of all the elements belonging to the different TSOs’ (bay) templates.

A webinar will be provided by the Ad Hoc Group 61850, in conjunction with it4power, on Tuesday 10 May 2016 between 1pm – 3pm. The webinar will provide further information on the IEC 61850 standard as well as describing the Interoperability Specification Tool and its development. All interested parties are welcome to attend and should contact louise.anderson@entsoe.eu for more details.

Related Links

• 2016

IEC61850 Update: November 2015

ENTSO-E would like to give an update on what has happened around IEC 61850 during the 2 important events that occurred respectively in September and October:

• IOP 2015, organized by UCA International User Group (Iug) in Brussels, Hotel Crowne Plaza, 26.9-2.10 – Key note speaker at closing ceremony: Carlo Sabelli (Chair of RDIC)

• IEC TC57 WG10(-17-18) meetings, hosted by and at ENTSO-E premises, Brussels , 5-9.10 - Key note speaker at opening ceremony: Gerald Sanchis (Chair of WG Standardisation)

Here are the highlights from an ENTSO-E perspective.

IEC61850 Update: August 2015

This is a summary of the progress made by the ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC 61850 since the last update published on September 2014.

Communications

The last meeting of the ENTSO-E AhG IEC 61850 in Lyon on 18-19th of June allowed the AhG to consolidate encouraging results:

• At the information level of interoperability, the ENTSO-E Interoperability Specification Tool (ISTool) development is on-going. The work package delivering the basic functionalities of the tool should be validated at the next RDC meeting at the beginning of September. A tutorial for the use of the tool will be made available in the short-term in order that each ENTSO-E member can start the profiling work that is expected to start at the beginning of 2016.

• At the engineering level of interoperability, ENTSO-E AhG developed a generic engineering process that has the ambition to cover each specific engineering process of the ENTSO-E members, strongly promoting the top-down and vendor independent approach, and that will complete the ENTSO-E profile, as a very important piece of it. Indeed, this ENTSO-E engineering process will feed into the IEC TC57 WG10 work (input for part 6/SCL amendment) and has been derived from test cases that will be performed from 26.9-2.10 at the UCAIug IOP 2015 organized in Brussels.

• ENTSO-E AhG has drawn up an IEC 61850 roadmap from an ENTSO-E perspective in order to give a comprehensive view on the “what” has still to be done to reach the targeted objectives, and the “how”, potentially impacting the level of the different stakeholders organizational structure and/or processes. The next IEC TC57 WG10 meeting hosted by ENTSO-E in Brussels (5th – 9th of October) will give the opportunity for the stakeholders to discuss this roadmap more in details. ENTSO-E already expressed some comments on the IEC TC 57 WG10 roadmap, among others the utmost importance to ensure backward compatibility and the need to make available new specification means (eg ISD file) that will make the engineering process transparent and efficient. Testing part of the standard is also key for end user acceptance of the standard and should be therefore available, pragmatic and oriented to the user needs.

For sure, there is still work but the above results are encouraging. ENTSO-E strongly confirms its intention to be an important stakeholder in the IEC 61850 improvement process and will actively contribute, mainly through the profiling work of the IEC 61850 standard. This should lead to reach the final objective as expressed in the ENTSO-E statement on IEC 61850 standard, as a reminder (1) multi-vendor interoperability (2) over systems lifecycle, (3) in an efficient way.

The next update will be focused on the main conclusion of both important events for ENTSO-E, the UCA Iug IOP 2015 and TC57 WG10 meetings.

​IEC61850 Update: September2014

This is a summary of the progress made by the ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC 61850 from April to September and an outline of the main steps resulting from its 7th (Lisbon, April 2014), 8th (Magdeburg, June 2014) and 9th workshop (Paris, August 2014, at the Cigré Session).

Communications

• On 1 April 2014, ENTSO-E contracted with it4power to develop the ENTSO-E Interoperability Specification Tool (ISTool); it4power works in partnership with Institute Fraunhofer in Magdeburg.
• At the end of August 2014, ENTSO-E presented a poster of the ISTool at the Cigré Session in Paris.
• The Business Product Description of the ISTool (Work Package 1) is completed and it4power/IFF started with the Work Package 2 at the beginning of September (a.o. the development of a click prototype will be presented to the IEC 61850 community at the ENTSO-E booth on the occasion of the IEC 61850 Europe Conference in Prague).
• On 13 October 2014, ENTSO-E will organize a workshop on “Engineering Process & Tools” in Prague; all stakeholders interested to contribute to the workshop are welcome.
• A kick-off meeting between ENTSO-E AhG and UCAIug experts was organized during the Cigré Session in Paris in order to prepare the next UCA IOP 2015. A presentation of the outcome of the meeting was given at the Cigré Session. A follow-up meeting is planned for the 14 October in Prague. See the UCAIug Announcement of the IOP 2015.

