Power utilities are facing unprecedented challenges for the present and future. They must find new ways to adapt their aging grids to accelerating demands in areas such as electrification and distributed energy generation so they can keep supplying safe and reliable power for everyone. A modernized communications infrastructure that connects critical operational technology (OT) in substations and distribution feeder domains with software in the data center and grid edge to support advanced grid automation could provide the key to success.
A shifting energy landscape brings new challenges
In its 2023 Long-term Reliability Assessment, the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) sounded the alarm on increasing resource adequacy concerns for the next decade. The international regulatory authority reported that a growing portion of North America could face electricity shortfalls because of rising demand, capacity deficits, insufficient dispatchable resources and generator and fuel vulnerability because of extreme weather.
Recent articles in the New York Times and The Economist highlight some of the key challenges that utilities face in addressing these concerns. These include issues with integrating wind and solar farms, electrifying energy-intensive industries and adapting to shifting usage patterns that will soon see winter energy demands begin to outstrip those of summer.
The challenges are compounded by the need for utilities to modernize their legacy TDM-based network communication technology, which has become obsolete. There is unprecedented urgency to upgrade and expand the grid and its underlying mission-critical communications infrastructure. With so many issues to address, it’s no surprise that many utilities struggle to determine what to upgrade and where to start.
IEC 61850 comes to the rescue
Fortunately, the IEC 61850 standard is ready to help utilities use the power of automation to address many of their major challenges. Introduced two decades ago and updated many times in the ensuing years, IEC 61850 provides a standard, interoperable communications framework for power utility automation systems and processes from the grid edge to the control center.
As an open standard, IEC 61850 can enable automation systems and processes to harness the latest compute virtualization technology to make electric grids more agile and scalable. Its standardized models make it easy for utilities to innovate and meet new demands by extending advanced automation capabilities across the grid.
Utilities can use IEC 61850 automation in a multitude of ways to improve the efficiency, availability and resiliency of their power system designs. For example, they can combine virtualized intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) and compute to support use cases such as differential protection by running relay applications in a pool of open, hardened compute platforms inside substations, known as a substation cloud, instead of proprietary hardware.
The substation use cases can be extended to support other grid edge applications, including:
- Fault location, isolation and restoration (FLISR)
- Falling conductor protection (FCP)
- Volt/VAR optimization (VVO)
- Direct transfer trip (DTT)
- Anti-islanding protection
IEC 61850 also supports of the use of other critical OT applications such as advanced distribution management systems (ADMSs), synchrophasor and SCADA. These applications are increasingly based on compute virtualization technologies. This has resulted in the emergence of the OT cloud concept, which provides a dedicated pool of compute resources for core grid management application software connected to physical assets across the grid.
The OT cloud has transformed the data center into a hub for grid operations. It has also made the data center network, or fabric, a pivotal part of the end-to-end mission-critical grid communications infrastructure. To support OT applications, the fabric must seamlessly internetwork with the mission-critical wide area network (WAN) and field area network (FAN) with five-nines reliability. It must also be agile enough to adapt to changes and disruptions to maintain business continuity.
Rethinking grid communications for IEC 61850 automation and OT cloud
Utilities need a robust and comprehensive communications infrastructure that can enable them to make full use of IEC 61850 powered by the core application software in the OT cloud to modernize their grids and address their most pressing challenges. This infrastructure must extend connectivity from IEDs, the FAN and the substation LAN, across the WAN, and all the way to a data center fabric connected to IEC 61850 applications.
Figure 1: OT cloud plays a pivotal role in IEC 61850
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An ideal IEC 61850 grid communications infrastructure blueprint will include:
- A substation LAN blueprint that can use hardened Ethernet switches of varying sizes to meet the connectivity requirements of substation buses. The blueprint should support proprietary and virtualized substation assets with protocols such as Sampled Values and GOOSE, along with synchrophasor, interlocking and busbar protection.
- A converged FAN blueprint that can extend IEC 61850 communications from the substation to distribution circuit domains. An IP/MPLS network running over wireless access can enable utilities to support critical automated applications such FCP, VVO, FLISR and DTT.
- A mission-critical IP/MPLS WAN blueprint that connects substations to support applications such as differential protection, distribution automation and synchrophasor. The WAN should constantly deliver the necessary network performance—for example, by providing stringent quality of service to meet differential protection requirements.
- A data center fabric that connects application software running in the OT cloud to IEDs and other assets across the grid. The fabric should provide OT-class five-nines reliability and security, cutting edge IT automation agility, and seamless internetworking with the IP/MPLS WAN and FAN
- A unified network services platform that can oversees all network services across the infrastructure from connectivity provisioning, proactive service assurance and troubleshooting
Find out more
Read a Nokia ebook on how agile data center fabrics can help utilities use OT clouds to enhance operational control and power the energy transition journey.
Visit Nokia at DISTRIBUTECH International (booth 1901) in Orlando from 27–29 February. We’ll show you how our IEC 61850 communication infrastructure can help you harness the power of automation, OT and cloud computing to ensure that your grid is ready for the challenges and opportunities of the new energy future.