Alex Apostolov

Subject

Time in Substation Protection and Control Systems–

Principles and Applications
Alexander Apostolov
OMICRON electronics, USA

1 Introduction
Protection, automation and control applications are some of the key components in the reliable and
secure operation of the evolving grids of the twenty first century. The complexity of today’s electric power
grid and its changing dynamic characteristics together with the rapid development of computer and
communication technologies resulted in the transition from the conventional hard-wired protection,
automation and control systems to IEC 61850 based solutions in digital substations.
Time plays an important role in everything in our lives. It is used to:
• Establish when an event occurred
• Measure the duration of an event
• Specify the duration of an event
• Measure the time interval between events
• Schedule an event
• Specify the time interval between events
is required for several purposes:
To synchronize multifunctional protection IEDs in order to be able to analyze their operation following fault
detection and clearing, or wide area disturbances
To synchronize merging units (MUs) or phasor measurement units (PMUs) in order to be able to use
analog measurements from different locations
To synchronize transient or disturbance recording devices in order to be able to align the records for fault
or disturbance analysis purposes
That is why the development of the IEC 61850 standard had to consider the requirements for time in the
data and object models, as well as in the communications services definitions.
At the same time, the standard has to adapt to the developments in time synchronization technology and
how it can be implemented in the different protection, automation and control systems.

2 Time Related Requirements

Time synchronization has been a requirement for electric power systems protection, automation and
control systems (PACS) since the introduction of microprocessor based multifunctional PAC and
recording devices.
The need was to be able to analyze the operation of multiple devices at different physical locations in
response to an electric power system event. This was further extended based on the need to measure
electric power system parameters in different physical locations.
The IEC 61850 standard uses the PICOM (Piece of Information for Communication) concept developed
by CIGRE Working group 34.03 and published in Technical Brochure B5 180 “Communication
requirements in terms of data flow within substations”. It is focused by definition on the exchanged data

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Alex Apostolov

Subject

between two application functions or subfunctions within a substation. One of the components of the
PICOM is the Time tag defined as an absolute time to identify the age of the data if applicable.
IEC 61850 defines different requirements for the development of the IEC 61850 standard [1] that include
also time related requirement as follows:
•
Accuracy - depending on the application, different time accuracy is required.
•
The time stamp shall to be based on an existing time standard (UTC is generally accepted as the
base time standard).
• The time model shall to be able to track leap seconds and provide enough information to allow the
user to perform delta time calculation for events crossing the leap second boundary.
• The time stamp model shall contain sufficient information that would allow the client to compute a
date and time without additional information such as the number of leap seconds from the beginning
of time.
• The timestamp shall be easily derived from commercially available time sources
• The overall time model shall include information to allow computation of local time
• The time model shall allow for ½ hour offsets for Local Time.
• The time model shall indicate whether Daylight Savings is in effect or not.
• The format shall last at least 100 years.
• The timestamp format shall be compact and easily machine manipulated.
Event time definition
The industry has been looking at the topic of time stamping for many years in an effort to standardize the
definitions based on a common understanding of the types of time-stamps required. IEC 61850-5 [1]
defines three different kinds of events, which need a dedicated time allocation procedure:
•If an event is defined as result of computation (internal or calculated event) allocation of time (time
tagging) shall be done immediately within the time resolution of the clock. No special measures are
needed.
• If an event is defined as change of a binary input the delay of the debouncing procedure of the
input contact has to be considered. The event time shall be locally corrected.
• If an event is defined as change of an analogue input the delay of the filtering procedure of the
input circuit has to be considered. The event time shall be locally corrected.
This strong event time definition ensures that the processing of the time stamp becomes independent
from the communications system latency and does not require correction by thereceiving function.
Table 1 [1] shows the time performance classes for almost all events related applications and depend on
the supported functionality.
Table 1 – Time synchronization classes for AC applications synchronization

Time Accuracy Phase angle Phase angle Fault location

synchronization accuracy for 50 Hz accuracy for 60 Hz accuracyb
class [s] [°] [°] [%]

TL a > 10 000 > 180 > 216 n.a.

T0 10 000 180 216 n.a.