Next Events

• On 13-14 October 2014, the ENTSO-E AhG IEC 61850 will hold its 10th workshop at the IEC 61850 Europe Conference 2014 in Prague. See the general programme.

In 2015, the ENTSO-E AhG IEC 61850 will be present at these important events:

• February, IEC TC 57 WG10 meeting in Stockholm, Sweden
• June, Cired 2015 in Lyon, France
• October, IEC TC 57 WG10 meeting in Switzerland
• October, UCA Iug IOP 2015 (place still to be defined in Europe)

​ Related Links and Documents

• Poster of the ENTSO-E Interoperability Specification Tool
• ENTSO-E Perspective towards IOP 2015 – Presentation at Cigré Session on 28 August 2014
• UCAIug Announcement of the IOP 2015
• ENTSO-E Activities at the IEC 61850 Conference in Prague – General programme
• IEC 61850 Europe Conference wesbite
• Sep-14 ​​

IEC61850 Update: November 2013

In the last week of October, the ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC 61850 (Interoperability) participated in the 2nd Interoperability test (IOP) session organised by UCAIug  in Munich. 

 The IOP is very important since it closes the loop of continuous improvement of the IEC61850 standard, ensuring the way towards the strong multi-vendor interoperability ENTSO-E wants to achieve, over the lifecycle of the system of assets. This second IOP was quite different from the first one, organised in 2011, in the sense that test procedures included multi-vendor engineering tools testing, as engineering of multi-vendor systems is a very important domain from a user point of view. ENTSO-E acknowledges the investments that were made by the IEC61850 community to set up this IOP.

IOP 2013 Findings

The main findings and lessons learned during the event can be summarised as follows:

• The event was successful through: - Substantially increased overall participation and interest in, and commitment to, the IOP compared to the 2011 IOP.   - Education/learning by all participants and test witnesses. - Achieved a common understanding of the standard that can lead to users applying to the standard in a better manner, and also to product improvements. - Identifying the key roles that users, UCAIug, and IEC need to assume.

• The interoperability test saw several firsts:
  • Applications capable of interoperability with both Edition 1 and Edition 2 devices. This capability was demonstrated across all the communication profiles of IEC61850 (e.g. Client/Server, GOOSE, and Sampled Values).
  • Interoperability of some of the advanced IEC61850 services, such as Logging and Substitution, were demonstrated in a limited fashion, though still not widely implemented.
• During the 2011 interoperability test, limited testing of SCL was accomplished. Therefore, a major focus of this 2013 IOP was the exchange of SCL files between tools.  Although the engineering/exchange was generally possible, issues were identified concerning the interpretation of the SCL files’ content. In particular, engineering of the data flow between the IEDs provides too many options. To improve this situation, it was recommended that a guideline be developed by the IEC61850 users group of UCA for a recommended approach to data flow engineering:
  • The handling of systems with a mix of Edition 1 and Edition 2 devices needs further consideration.
  • Many of the issues regarding the constraint of options were identified during the preparation of the IOP.  Proposals were made and some of the implementations demonstrated that the proposed solutions are viable.
  • SCL extension recommendations, regarding ease of use/validation, were also created.
• Overall, as a result of the IOP, a couple of items where identified, where further clarification in the standard could improve the interoperability. These will be handled by the WG10 of IEC TC57.

ENTSO-E and IEC 61850

ENTSO-E’s participation in this IOP on IEC61850 allowed members to better understand the course of such an event.  For the next IOP session planned for October 2015, ENTSO-E will enforce its participation through the preparation beforehand of a full set of use cases based on the current issues encountered in the different implementation projects.  The ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC 61850 (Interoperability) will limit its involvement to the user level of IEC61850 understanding, with the details of the complex IEC61850 standard being managed by the IEC61850 expert community (vendors and IEC TC57 WG10 members).

Based on first analyses of the results, the ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC61850 (Interoperability) will further processes the ENTSO-E technical specification related to IEC61850, including the preparation of the use cases test set. ENTSO-E is actively discussing the outcomes of the IOP and adjusting the tasks for 2014-2015 in order to increase the benefits in applying IEC61850. Notably, the following important issues will be further discussed:

• ENTSO-E sees a need to complete its document with an important currently missing element: specification of the transmission functions, sub-functions and their exchanged signals, independently of IEC 61850 modelling.  This would be the basis for a future gap analysis between what users require and what the IEC61850 standard currently provides. It would strongly enforce the interoperability at the information level. Discussions and first concrete results can be expected before the end of 2013.

