Implementing IEC 61850-7-420 DER Logical Nodes in a single board

This article discusses the implementation of a variety of logical nodes (LNs) of power generation systems based on distributed energy resources (DER) in a single board computer (SBC). The SBC allows for the acquisition and encapsulation of analog signals from a photovoltaic (PV) array with batteries, based on the IEC 61850-7-420 standard. To achieve this, an SBC integrated with an analog-digital conversion card (ADC) enables to read the system’s analog values. The SBC communicates with the ADC card to encapsulate the collected data in the IEC 61850 data object by using the corresponding logical node (LN). An open license library was used to create the IEC 61850 server inside the SBC and the driver of the ADC card manufacturer to communicate both cards. This work aims to develop LNs for DERs in such way that manufacturers of power generation technologies based on renewable sources (such as the sun and/or the wind) implement Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED) and controllers in accordance with the scope of the standard for these logical nodes (LNs). Finally, the communication testing of the implementation and the results obtained are presented