1

Automated Event Management in

IEC 61850 Substations
D. Ishchenko, Member, IEEE, and M. J. Mousavi, Senior Member, IEEE

Abstract This paper describes a system for automated event

management in IEC 61850-based substations. Event monitoring
in transmission and distribution substations used to be a manual
process by utility protection engineers, primarily related to fault
events. However, with the recent advances in modern utility
communication technologies, particularly IEC 61850 utility
automation, coupled with expanded monitoring capabilities of the
protection devices, this process can be streamlined, automated,
and expanded to additional classes of events. A new method for
configuration of a substation-based event processing system using
Substation Configuration Description file analysis is also
presented.
Index TermsSubstation Automation, Intelligent Electronic
Devices, Event Detection, Utility Communications, IEC 61850.

I.

INTRODUCTION

ODERN Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) are

typically equipped with a digital fault recorder (DFR)
function, which allows detailed waveform data for various
events be captured and stored for further analysis. The data is
formatted and stored according to the Common Format for
Transient Data Exchange (COMTRADE) standards specified
in [1] and [2] immediately after an event has occurred and can
later be retrieved by the utility protection engineers. The
COMTRADE files can be downloaded from the IED internal
flash memory using the IED vendor proprietary software, via
IEC 61850 MMS or DNP3 file transfer, or through web/FTP
interfaces.
The most common type of disturbances
traditionally detected by the IEDs in substations is a fault in
the IEDs primary protection zone that leads to the circuit
breaker trip.
However, modern relays are equipped with multiple
protection element stages, some of which can be configured
exclusively to detect and capture events that do not result in
circuit breaker trips. Additionally, some IEDs may also be
furnished with power quality monitoring function, which can
detect short duration variations of the electrical quantities.
This function is typically implemented according to the IEEE
recommended practices for power quality monitoring [3] and
activated in a way similar to a regular protection function, so
This work was supported in part by the U.S. Department of Energy under
Award No. DE-OE0000547.
D. Ishchenko (e-mail: dmitry.ishchenko@us.abb.com) and M. J. Mousavi
(e-mail: mousavi@ieee.org) are with ABB US Corporate Research Center,
Raleigh, NC 27606.

978-1-4799-1303-9/13/$31.00 2013 IEEE

that it can be used to trigger and store the COMTRADE

records as well. The IEDs may also be interfaced with linear
high-bandwidth sensors such as Rogowski coils enabling
power quality monitoring with high precision.
The traditional DFR concept that primarily relates to faults
cleared by a circuit breaker operation can be expanded to
cover additional types of events particularly, in the case of
distribution systems, momentary faults on feeder laterals,
voltage dips/sags, harmonics related events, high frequency
disturbances, condition monitoring, and so on. This flexibility,
however, can result in a substantial additional burden on the
engineer in terms of the number of events generated in a
typical substation. Thus, the manual retrieval of event records
by the utility engineers may no longer be viable, and there is a
need to simplify and automate event processing in such a
substation automation system. The IEC 61850 set of standards
related to utility communications provides a good foundation
for the development of a powerful and vendor-independent
automatic event recording and processing system [4]-[8].
This paper discusses the use of IEC61850 Substation
Configuration Language (SCL) Substation Configuration
Description (SCD) files created by the system integrator to
extract the information needed to automatically configure
event management system and utilize IEC61850 services to
execute the automated event analysis process in the substation.
II.

SYSTEM ARCHITECTURE

During the integration of substation IEDs into the

IEC61850-based substation automation system, the system
integrator must parameterize the substation IEDs in terms of
both communications and protection functions, and configure
the vertical and horizontal communications, i.e. data sets,
reporting mechanisms and GOOSE messages. The overall
process is schematically illustrated in Fig. 1 where the IEDs
are configured through a vendor-specific configuration tool,
and the substation gateway (or RTU) with generic IEC 61850
capabilities is configured to communicate with the IEDs. The
substation gateway is typically used to map the IEC 61850
data attributes to the utility SCADA system with either DNP3
or IEC 60870-5-101/IEC 60870-5-104 slave protocols. In the
proposed architecture, the substation gateway is also used for
substation event monitoring. This system can be automatically
configured based on the SCD file for the entire substation.