• Testing functionalities remain a weak point of the standard implementation. Interoperability is crucial in this domain due to the consequences a malfunction can have in the real world.  ENTSO-E will prepare some use cases to specify its requirements regarding this very important domain of multivendor system testing.

• Some requirements were already fulfilled regarding the tools, with a better separation between specification, configuration and documentation.

The ENTSO-E Ad-Hoc Group IEC61850 (Interoperability) plans to hold its 6th workshop on the periphery of the next IEC TC57 WG10 meeting in France in February 2014.

Related Documents and Links:

• IEC61850 Profile Meeting Presentation (May 2013)
• ENTSO-E Statement on the IEC61850 Standard

• The ENTSO-E Punch List

• IEC61850 Interoperability Scheme from the ENTSO-E Perspective

• General information on IEC61850
• IEC61850 Update: November 2013

IEC61850 Update: June 2013

​Continuing their efforts to achieve the objectives set out in the ENTSO-E statement, the ENTSO-E IEC61850 Standard Taskforce met at the end of May in Prague during the IEC61850 Europe 2013 Conference.

Work progressed on the technical specification with brainstorming on the IEC61850 Transmission Profile organised with a committee of experts from IEC, UCA Users Group and T&D Europe. The attendance at this brainstorming workshop was very good with about 20 representatives from utilities, vendors, and 61850 standards activity members. The taskforce work plan/output is also consulted by others such as European distribution utilities or other regions, including the United States. The ENTSO-E Taskforce also presented a plan of deliverables and a global roadmap for implementation of the IEC61850 Standard (see slides 5 & 6 of the presentation linked below), to be finalised following the completion of the Transmission Profile.

During the IEC TC 57 Working Group 10 meeting of February in Mexico, it was decided to create a task force within WG10 to address user feedback. This task force will analyse any user feedback such as that from the ENTSO-E punch list, and discuss the resolution. Based on the nature of the issue, the resolution may be different; WG 10 created a list of categories for the nature of the issue and the proposed resolution. If a resolution has to be done by a standard improvement, WG 10 will do this.

On the other hand, if the problem is, for instance, based on non-compliant product implementations, the resolution would be with the UCA testing committee to improve the conformance testing. Additionally in June, during the last meeting in St. Petersburg, the IEC TC57 Working Group 10 began to address the first items of the ENTSO-E punch list.

The next meeting of the ENTSO-E Standard Taskforce is scheduled for the last week of October in Munich, in parallel with the interoperability testing session (IOP) organised by UCA Users Group. ENTSO-E fully supports the UCA User Group IOP and sees it as a critical element to solve issues listed in the ENTSO-E punch list and to improve multi-vendor interoperability. Interoperability testing will involve the testing of information exchanges between:

1. multi-vendor system engineering tools;
2. system engineering to device engineering tooling and
3. devices.

ENTSO-E will be represented at this IOP by members who will participate in supervising the validity of the complete testing process as well as the efficiency of the engineering process.

Related Links IEC61850 Update: June 2013

IEC61850 Update: March 2013

​A year after its publication, and supported by a punch list and an interoperability scheme published later in October 2012, the ENTSO-E Statement on the IEC61850 Standard has, without doubt, impacted the IEC61850 stakeholder community. The ENTO-E statement’s impact was also enforced by the publication of a GO15 Statement in May 2012.

Here are some highlights on what has been happening since the statement was published:

• Acknowledgment of the ENTSO-E statement by the IEC and creation of a “Users feedback” Taskforce within the IEC TC57 WG10;

• Creation within Cigré of a new working group within the SC B5 (Protection & automation section): B5.50 “IEC 61850 Based Substation Automation Systems – Users Expectations and Stakeholders Interactions”;

• The ENTSO-E IEC61850 Standard Taskforce – at the origin of the Statement – met on a regular basis in order to achieve the next concrete deliverable; a technical specification summarising the high level requirements of ENTSO-E members and associated stakeholders regarding IEC61850 standards. Notably, the ENTSO-E taskforce will use inputs from the E3 group and VDE/FNN. This technical specification will be the cornerstone in defining a transmission profile within the IEC61850 standard;

• In particular, the ENTSO-E IEC61850 Standard Taskforce has established liaisons with other stakeholders:

  • IEEE, in particular through the P2030.100 project; “Recommended Practice for Implementing an IEC 61850 Based Substation Communications, Protection, Monitoring and Control System”;
  • T&D Europe that supports the ENTSO-E initiative, constructively challenges its punch list and provides buy-in to reinforce the users’ position at the IEC TC57 WG10 meeting;
  • The Smart Grid Coordination Group (CEN/CENELEC/ETSI) and its WG Interoperability that support the M/490 Smart Grid Mandate introduced by the European Commission.