T1 1 000 18 21,6 7,909
T2 100 1,8 2,2 0,780
T3 25 0,5 0,5 0,195
T4 4 0,1 0,1 0,031
T5 1 0,02 0,02 0,008
a TL stands for time synchronization “low”. b

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With the introduction of synchrophasor measurements the need for much more precise time
synchronization arose. This is due to the fact that a 1 ms accuracy (T1 class in Table 1) results in a phase
angle measurement error of 18 deg in a system with a nominal frequency of 50 Hz. To reduce this error,
the time-synchronized has to be in microseconds range with different performance classes being defined
in IEC 61850. T3 accuracy will be OK for most applications, but it is commonly accepted that PMUs need
to be synchronized to meet T5, i.e with an accuracy of 1 µs.
The introduction of optical current and voltage sensors or stand-alone merging units used for process
interface in digital substations, a similar requirement was established for their time synchronization.

3 Time in the IEC 61850 Model

As described in the previous section, IEC 61850 introduces requirements for time-tagging of events for
use in different protection, automation and control applications. This requires also the definition of time
related data objects and attributes in the IEC 61850 model.
Figure 1 shows the different data attributes and data types used in the standard data model defined in
IEC 61850-7-3 [3].
One of the common attributes of data objects is t, representing a time stamp or an entry time related to a
change of the value of the data object.
The TimeStamp type shall represent a UTC time with the epoch of midnight (00:00:00) of 1970-01-01
specified.

Fig. 1 Data types in IEC 61850

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Another time related attribute in the model is FractionOfSecond representing the fraction of the current
second when the value of the TimeStamp has been determined.
The TimeQuality is an attribute in the object models that provides information about the time source of
the sending device and includes information about:
• LeapSecondsKnown
• ClockFailure
• ClockNotSynchronized
• TimeAccuracy
The above information is used by the receiving device to properly process the data in the message.

4 Time settings for protection functions

Many protection functions do not operate instantaneously after the parameter they monitor exceeds the
setting threshold. They are delayed by a time setting or a time characteristic.
A simple example is the time delay of the operation of a distance element in a transmission line protection
represented by the logical node PDIS.
It is represented by the data object OpDlTmms and is defined in the IEC 61850 standard as “Time
delay before operating once operate conditions have been met”.
The time delay setting is of the CDC ING (Common Data Class Integer status setting). The attributes of
ING are:
setVal - value of the setting
minVal - Minimum setting for 'setVal'
maxVal - Maximum setting for 'setVal'
stepSize – the step size of the setting
units – the units of the setting
In the case of the time delay setting OpDlTmms it is in milliseconds.

5 Time in the GOOSE Model

High-speed peer-to-peer communications in IEC 61850 based protection and control systems use a
specific method designed to meet a variety of requirements. The GSE method can be considered as a
mechanism for unsolicited reporting by a logical device. The achievement of speed performance,
availability and reliability depends on the implementation in any specific device.
The generic substation event model is used to exchange the values of a collection of Data Attributes
defined as a Data Set. Edition 2 of the standard defines GOOSE - Generic Object Oriented System Event
that supports the exchange of a wide range data types organized in a data set.
The GSE information exchange is based on a publisher/subscriber mechanism. The publisher writes the
values in a transmission buffer at the sending side and multicasts them over the substation local area
network to the different subscribers – clients or servers.
The data in the published GOOSE messages is a collection of values of data attributes defined as
members of a data set. The receiver reads the values from a local buffer at the receiving side. A GSE
control class in the publisher is used to control the process. If the value of at least one of the
DataAttributes has changed, the transmission buffer of the Publisher is updated with the local service
“publish” and the values are transmitted with a GOOSE message.
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The publisher/subscriber mechanism allows the source IED to reach multiple receiving IEDs thus
significantly improving the efficiency of the communications interface. The time when a message will be
received by the subscribers may vary depending on the latency affected by the communications
architecture and the traffic on the network.
Since the GOOSE messages replace hard-wired signals used for protection and control applications IEC
61850 introduces mechanisms that ensure the delivery of the required information. Once a new value of a
date attributed has resulted in the multicasting of a new GOOSE message, the repetition mechanism
ensures that the message is sent with a changing time interval between the repeated messages until a
new change event occurs.
One of the data objects in a GOOSE message is StNum – state number. It represents the value of a
counter that increments each time a GOOSE message has been sent and a value change has been
detected within the GOOSE data-set. The initial value for StNum upon a transition of GOOSE
Enable(GoEna) to TRUE is 1.

Fig. 2 GOOSE repetition mechanism

Any change of value in the GOOSE data set will also result in a new value of the parameter T
(TimeStamp) in the GOOSE message.