2
Write
Settings

Proprietary
.CID files

IED
Configuration
Tool
Substation
Configuration
Description File
(.SCD)
Event Retrieval
SCADA reporting/control

Substation
Gateway
Configuration

IEC 61850
Data Objects

SCADA Slave
Protocol

Communications
Substation
Configuration

SCADA

Hierarchical Data
Modeling
Alarms, Datasets,
Reporting
Automatic Event
Management
System

Event
Database

Fig. 1. System architecture.

The data exchange between the IEDs and the substation

gateway is organized with LAN; there is also a LAN/WAN
link to SCADA from the gateway using a different physical
Ethernet port.
The horizontal communications mechanisms provided by
IEC 61850, particularly Generic Object Oriented Substation
Events (GOOSE), allow further expansion of the event
monitoring flexibility by cross-triggering event records for all
Fig. 2. Automated event management system configuration flowchart.
or part of the IEDs in the substation. This can help to observe
the overall picture that would fully characterize the effect of a III. EVENT MANAGEMENT CONFIGURATION AND EXECUTION
particular event throughout the substation and determine the
potential links between different types of events. For example, A. Communication and Substation Parameters
in case of distribution systems, it may be worthwhile to
The configuration of the multi-IED event processing system
investigate how short-term faults on feeder laterals may affect at the substation scale can be significantly simplified by
the neighboring feeders connected to the same bus. This automatic parsing of the IEC 61850 substation configuration
information can also be used for enhanced fault location.
description files [9]. These vendor-independent files in XML
Substation events are automatically processed and stored in format can be exported either from the IED or substation
a local database running on the substation gateway, which may gateway configuration tools. The analysis of the IEC 61850
additionally include a web interface accessible by the Substation Configuration Description (SCD) files allows
authorized users from the utility control center or on a mobile extracting all information related to the event record such as
platform.
the default sampling rate, the waveform length (including preThe configuration of the automated substation event trigger period), and the configuration of the analog and digital
management system is illustrated by the flowchart of Fig. 2. COMTRADE channels from any IED that is compatible with
The process can be split into several steps as described in IEC 61850. This allows seamless integration of the substation
Section III.
IEC 61850-compatible IEDs from multiple vendors into a

management system configuration tool. The nominal voltage

levels, information on conducting equipment, Bay names, and
the IED names are identified at this step. Conducting
equipment includes circuit breakers, measurement and power
transformers, generators, reactors, surge arrestors and so on.
The IED connectivity at each Bay is determined through the
analysis of the Logical Nodes (LN) connected to a particular
bay. As far as the object naming is concerned, IEC61850
recommends using the IEC 81346 Standard [10] that defines a way
to assign reference designations for industrial installations. If this
recommendation is followed by the system integrator, the object
names can also be used to validate substation configuration and
generate warnings if inconsistencies are detected.
Additionally, the SCL file analysis allows identifying the
common subnetwork communication parameters for all of the
connected Access Points specified in Communication
subsection of the SCL file. These parameters include the IP
addresses, IP Subnets, and Gateway IPs. If horizontal data
exchange through GOOSE is configured in the substation, the
Communication subsection will also contain the information
on that including the GOOSE Control Block identifiers and the
VLAN parameters.
The next step is to scan the SCD file and find all IEDs in
the substation. According to the standard, all IEDs as well as
other components of the substation automation system, for
instance routers, time synchronization devices, substation
gateways and OPC servers, can be accessed through Access
Points, which are linked with the IP address of a specific
device found at the previous step in the Substation section.

