Master the Power of IEC 61850

The IEC 61850 standard has been increasingly adopted for the configuration of Intelligent Electronic Devices (IED) involved in the monitoring, protection, control and automation of substations and various power system applications. By adhering to the IEC 61850 standard, industries, utilities and institutions are safeguarding their investments and mitigating the risks associated with interoperability issues and the long-term stability of the system.

The Leading Standard for Communication in Substations

IEC 61850 was developed on the basis of some key requirements which are also at the core of every OPAL-RT solutions: Technology independent, flexible and expandable.

OPAL-RT’s Real-Time Simulators work great with every protection and control IEDs that operates as a logical node defined in IEC 61850-7-4 and based on the IEC 61850 light edition (LE) and standard edition:

Protective relay
Merging unit
Setting less protection relay
State estimation based tools
IEC 61869-9 Low Power Instrument Transformers (LPIT) / Non-Conventional Instrument Transformers (NCIT)

In addition, OPAL-RT supports IEEE1588v2 as well as IEC 61850-9-3, the leading standard for time synchronization in digital substations.

The Three Pillars of IEC 61850 at OPAL-RT TECHNOLOGIES

From its in-depth expertise in IEC 61850 testing, OPAL-RT not only delivers a world-class communication protocol solution for power systems, but also partnered with two leaders in the IEC 61850 industry to provide a complete set of products and learning around IEC 61850. This combination allows engineers to understand, simulate and validate the connection of external devices under test in an easy, reliable and affordable way.

I – OPAL-RT Simulation System

OPAL-RT’s Simulation Systems combines a cutting-edge software interface and hardware platform used to design, test and validate IEC 61850 projects. IEC 61850 Sampled Value and GOOSE communication protocols are compatible with both OPAL-RT’s simulation systems HYPERSIM®.

II – OPAL-RT Training

OPAL-RT delivers practical and theoretical trainings tailored to engineers involved in the design and testing of protection relays and substation automation equipment control using the IEC 61850 standard. They aim to provide crucial tools, develop the students’ skills and improve their methodologies. Our teachers are specifically trained to offer the best training experience and deliver Application-Oriented Courses covering IEC 61850 from the basics to the core mechanisms.

III – Gentec Relays

Gentec offers intelligent and reliable protection relays capable of transmitting and receiving IEC 61850 GOOSE messages, and it is the best platform for engineers who want to develop a relay. Gentec perfectly matches with OPAL-RT simulators, so engineers can easily test their new algorithms.

Main benefits of Gentec Relays ALP-UDR and ALP-4000:

Adaptable to a variety of applications
Programmable via MATLAB/Simulink®, which allows engineers to program their own algorithm
Several functions such as protection, automation, metering and monitoring

Powerful Tools to Address the Most Complex Challenges of Protection Package

This video demonstrates how to test relays with HYPERSIM. Manual and batch tests are shown using TestView and Excel.

Integrated with our simulation system HYPERSIM, TestView allows automated sequences for testing protective relay according to IEC 60255-1 Standard. The main benefits are:

Guidelines for systematic type testing of distance relays, and uniform test reporting on the basis of a network simulation
Facilitates easier comparison among different distance relays produced by different manufacturers
Assess overall performance of relays under steady states and faulty conditions
Full compliance with the functional requirements of distance protection according to the IEC 60255-121 standards
Able to test several IEDs simultaneously, and complete protection systems without the need for amplifiers

IEC 61850 Sampled Value Data Integrity Manipulation

Improve testing coverage of protection systems with the new HYPERSIM feature for IEC 61850 data integrity manipulation and fault insertion

Six types of manipulations have been integrated in the Sampled Values solution:

Stop transmission
Delay transmission
Duplicate transmission
smpCnt manipulation
smpSynch manipulation
Quality manipulation

All these features come with a precise trigger that let the user manipulate data on external events.

HYPERSIM Protection Packages

All HYPERSIM® Protection Packages contains: low voltage interface for relay integration, testing package, time synchronization cards – IRIG-B, IEEE 1588 and IEC 61850 data integrity manipulation.

HYPERSIM OP4500 Series | 4 cores

Tabletop and affordable simulator ideal for testing typical protection scheme with small power system network model and up to two IEDs.

HYPERSIM and IEC 61850 Starter Kit
OP4510 Simulator Platform
16 x AI, 16 x AO, 32 x DI, 32 x DO
Intel Xeon CPU – 4 cores – 3.5GHz
Optional: Standard IEC 61850 Package

HYPERSIM OP5600 Series | 8 cores

Incredibly powerful and expandable simulator design for complex protection and control schemes with large power system network model and multiple IEDs.