Fig. 3 GOOSE message

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As shown in Figure 2, at the beginning after a change (newEvent in Figure 2) the parameter SqNum
(Figure 3) is set to a value of 0. It is a counter that shall increment each time a repeated GOOSE
message has been sent, while StNum maintains the same value.
Following a change, the repetition interval is very short – a few milliseconds, which later increases until it
reaches a value of a few seconds. This method achieves several important tasks:
• Ensures that a loss of a single message is not going to affect the functionality of the system
• Allows any new device to inform all subscribing devices about its state
• Allows any new device to learn the state of all publishing devices it subscribes to
The GOOSE messages (Figure 3) contained information allows the receiving devices to know not only
that a status has changed, but also the time of the last status change. This allows a receiving device to
set local timers relating to a given event.

6 Time in Sampled Values Communications

IEC 61850 uses merging units based on IEC 61850-9-2 (Process Bus) for the analog interface in digital
substations. Existing Merging Units have the following functionality:
• Signal processing of all sensors – conventional or non-conventional
• Synchronization of all measurements – 4 currents and 4 voltages
• Analog interface – high and low level signals
• Digital interface – IEC 60044-8 or IEC 61850-9-2
It is important to be able to interface with both conventional and non-conventional sensors in order to
allow the implementation of the system in existing or new substations.
Interoperability between merging units and protection, control, monitoring or recording devices is ensured
through a document providing implementation guidelines. Two modes of sending sampled values
between a merging unit and a device that uses the data are defined. For protection applications the
merging units send 80 samples/cycle in 80 messages/cycle, i.e each Ethernet frame has the MAC Client
Data contain a single set of V and I samples. For waveform recording applications such sampling rate
may not be sufficient. That is why 256 samples/cycle can be sent in groups of 8 sets of samples per
Ethernet frame sent 32 times/cycle [2].

Fig. 4 Sampled Analog Values interface

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The sampled analog values model applies to the exchange of values of a DATA-SET. The difference in
this case is that the data of the data set are of the common data class SAV (sampled analogue value as
defined in part IEC 61850-7-3). A buffer structure is defined for the transmission of the sampled values
that are the output from the instrument transformer logical nodes TCTR and TVTR (Figure 4).
The information exchange for sampled values is based on a publisher/subscriber mechanism. The
publisher writes the values in a local buffer at the sending side (see Figure 7), while the subscriber reads
the values from a local buffer at the receiving side. A time stamp is added to the values, so that the
subscriber can check the timeliness of the values and use them to align the samples for further
processing. The communication system is responsible for updating of the local buffers of the subscribers.
A sampled value control (SVC) in the publisher is used to control the communication procedure.
The currents and voltages from TCTR and TVTR accordingly are delivered as sampled values over the
substation LAN. In this case the network becomes the data bus that provides the interface between the
instrument transformer logical nodes and the different logical nodes that are used to model the functional
elements of the IED.

Fig. 5 Sampled Analog Values publishing method

The publishing of the sampled values is based on a fixed time interval between the individual samples
without a repetition mechanism. Under the IEC 61850 9-2 LE implementation agreement the publishing
rate is 80 samples (messages)/cycle at the nominal frequency.
The key time related data in the SV message is the parameter SmpCnt. It contains the values of a
counter, which is incremented each time a new sample of the analogue value is taken. The counter
values can be converted by the subscriber into a time stamp value within the current second. Since the
counter is typically used to indicate time consistency of various sampled values within a second, the
counter is reset to zero by an external synchronization event. The first IEC 61850 based merging units
were synchronized using 1 pps signals. Today the time synchronization is performed using IEC 61850-9-
3.
Sample count needs to be converted to sample time to be used for transient and disturbance recording.

7 Transfer Time
IEC 61850 defines the complete transfer time as shown in Figure 6. This means the complete
transmission of a message includes necessary handling at both ends. The time counts from the moment
the sender puts the data content on top of its transmission stack up to the moment the receiver extracts
the data from its transmission stack.
The time requirement is applicable for the complete transmission chain as indicated in Fig. 16. In physical
device PD1, a function f1 sends data to another function f2, located in physical device PD2. The overall
transfer time will however consist of the individual times of the communication processors and the
network transfer time, including wait times and time used by routers and other devices being part of the
complete network. The difference between the time stamps of the changed value in the publisher and in
the subscriber can be used to calculate the transfer time between time synchronized devices.