Fig. 3. Substation Configuration Description file structure.

system for real-time automatic event processing with minimal

user intervention.
The general structure of a typical SCD file for one IED is
shown in Fig. 3. All other IEDs in the substation will have a
similar hierarchy.
The SCD file structure shown in Fig. 3 includes three
Logical Devices (LD) used for protection, control and
disturbance recording, respectively. Technically, IEC 61850
does not require standalone LDs for these functions, therefore
Logical Nodes (LNs) related to disturbance recording function
(RDRE, RBDR, RADR) may also be found under a different
logical device depending on the vendor implementation of the
IEC 61850 object model. The general structure of these
particular logical nodes is defined in Part 61850-7-4 of the
Standard and must be maintained. The detailed LN hierarchy
for protection and control LDs is omitted from Fig. 3.
The functional connections in the substation, including the
electrical connections, are specified in the Substation section
of the SCD file and extracted by the automated event

B. Disturbance Recording Logical Nodes

Once the electric connectivity and the basic communication
parameters of the IEDs in the substation are determined, the
next step is to identify the parameters of the disturbance
recording LNs. Three protection-related LN types as described
in [11] are identified and processed at this step. Table 1 shows
the relevant data objects and attributes for disturbance recorder
logical nodes used by the automated event management
configuration tool. Common data classes for data objects are
defined in [12].
The common parameters for disturbance recording
functions are defined under RDRE logical node: pre-trigger
time, post-trigger time, and the sampling rate. Typically, there
is a single instance of RDRE LN per IED. This information
can be utilized for automatic processing of COMTRADE files
generated by various IEDs in the substation, for example the
exact trigger time can be determined for a particular event.
Disturbance recorder status objects can also be used to
externally detect that a new recording is available (RcdMade)
and for recording cross-triggering throughout the substation
(RcdStr). For instance, the substation gateway can subscribe to
these objects either through data set reporting mechanism as a
client or through GOOSE and automatically connect to the
IEDs and retrieve new records as soon as they become
available. Then, the new events are processed in a real-time
manner and stored in the event management system database.

4
TABLE I
DISTURBANCE RECORDING CLASSES, DATA OBJECTS, AND
ATTRIBUTES
RDRE class
Data
object/attribute
name
LN Name

Data attribute
type

Description

RcdMade.stVal
RcdStr.stVal
PreTmms.setVal
PstTmms.setVal
StoRte.setVal
RBDR class
LN Name

BOOLEAN
BOOLEAN
INT32
INT32
INT32

RDRE with LN prefix and

mandatory LN instance ID
Recording made
Recording status
Pre-trigger time, ms
Post-trigger time, ms
Sampling rate

ChNum1.setVal

INT32

RBDR with optional LN

prefix and mandatory LN
instance IDs
Channel Number

ChNum1.setVal

INT32

RADR with optional LN

prefix and mandatory LN
instance IDs
Channel Number

SrcRef.setSrcRef

OBJECT
REFERENCE

Reference to the IEC

61850 source data object

RADR class
LN Name

The binary channel configuration is provided under RBDR

logical node. There will be as many instances of RBDR LNs in
the SCD file as the total number of digital channels recorded in
a COMTRADE file. In a typical IED, there are up to 64 binary
channels. Other attributes needed for binary channel
identification are provided by the attributes of the binary input,
i.e. data attributes of the logical node that triggers the
particular binary channel. Alternatively, binary channel input
may be provided in the description field of RDRE logical
node, or defined by a vendor-specific data object, for example
EInput.
The next step is to extract the configuration data for
disturbance recorder analog channels. This is achieved by
scanning all instances of the RADR logical node for all IEDs
specified in the Substation Configuration Description file.
Typically for an IED, there will be at least three analog
channels representing phase currents, three phase voltages may
also be reported. Additionally, in the case of a power
transformer, both primary and secondary quantities can be
included in the COMTRADE data. Analog channels are
uniquely identified in the SCL file by channel number and by a
reference to the source IEC 61580 data object, which was
introduced in Edition 2 of the standard. In many legacy
implementations, the reference can also be specified in the
description field of the corresponding data attribute.
Instrument transformer ratios for each IED in the substation
can be extracted from current transformer type logical node
TCTR and voltage transformer logical node TVTR as
specified in the SCD file.
The information on the analog and binary channel

