Protection and Communications
Protection engineers are increasingly affected by communication issues. Connections via classical SCADA protocols such as DNP and
IEC 60870-5-103 provided additional information and features to be used by the SCADA system, while the signalling for the core functionality was still performed by hard wired binary contacts. Nevertheless, there are many issues surrounding the interface between protection and SCADA, which require analysis and testing to investigate problems and verify proper functioning.
Recently, with the advent of network based technologies according to IEC 61850 utilizing real-time status signalling via Ethernet, even mission critical information may be sent over the communication networks. There are also devices according to the UCA 2.0 specification which operate on this principle. Having access to the information on the substation network becomes a necessity for performing protection testing.
OMICRON addresses the related testing issues by providing solutions for the protection engineer.
Solutions for the IEC 60870-5-103 protocol and IEC 61850 are already available.