OMICRON

Protection engineers implementing the latest protection technology also face new testing challenges. OMICRON was the first to provide communication-based testing solutions for IEC 61850 devices that leverage our existing Test Universe software reducing the learning curve dramatically.

IEC 61850 differs from traditional protection by utilizing real-time status signaling via Ethernet; even mission-critical information may be sent over the communication networks. Devices compliant with the UCA 2.0 specification also operate according to this principle. Having access to the information on the substation network becomes a necessity for performing protection testing. The IEC 61850 standard describes the communication of devices in substations. One important issue relevant to protection specialists are the real time (process bus) protocols for transmitting binary status data.

GOOSE or GSSE messages transport binary status signals over the substation network and are also used for interlocking or even tripping. Sampled Values according to IEC 61850 9-2 LE transport the digitized instantaneous values from CTs and PTs. For performance testing, the protection engineers need access to these data. This is accomplished by hardware and software components for the time-tested OMICRON protection testing system.

OMICRON's IED Scout, an IED vendor independent IEC 61850 network analysis tool provides valuable information about the IEC 61850 devices by browsing them online or accessing their configuration data offline.