configuration is also stored in the COMTRADE .cfg file,

which can be used for additional validation of the channel
assignment once the first few events in the substation are
captured.
After all the steps described above are completed, the fault
event processing system will have the necessary information
on the substation structure such as the number of Bays (buses),
the IEDs connected at each bay, the IP addresses and the
disturbance recording functional capabilities of each IED
installed at the substation as described in the Substation
Configuration Description file. Therefore, the real-time
substation-wide event processing system will be fully
configured and ready to use.
C. Automated Event Processing
Once the configuration is complete, the substation
automation controller can monitor disturbance recorder logical
nodes of all IEDs in the substation and, as soon as a new
recording is detected, connect to the IED, retrieve the record,
process it, and store in the local database.
Disturbance recording retrieval mechanisms can be
implemented with the services described in [13]. The
COMTRADE files should be recorded by an IEC 61850compatible IED in a file directory called COMTRADE. Each
disturbance record may consist of the mandatory configuration
and data files, and an optional header file. Alternatively, the
records may be stored in compressed format in a single zip
archive in the same directory. Typically, COMTRADE
directories are located at the root level of the IED file
structure. MMS file transfer can be used as the default
mechanism for retrieving and deleting the files from the IED.
Many modern IEDs include FTP interface to disturbance
records so that FTP file transfer may also be used.

IV.

CONCLUSIONS

This paper provides an overview of the various aspects of

event management in modern substations designed with
IEC61850 in mind. It is anticipated that the number of events
in a typical substation will continue to increase as the IED
monitoring capabilities and the role of this standard in utility
automation applications expand.
Substation Configuration Description files created by the
system integrator can be used as a basis for deriving the
methodology for automatic configuration of the vendorindependent technology-agnostic event management system.
V.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT AND DISCLAIMER

The authors gratefully acknowledge the financial support of

the US Department of Energy. This paper was prepared as an
account of work sponsored by an agency of the United States
Government. Neither the United States Government nor any
agency thereof, nor any of their employees, makes any
warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal liability or
responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of

any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or

represents that its use would not infringe privately owned
rights. Reference herein to any specific commercial product,
process, or service by trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or
otherwise does not necessarily constitute or imply its
endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United
States Government or any agency thereof. The views and
opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state
or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency
thereof.
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BIOGRAPHIES
Dmitry Ishchenko (M'04) received the M.S. and
Ph.D. degrees in electrical power engineering from
Kuban State Technological University, Russia, in
1997 and 2002, respectively.
From 1997 to 2003, he was a Power Systems
Engineer with the Southern Division of the Unified
Energy System of Russia. From 2007 to 2010, he
was a Senior Power Systems Engineer with Cooper
Power Systems, Franksville, WI. He has also
worked as a Visiting Researcher at the Norwegian
Institute of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway and as a
Postdoctoral Research Scientist at Michigan Technological University,
Houghton, USA.
In 2010, he joined ABB US Corporate Research Center, Raleigh, NC,
where he is currently a Principal Scientist in the Power Technologies
Department. His interests include substation and distribution automation,
utility communications, power systems protection, and computer modeling of
power systems.
Mirrasoul J. Mousavi (SM12) is currently a
Principal Scientist Engineer with ABB US
Corporate Research. His primary area of
responsibility include leading and executing smart
grid projects related to power system automation,
data analytics, and intelligent monitoring, control,
and protection applications.
He received his Ph.D. degree in electrical
engineering from Texas A&M University in 2005.
He was a researcher in the Power System
Automation Laboratory and a graduate lecturer at
Texas A&M University prior to joining ABB. From
1999 to 2001, he was with Niroo Research Institute (NRI) as an R&D
Engineer. Mirrasoul is a senior member of IEEE, IEEE Power and Energy
Society (PES), and IEEE Dielectrics and Electrical Insulation Society (DEIS).
His current professional interests are related to power system automation,
data analytics as well as power system modeling and simulation.