TITLE:
Tele-Protection Implementation Using IEEE 1588 Precision Time Protocol in Colombian High Power Substations
AUTHORS:
Hermes Eslava, Luis Alejandro Rojas, Danny Pineda
KEYWORDS:
Metro Ethernet, IEEE 1588, IEC 61850, Tele-Protection, Effective Communications, Tele-Trigger Simulations
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Power and Energy Engineering,
Vol.3 No.4,
April
13,
2015
ABSTRACT: Optical fiber has been used as typical
physical transmission medium in Colombian high power substations for effective
communication between substations and control centers. However, suita- ble
transmissions of tele-protection services continues to be a challenging area in
the electrical- supply sector since link stability as well as various performance
tests suggest that link recurrence requirements still exhibit limitations when
using Metroethernet networks in this context. At pre- sent, improvements have
been achieved via proprietary protocols such as Mirrored Bits, which matches
the performance of a tele-protection link transmission under normal operation
conditions. However, this imposes commercial limitations on the Colombian
electrical-supply sector since proprietary protocols hinder fair competition
among manufacturers. This is the rationale behind conducting trials with
precision time protocol as it is defined in IEEE 1588 standard. The main
purpose is to validate whether, under real operation conditions, it is possible
to substitute such tele-protection links via Metroethernet networks, yet
considering a standard protocol that allows incorporating various pieces of
equipment from different manufacturers into the system as well as providing
common benefits derived from using this type of communication networks. The
present work provides technical results obtained after conducting various
simulated tele-trigger tests, including stress tests, where results-stability
validation occurs through network-saturation simulations. These saturation
conditions are achieved by incorporating additional traffic, which involves
several switching events over link paths and permits validating tele-protection-response
timing when specifically using IEEE 1588 precision time protocol. Based on the
aforementioned reasons as well as on the resulting benefits, a series of
laboratory tests have been defined in order to evaluate delay and availability
on tele-protection services when transported over IP networks.