Energy Management and SCADA

SCADA Communication & Protocols

Introduction
• Supervisory control and data acquisition system or SCADA
refers to the combination of telemetry and data acquisition.

• SCADA includes the collecting of the information via a RTU

(remote terminal unit), PLC's (Programmable Logic
Controllers) and IED's (Intelligent electronic devices),
transferring it back to the central site, carrying out any
necessary analysis and control and then displaying that
information on a number of operator screens or displays.

• Three of the most important part of a SCADA system is Master

Station, Remote Terminal (RTU, PLC, IED) and the
communication between them.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 2

• Master station The SCADA
master stations range from small
control rooms in a substation to large
transmission SCADA master stations
manning the power flow of a whole
country.
• The master station is a collection of
computers, servers, peripherals, and
I/O systems that help the operator to
monitor the state of the field and
initiate control actions at the
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 3
 Migration from RTU to IEDs and data concentrator to merging units and IEDs.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 4

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 5
 SCADA communication topologies
• Point to point and multi-drop

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 6

• Bus topology
• Ring topology
• Mesh topology
• Data flow: Simplex and duplex

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 7

 SCADA data communication
techniques
• Master-slave
• A SCADA master will initiate communication
from the slave remote terminal units (RTUs)
and intelligent electronic devices (IEDs)
• Peer to peer
• Multi-peer (broadcast and multicast)

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 8

 Components of a data
communication system
• Message
• Sender
• Receiver
• Medium
• Protocol
• A protocol defines what is communicated,
how it is communicated, and when it is
communicated
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 9
• the digital data are first converted to a digital signal for
transmission. This process is called encoding.
• Broadband communication
• Broadband communication changes the digital signal to a
composite analog signal for transmission, by modulation
technique.
• SCADA PROTOCOL
• Modbus
• IEC 60870-5-101/103/104
• Distributed Network Protocol 3 (DNP3)
• Inter-Control Center Protocol (ICCP)
• Ethernet
• IEC 61850

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 10

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 11
• Modbus is a serial communications protocol originally
published by Modicon (now Schneider Electric)
Its Application ?
• Used to establish master-slave/client-server communication
between intelligent devices
• Openly published and royalty-free
• Modbus enables communication between many
(approximately 247) devices connected to the same network

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 12

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 13
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 14
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 15
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 16
• Wireless technologies for home automation
There are some technologies available for
WHANs (Wireless Home Area Networks):
• 1. ZigBee
• 2. Wi-Fi
• 3. Z-wave
• 4. Insteon
• 5. Wavenis

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 17

 GUIDED MEDIA (WIRE MEDIA): available for SCADA communication
depending on the distance, terrain, and the money the utility wants
to spend for a communication infrastructure. The following are some of
the guided media used by SCADA and a smart grid system

• Twisted-pair telecommunication cable

• There are two types of twisted pair cables: unshielded twisted pair (UTP)
and shielded twisted pair (STP). In STP cable, a metal foil or braided mesh
cover encases each pair of insulated conductors, and it prevents the
penetration of noise or cross talk, making it bulky and more expensive as
compared to UTP.
• Twisted-pair cables are basically used in telephone lines to provide voice
and data channels. Unshielded twisted-pair cables are commonly used.
LANs also use twisted-pair cables.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 18

• Coaxial cable
• Fibre optic cable
• A fiber-optic cable is made of glass or plastic
and accepts and transports signals in the form
of light. There are three types of fiber cables
available for use in SCADA and smart grid
applications.
• optical power ground wire (OPGW)
• All-dielectric self-supporting (ADSS)
• wrapped optical cable (WOC)

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 19

• Power line carrier communication (PLCC)
• Power line carrier communication (PLCC)
occurs when a power line that carries 50 Hz
voltage and current is used to carry data
signals also at a different frequency.
• There are different PLCC techniques for
different uses:
• as a power line carrier (PLC),
• distribution line carrier (DLC),
• broadband power lines (BPL).
• Telephone-based systems
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 20
 UNGUIDED (WIRELESS) MEDIA
• Satellite communication
• Radio (VHF, UHF, spread spectrum)
 Radio waves are generally omnidirectional. The waves transmitted by
an antenna are propagated in all directions, thus avoiding any
alignment for the sending and receiving antennas. The sending
antenna waves can be received by any receiving antenna.
 The very high frequency (VHF) radio band lies within the range of 30
to 300 MHz. This radio frequency is mostly used by mobile services.
 Ultra-high frequency (UHF) radio communication has typically a
frequency band of 300 to 3000 MHz
• Microwaves: Microwaves are electromagnetic waves with a frequency
range of 1 to 300 GHz. Microwaves support both the analog and
digital transmission technology. This medium is unidirectional.
• Cell phone
10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 21
• In order to have good communication between them, there
must be a communication protocol. DNP3 and T101 are two
of the most common protocols today.

• It is important to determine which protocol should be applied

if you are planning a SCADA system. In the next sections the
DNP3 and T101 will be discussed and compared.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 22

Protocols in SCADA Communication
• In order for SCADA systems to obtain its functionality, it needs
a protocol for transmitting data. Some of the SCADA protocols
include Modbus RTU, RP-570, Profibus and Conitel.
• These communication protocols are all SCADA-vendor specific
but are widely adopted and used.
• Standard protocols are IEC 61850 (in which T101 branched
out), IEC 60870-5-101 or 104, and DNP3. These
communication protocols are standardized and recognized by
all major SCADA vendors.
• Many of these protocols is now improved and contain
extensions to operate over TCP/IP. It is good security
engineering practice to avoid connecting SCADA systems to
the Internet so the attack surface is reduced.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 23

Protocols in SCADA Communication
• RTUs and other automatic controller devices were being
developed before the advent of industry wide standards for
interoperability. The result is that developers and their
management created a multitude of control protocols.
• Among the larger vendors, there was also the incentive to
create their own protocol to "lock in" their customer base.
• The two open communication protocols T101 and DNP3
provides for interoperability between systems for telecontrol
applications. Both are now competing within the world
market. DNP is widely used in North America, South America,
South Africa, Asia and Australia, while IEC 60870-5-101 or
T101 is strongly supported in the Europe.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 24

IEC 60870 Structure
• When the IEC 60870-5 was initially completed in 1995 with
the publication of the IEC 870-5-101 profile, it covered only
transmission over relatively low bandwidth bit-serial
communication circuits. With the increasingly widespread use
of network communications technology, IEC 60870-5 now also
provides for communications over networks using the TCP/IP
protocol suite. This same sequence of development occurred
for DNP3.

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 25

 Remote Terminal Unit
• Single indication without / with 24 / with 56 bit timestamps.
• Double indication without / with 24 / with 56 bit timestamps.
• Step position information without / with 24 / with 56 bit
timestamps.
• Measured value – normalized, scaled, short floating point
without / with timestamps.
• Bitstring of 32 bit without / with timestamps.
• Integrated totals (counters) without / with timestamps.
• Packed events (start & tripping ) of protection equipments
• Single commands
• Double commands
• Regulating step command

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 26

 Remote Terminal Unit
• Regulating step command
• Set point commands of various data formats
• Bitstring commands
• Interrogation commands
• Clock synchronization & delay acquisition commands
• Test & reset commands

10/21/2024 School of Electrical Engineering 27