In February 2020 the IEC published new documents of the IEC 61850 standard - the new releases of parts 7-2, 7-3, 7-4, 8-1 and 9-2 appeared as Edition 2.1 (part 6 in Edition 2.1 was published already in 2018).

But Edition 2.1 shall not be treated as a new edition of the standard - formally and essentially this is Amendment 1 to Edition 2 (in short Am.1 Ed.2), which supersedes the former publications of the IEC 61850 standard Edition 2.

What comes to conformance testing in accordance with the procedures specified by the UCA International Users Group, please note that the latest published Ed.2 Server Test Procedures (version 2.0.1) and Client Test Procedures (version 1.1.1.) already incorporate a big subset of tissues included in the IEC 61850 Am.1 Ed.2. These test procedures will remain in use (without changes) until Am.1 Ed.2 Test Procedures are prepared and published (which is expected in Q4 2020). As a consequence, please be aware that by mid 2021 the testing of conformance to Edition 2 will finally become exclusively based on the IEC 61850 Am.1 Ed.2. 

In March 2020 INFO TECH has already accomplished a detailed analysis of changes and extensions to the IEC 61850 standard brought by the published Am.1 Ed.2.  Thus, we can assure that already in this year we will be able to support our customers-licensees with the updated source code of INFO TECH IEC61850 Software Library and with the updated toolsets for communication testing and simulation.

If one wonders whether Edition 2.1 is backward compatible with the former Edition 2 - the answer is the same as before with Edition 2 following Edition 1 of the IEC 61850 standard: unfortunately not in some still essential elements ...

Please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. in case of aiming to be a front-runner in your products and systems adaptation to the latest version of the IEC 61850 standard - we will help you to leave your competitors behind.

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