Performance Evaluation of IEC 61850 safety-related communication architecture

International audienceRecent improvements, in electrical power transmission and distribution, require considerations of existing regulations that enforce increasing of reliability and reducing of environment impact. Smart grids become industrial solutions that follow standardized development. It is used to satisfy both the electrical energy supply from producers to consumers and the need for consumers' data transmission to electrical utility and providers. This technology is affected by international standardization in the field of power transmission and distribution. Modern electrical substations, i.e. electrical transmission and distribution stations, are part of smart grids. These substations follow new technological trends [1]. The IEC 61850 standard consists of 10 parts to enforce interoperability between different manufactured devices, e.g. intelligent electronic device (IED), in the substation communication systems [2]. The standard uses high speed time-critical communication to exchange events and states between substation devices. This standard sets a latency constraint to achieve a response time of less than four milliseconds for critical event communications, especially in the protection and automation fields [3]. One of the objectives of the current research is to evaluate latency of Ethernet based GOOSE (General Object Oriented Substation Events), i.e. time-critical messages , transmission for both message priority and time delay. In particular, to evaluate theses parameters, especially when network redundancy is existed, a simulation model scenario is developed