Application of the IEC 61850 to communication in distribution automation and building energy management systems - Evaluation of the applicability of standard Logical Nodes and Data Objects

Abstract

To realize smart grid technologies such as load control, load leveling and demand response and solve problems caused by connecting many DERs to a distribution network, a distribution automation system (DAS) and energy management system (EMS) are respectively essential components. The communication of these systems has generally been handled by proprietary or vendor-specific protocols to date. Conversely, in intra- and inter-substation communication, the IEC 61850 has started to gain acceptance in supervisory control communication, due to its interoperability supporting multi-vendor environments. If the IEC 61850 can be applied to communications in DAS and EMS, this is expected to reduce the maintenance and equipment costs of each system. To do so, we must first evaluate the applicability of the IEC 61850 from the perspective of Logical Nodes (LN) and Data Objects (DO), which are data models defined in IEC 61850. This paper focuses on the DAS and building EMS (BEMS) and provides the evolution. We choose BEMSs because we expect many EMSs to be installed in homes or buildings in the near future and anticipate that building energy management functions will include home energy management functions. This evaluation result shows that most data items appearing on such communications can be represented as standard LNs and DOs but several data items cannot be easily represented as the same.