In the near future, the ENTSO-E IEC61850 Standard Taskforce will initiate contact with the UCA Users Group in order to define a test of user cases, to demonstrate interoperability at different levels, and in particular at the level of tools.

All the stakeholders mentioned above, and many more, will act together in a constructive and coordinated way in order to reach the common goal of effective, as well as robust and efficient interoperability, over the life cycle of the system of assets, as outlined by the ENTSO-E Statement on the IEC61850 Standard.

While the road is still long, all the forces are united to achieve this ambitious challenge and to make IEC61850 – the unique standard addressing interoperability at communication, information and engineering levels – a sustainable success.

Related Documents and Links:

• ENTSO-E Statement on the IEC61850 Standard

• The ENTSO-E Punch List

• IEC61850 Interoperability Scheme from the ENTSO-E Perspective

• General information on IEC61850
• IEC61850 Update: March 2013

UCA Iug – IOP (Interoperability Testing Event) 2015

• Engineering process testing was encouraging: this is the first time the SCL (Substation Configuration Language) area was so deeply tested during an IOP (Interoperability Testing Event) and ENTSO-E is glad to see the progress and willingness of stakeholders to evolve to a top-down and vendor-independent engineering process, as targeted by ENTSO-E members.
  • Improvement point for next IOP: ENTSO-E hopes to see more participants at the testing of specification file (ssd files) exchange between vendors

• In a general way, a global statement can be made that the standardization issues decrease and that the IOP focuses now on the detailed technical issues of implementation

• Finally, ENTSO-E appreciated the involvement of the vendors in this IOP in order to let the industry progress, while being competitors

• ENTSO-E looks forward to participation at the next IOP 2017 where probably testing and versioning areas would join the engineering one.

• As a conclusion, ENTSO-E sees the IOP being the ideal playground to help

  • vendors to improve their products,
  • users to understand the standard and technologies/products developed around it, and be aware and active in technology evolution and finally,
  • WG10 to improve the standard

• Experience in Brussels showed that it is ideal to organize WG10 meeting just after IOP in order to fasten the IOP issues solving/allocation process.

IEC TC57 WG10(17-18) meetings

• IEC is now looking back on 20 years of history to develop and make IEC 61850 progress

• The joint meeting of all three WGs related to IEC 61850 allowed coordination of the overall IEC 61850 work

• The work on various areas is progressing; two task forces completed their work (90-3/ Condition Monitoring and 90-2/Substation to Control Center) and the other task forces have well defined scope and milestones planned

• CDV for Ed 2.1 of the core parts of IEC 61850 will be ready before the end of this year; FDIS closing end of July 2016 and finally, IS about August/September 2016

• A majority of the issues found at the IOP 2015 could be solved during the WG meeting: for many of them, a solution was worked out; if not, the residual issues were allocated to their corresponding taskforces. Solution of course has to be incorporated in the standards documents. That is for instance one of the reasons part 6 Ed 2.1 CDV was delayed, such that the solution can already be included in the next edition of the standard.

Next steps for AdHoc Group 61850

• ENTSO-E is now focusing on two main steps in its IEC 61850 improvement program:
  • The ISTool (Interoperability Specification Tool) development process. Notably, the WP3 (basic tool functionalities) was finalized in October and ENTSO-E looks forward to boost the realization of enhanced functionalities (IEC 61850 data model integration and export capabilities), in partnership with it4power/IFF. The target is to initiate ISTool fill-in process (profile construction) by ENTSO-E members at the beginning of Q4 2016. See planning with important milestones below
  • 
  • The ENTSO-E engineering process validation. ENTSO-E targets to validate the current draft proposal by end of this year the latest

For further information, please contact info@entsoe.eu.

Related Links and Documents

• See Standardization webpage and previous Updates ​- Poster of the ENTSO-E Interoperability Specification Tool
• ENTSO-E Perspective towards IOP 2015 – Presentation at Cigré Session on 28 August 2014
• UCAIug Announcement of the IOP 2015
• ENTSO-E Activities at the IEC 61850 Conference in Prague – General programme
• IEC 61850 Europe Conference wesbite

M/490 Standardisation Mandate

​ENTSO-E contributes to the M/490 EN which is a standardisation mandate to European Standardisation Organisations (ESOs) to support European smart grid deployment.

On 9 September 2013, CEN (European Committee for Standardization) and CENELEC (European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization) signed a Memorandum of Understanding with ENTSO-E (European Network of Transmission System Operators for Electricity).

The three organisations are committed to ensuring continuous cooperation, including regular exchanges of information and expertise, notably with regard to the development of European standards and network codes that are necessary for efficient and reliable electricity distribution in Europe.

For further information, please contact info@entsoe.eu

Related Links

• CEN
• CENELEC