Interoperable Framework for IEC61850-Compliant IEDs and Noncompliant Energy Meters with SCADA

Abstract Modern substation automation involves integrating IEC 61850 compliant IEDs and noncompliant energy meters with an already-existing multi-vendor SCADA at the station level. Due to the lack of knowledge toward the IEC 61850 standard, it is difficult to write applications for reading and processing data from IEDs. Therefore, utilities either have to replace the older applications with IEC 61850 compliant ones or use protocol converters to acquire data from IEDs and to exchange the data with other applications. This article presents an approach for an interoperable framework of SCADA with IEC61850 compliant IEDs and non-IEC61850 energy meters for accessing data. The data are stored in an open file format that can be accessed by any other application at the station level with minimal engineering efforts. To integrate a non-IEC61850 energy meter with the SCADA, an AMI head-end application is developed that also stores the data in an open file format. The implemented methodology allows retaining the SCADA, a non-IEC61850 compliant application, while opting for IEC61850-based substation automation systems.