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Fig. 6 Transfer time definition

8 Time Protocols
Edition 1 of IEC 61850 defined SNTP ((Simple Network Time Protocol) as the protocol for time
synchronization. It provides sufficient accuracy (1 ms) for time-tagging of events, but cannot be used for
synchronizing of merging units and PMUs that require time synchronization accuracy of 1 microsecond.
That is why in Edition 1 based systems the accurate time synchronization is based on 1 pps signals.
The introduction of 1588-2002 - IEEE Standard for a Precision Clock Synchronization Protocol for
Networked Measurement and Control Systems provided a much better solution for accurate time
synchronization in digital substations. IEEE 1588.It is known as Precision Time Protocol (PTP) and is
applicable to systems communicating by local area networks supporting multicast messaging including
but not limited to Ethernet. It enables heterogeneous systems that include clocks of various inherent
precision, resolution, and stability to synchronize to a grandmaster clock and supports system-wide
synchronization accuracy in the sub-microsecond range with minimal network and local clock computing
resources.
IEEE 1588 V2 was published in 2008. To improve the accuracy, precision and robustness, however it is
not backward compatible with the 2002 standard.
Considering the many options available in IEEE 1588 V2 in order to adapt it for the needs of power
system applications, IEEE and IEC developed profiles of the standard. The IEEE PSRC initially released
IEEE C37.238-2011 - the original power profile for PTP. It defined clock accuracy requirements;
additional type, length, and value structures; and settings limits. In 2016, IEC TC 57 Working group 10
released their version of the power profile (IEC/IEEE 61850-9-3 Edition 1). This version adjusted the
profile to include specific requirements deemed critical for use in power system timing by IEC.
IEEE updated the C37.238 standard (C37.238-2017) to align with the IEC standard and provide additional
requirements. The most significant change was splitting this standard into two standards: the new joint
standard International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)/IEEE 61850-9-3 and the now revised IEEE
C37.238-2017. The reason for the change was that the two main sponsoring organizations IEC Technical
Committee (TC) 57 Working Group (WG) 10 and IEEE Power and Energy Society (PES) Power Systems
Relay Committee (PSRC) expressed significant differences in their expectations from this work. The
result was that IEC/IEEE 61850-9-3 became the technical specification document, providing the baseline
performance level required for all applications. Additional requirements supported by the revised IEEE
C37.238 include real-time updates of the delivered time quality (inaccuracy), plus inclusion of the data
needed to support the migration of substation time-distribution networks from IRIG-B.

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9 Time Synchronization Sources

Time synchronization of the devices in the substation is based on a dedicated time server which receives
the time signal from a single or multiple GNSS (space-based global navigation satellite system): GPS,
GLONASS, Galileo) satellites. GNSS provides reliable positioning, navigation, and timing services to
users on a continuous worldwide basis freely available to all.

Fig. 7 GNNS system

The Global Positioning System (GPS) is a U.S.-owned utility that provides users with positioning,
navigation, and timing (PNT) services. This system consists of three segments: the space segment, the
control segment, and the user segment. The U.S. Air Force develops, maintains, and operates the space
and control segments. he GPS space segment consists of a constellation of satellites transmitting radio
signals to users. The United States is committed to maintaining the availability of at least 24 operational
GPS satellites, 95% of the time.
Galileo is the European system that also requires 24 satellites to operate and provides better accuracy
than GPS (20 cm for the encrypted version and 1 m for the regular, compared to the 3 m for the regular
GPS).
GLONASS is the Russian system that needs 24 satellites as well and has comparable accuracy to GPS.
The Chinese GNSS is called BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) and its first version was also
known as Compass (providing limited coverage. The 3rd generation of BeiDou is expected to be
completed this year and is expected to provide sub-centimeter accuracy.
Considering the criticality of the accurate time synchronization and the cyber security concerns, some
advanced substation clocks combine GNNS signals with a built-in atomic clock.

10 Conclusions
Time is a critical component of any protection, automation and control function in digital substations and
many power grid applications. That is why IEC 61850 has made significant efforts to ensure that time is
covered in sufficient detail by the object models in the standard, as well as the communications services
used by different interfaces and applications.

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Subject

Time accuracy and quality are defined from the point of view of the requirements of different use cases
and applications.
Different time sources and the use of PTP ensure that all the data used within the system will maintain
continuously high-accuracy time synchronization to improve the reliability and security of the electric
power grid.

11 Bibliography
{1] IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems for power utility automation Part 5:
Communication requirements for functions and device models
[2] IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems for power utility automation Part 7-2: Basic
communication structure – Abstract communication service interface (ACSI)
[3] IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems for power utility automation Part 7-3: Basic
communication structure – Common data classes
[4] IEC 61850 Communication networks and systems for power utility automation Part 90-4: Network
Engineering Guidelines - Technical report

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