During autumn 2023 our customers requested 3 private training sessions on the IEC 61850 communication in power systems. These sessions gathered 24 participants and each of the courses was led by two instructors from INFO TECH.
In our conference room we set up a training system for demonstration and hands-on execises: 3 protection relays with IEC 61850 server & GOOSE interface and supporting PRP redundancy, a relay with Modbus slave interface connected to the IEC 61850 based network via our IT Gateway module, a simulator of SCADA with the IEC 61850 client interface, INFO TECH testing and simulation tools such as 61850 Avenue toolset, 61850 GOOSE System Viewer, 61850 SCL Runner toolset.
Upon request of our customers the special focus was put on the following topics:
- communication testing in all protocols defined in the IEC 61850 standard,
- communication supervision during the substation system operation,
- SCL based system engineering with creation of an SCD file and configuration of IEDs.
Though, a significant part of the time was dedicated also to the cybersecurity extensions of the IEC 61850 based communication, as specified in the IEC 62351 standard. INFO TECH tool programs together with the prepared set of certificates allowed for an exercise of setting up a secure client-server communication using TLS for encryption and ACSE for authentication.
Our courses collected the following ratings in the evaluation scale from 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest):
Training material rated 4.9
Competence of instructors rated 4.9
Significance to participant's work rated 4.4
Novelty of acquired information rated 4.0
General evaluation of the training rated 4.8
We truly enjoyed running these sessions with particpants so motivated to study and discuss the training issues and give us feedback from their own experience.
In September 2023 INFO TECH has released a new version of 61850 GOOSE System Viewer tool 1.0.0.8 with the improved zooming and navigation in the GOOSE connection view of the IEC 61850 based system (these capablities are especially useful when monitoring large systems with tens of devices).
61850 GOOSE System Viewer tool is an optional extension of the INFO TECH 61850 Avenue toolset package.
In August 2023 INFO TECH has released a new version of 61850 SCL Runner toolset wth the following main updates:
- 61850 SCL Runner tool - corrected "Open recent" function, support of up to 64 datasets in the simulated IED,
- 61850 ICD Editor - corrected definitions of the new LN classes from DER group.
Our regular event, the hands-on IEC 61850 training session in LINTE2 Laboratory, organized in co-operation with Gdansk University of Technology, Faculty of Electrical and Control Engineering, was met again with big interest of companies operating in power systems business. The 2023 edition of our training session gathered 18 participants from 8 companies, most of them strongly involved in the course subject. All seats booked !
In this year we put special emphasis on the following topics:
- Edition 2.1 of the IEC 61850 standard.
- Complete process of the IEC 61850 based system engineering with ICT and SCT (building an SCD file from ICD files based on system requirements, IED configuration using the created SCD file, generation of an IID file for the next iteration of building an SCD file).
- Sampled Values communication in accordance with the IEC 61869-9 (this option is already supported in our testing and simulation toolset).
- Secure IEC 61850 communication in accordance with the IEC 62351 (secure client-server communication based on TLS and ACSE is already supported in our testing and simulation toolsets).
- Portable software solution implementing the protocol converter with the IEC 61850 server interface on the uplink.
We would also like to express our special thanks to professor Andrzej Augusiak and professor Robert Małkowski from the Faculty of Electrical and Control Engineering for extending the agenda of our course by presenting the experiments conducted in LINTE2 Laboratory.
And here are the partipants' ratings of our training session, in the evaluation scale from 0 (lowest) to 5 (highest):
Training material rated 4.7
Competence of instructors rated 5.0
Significance to participant's work rated 4.1
Novelty of acquired information rated 3.6
Infrastructure and organization rated 4.6
General evaluation of the training rated 4.0
Note: The participants wished to have more time after the course hours to enjoy their visit in the city of Gdańsk. We promise to take this into account when planning the agenda and timing of the future editions of our training. 
In March 2023 INFO TECH has released a new version of 61850 Avenue toolset with new capabilities.
IEC 61850 client tool version 2.1.13:
- added functionality of cyclic data polling in a common monitoring view of selected data items from different server IEDs (PDV - Process Data View),
- verified support to secure connection using TLS (Transport Layer Security),
- minor improvements.
New functionality of 61850 Avenue - Cyclic Data Polling in Process Data View (PDV)
61850 Relay Simulator:
- verified support to secure connection using TLS.
61850 ICD Editor:
- added definitions of new LN classes specified in the IEC 61850-7-410 Ed.2.1, IEC 61850-7-420 Ed.2.0 and IEC 61400-25-2 Ed.2.0 and Edition 2.1 of the IEC 61850 standard.
GOOSE Toolset:
- improvements in messages streams view and routable messages.
Sampled Values Toolset
- added support of sampoling and messaging options defined in the IEC 61869-9.
Welcome to learn the details of the new release of the 61850 Avenue toolset.
INFO TECH testing and simulation tools for the IEC 61850 standard based communication are already licensed to over 100 companies and research institutions from 5 continents.
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