TF6510 | TwinCAT 3 IEC 61850/IEC 61400-25

Whether energy generators, consumers or storage systems: the devices in a smart grid must be able to communicate with one another. There are standardized communication protocols for this purpose. The IEC 61850 describes such a communication for protection and control equipment in electrical substations. The communication services and the basic data model are constructed in such a way that they make it possible to go beyond general station automation. This is achieved through industry-specific data models. Specific supplements are available for wind turbines, hydropower plants and other decentralized energy generation systems, such as photovoltaic systems or fuel cells.

The TF6510 TwinCAT 3 Function precisely maps this communication and its data models. The communication stack required for this is completely developed in the PLC. The mapping of the IEC 61850 services is done to the MMS (Manufacturing Message Specification) communication protocol. Client and server can be implemented.

The data model is configured in the so-called TwinCAT Telecontrol Configurator. It provides all the necessary information on the various industry-specific data models. Many dependencies defined in the standard are taken into account in the configurator. In this way, incorrect configurations can be avoided. Loading and saving of the description files of the standard (icd files) is just as possible as the completely new construction of a data model with the help of a wizard, which supports during creation. Once a configuration with all datasets and reports has been completed, it can be converted into readable PLC code automatically using the so-called Deploy Wizard. A few basic services are coded as examples, whereby the code generated is directly available for an initial communication test. This significantly reduces the time required for application development.

The same workflow applies to the GOOSE communication channel. This is a real-time network protocol that is used in particular for the communication of status changes in electrical substations. Like client and server via MMS, publisher and subscriber for GOOSE are part of TF6510.