Automatic generation of IEC 61850 Engineering files (SCD) for the European Utility using custom Engineering DB & defined rules

Customer: Electric Utility in Southern Europe

Industry: Electric Utility 

Business Case: 

One of the major utilities in Europe, operating multinational, wanted the Substation configuration tool to assist in the automation of the engineering process for Protection and Control Equipment in utility's new substation projects as well as renewal and upgrade projects.  The aim was to generate complete engineering files from their existing engineering database and workflow they had defined, and the output should be in common IEC 61850 engineering format that can be accepted by any IEC 61850 engineering tools including the relay configuration tools. The major aim of the project was listed below.

• The objective was to automatically generate the SCD file based on a set of rules and guidelines provided by the utility. 
• Substation Configuration Tool should be able to ingest a custom rule file with mapping details, download the referenced ICD files, automatically insert Data Initializers, perform GOOSE, LGOS, and Report mapping, and automatically export an adequate SCD file thus eliminating the manual intervention in this process 
• Compare in detail the updated SCD file to identify those devices that are affected in this engineering and export a list of which IEDs need to be re-engineered. 
• The scope also included importing not only the substation topology information but also all other information susceptible to change between substations and using all this information to automatically export the complete SCD file. 
• Needed to ensure interoperability of the generated files with IED Configuration Tools from multiple vendors. 
• Programming interfaces should attach the SCT engine with the automation framework owned by the Utility.

The Solution: 

ASE / Kalkitech’s solution included customizing the existing ASE61850-SCLManager to meet the requirements of the utility. ASE61850-SCLManager is the leading IEC 61850 Substation Configuration Tool (SCT) in the market. This tool supports Edition 1.0, 2.0, 2.1 and is continuously updated to comply with the changes in the standard. The tool helps in the creation, import, and export of SCD/SSD/SED/ICD/IID SCL files with SLD Information. This tool was modified to accept the custom engineering file from the utility format and generate SCD files automatically as per the utility requirements. The following are the major changes incorporated.

• Vendor agnostic SCL Engine platforms allow the creation, configuration, viewing, and editing of all substation elements. 
• A GUI wizard mode is provided in addition to the existing user interface of ASE61850- SCLManager. 
• Command Line Interface mode allows automation of the configuration and generates SCD files. 
• Successfully integrated this SCT to the Utility automation backend.

Key Benefits:

The solution enabled the utility to generate the engineering files automatically, as per IEC61850, and interoperable with all the vendor devices. They were also able to do the complete engineering process as per their previous workflow and did not need any change from the same.