10 - Fundamentals of IEC 60870-5

Abstract

This chapter discusses the fundamental objectives of IEC 60870-5 standard. The standard IEC 60870-5 was produced by the International Electrotechnical Commission Technical Committee 57, Working Group 03. IEC 60870-5 is a set of standards that define systems used for telecontrol in electrical engineering and power system automation applications. The sections IEC 60870-5-1 to IEC 60870-5-5 are the core specification documents for Part 5, the Transmission Protocols part of the standard. IEC 60870-5-101 defines all the necessary application level functions and data objects to provide for telecontrol applications operating over geographically wide areas, using low bandwidth bit-serial communications. It covers general communications with RTUs, including data types and services that are suitable for electrical and substation systems. The data types are generic and suitable for wider SCADA applications. The IEC 60870-5-102 and IEC 60870-5-103 companion standards provide data types and functions to support electrical protection systems. These include distance protection, line differential protection, and transformer differential protection. The IEC 60870-5-104 companion standard defines operation of the transmission protocol over networks using standard transport profiles specifying the TCP and IP protocol.