IEC 61850 is a new worldwide accepted standard that defines the communication between electrical switchgear, control equipment in substation automation and the related system requirements. European software innovators Copa-data are the first to develop a driver which implements IEC61850 - and thanks to the openness of their zenOn SCADA/HMI software it can be integrated into all existing systems, protecting valuable capital investments. Because many different communication protocols are being used in substation automation, protocol convertors are commonplace.

Equipment vendors are facing significant challenges interfacing communications, leading to higher development costs for hardware vendors and increased integration and maintenance costs for network operators.

IEC 61850 has been devised to send messages between sender and receiver in an optimal way, making communication as direct as possible to avoid losses in performance and functionality.

IEC 61850 standard provides a consistent standard unifying substation automation and distributed power generation equipment, from the switchgear right up to supervisory control and monitoring functions.

As a specialist in open system integration for 20 years and a key player in new SCADA-based substation automation systems, Copa-data has been engaged in IEC 61580 since the outset.

As a result, the company has released a sophisticated software driver within months of the first IEC 61850 compatible hardware solution.

The zenOn driver fully exploits IEC 61850 by providing a consistent communication protocol and unified data model for all areas from the network control stations to the switchgear using industrial Ethernet technology and standard hardware.

Copa-data have already implemented their first IEC 61850 projects with the new driver.

The operators were impressed with the ease of engineering and the notable increase in communication performance.

These customers are not a special case Copa-data's existing zenOn customers can all now use the new driver with their existing zenOn 6.2 suite, so they can take advantage of the new IEC 61850 equipment as soon as it becomes available.

The emphasis of the driver development was on the clear and convenient data handling of the driver.

As such, a sophisticated browsing mechanism is provided which automatically recognises the type of data using heuristic CDC-recognition (Common Data Classes).

For example, PLC data is immediately available within the browsing mechanism, with the same name that is used on the PLC.

At the same time, the data is automatically typed as a value or validity information and the data points are created with no loss of information.

The driver also supports the IEC 61850 real-time PLC time-stamping and plc-quality according to the standard.

Using the browser, communication elements can be immediately mapped into the picture within the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and the data points are subsequently generated.