A Novel PRP based Deterministic, Redundant and Resilient IEC 61850 Substation Communication Architecture

Publication date: Available online 11 July 2016 Source:Perspectives in Science Author(s): S.M. Suhail Hussain, Mohd Asim Aftab, Ikbal Ali A secure, reliable, redundant, resilient, time critical, efficient and interoperable substation communication network (SCN) is a prerequisite for a viable Substation Automation System (SAS). Due to emergence of IEC 61850 as a global standard for substation automation, the interoperability issues among components of substation from different vendors is resolved. The communication network must be fault tolerant and any substantial levels of disturbances should not affect the normal operation of the SAS. Due to digitization in SCN, the communication methodology is mainly focused on exchange of encrypted packet information. Failure of the communication mechanism, even for the order of milliseconds, would lead to catastrophic effects within the substation and also impacts the operation of grid, if not cleared timely. The high reliability of such a system is only possible under a redundant communication network which has a zero switchover time. Hence IEC 62439-3 based redundant protocols such as Parallel Redundancy Protocol (PRP) recommended to be used in SCNs to achieve redundancy and seamless recovery in case of a failure. PRP based SAS along with detailed analysis of underlying process for implementing PRP protocol and its comparison with existing conventional protocols based SCN reported in literature is presented.

Source: Perspectives in Science - July 14, 2016 Category: Science Source Type: research