Discussion on application of network-based timing technology in power plant and substation automation systems

The requirement of time accuracy,the demand of network-based synchronization mode and the most common time synchronization schemes in power plant and substation automation systems are presented according to the IEC 61850 standard and its practices,with the accuracy of time synchronization over Ethernet emphasized.Based on principles of timekeeping in systems,current states of NTP(Net Time Protocol) and SNTP(Simple Net Time Protocol) and their qualitative error analysis,and the typical experimental data,it is concluded that the network-based time synch scheme can be applied to the substation level host.If the time precision can be improved to a certain degree,all or most of bay level and process level equipments may apply network-based time synchronization.