SMART GUIDE OVERVIEW

The smart guide was cre­at­ed to pro­vide basic and under­stand­able expla­na­tions about com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy in smart grids and oth­er ener­gy applications.

We hope that the guide can serve as a glos­sary, ency­clo­pe­dia and acad­e­my for every­one who wants a basic under­stand­ing of the tech­nolo­gies behind smart grids and pro­fes­sion­als who can ben­e­fit from it.

ACADEMY

all entries by chapter

DICTIONARY

all entries sort­ed aplhabetically

ACADEMY

all entries by chapter

Sub­sta­tion Automation
Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Interfaces
Net­work Communication
Cyber Secu­ri­ty
Com­mu­ni­ca­tion Protocols
IEC 61850
Inter­net Protocols
Chap­ters

DICTIONARY

all entries sort­ed aplhabetically

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

All from A to Z

Since some of the tech­nolo­gies are more dif­fi­cult to be found online or clos­er to our exper­tise, we have decid­ed to make some entries longer than others.

The newest entries

Ethernet

Eth­er­net is a fam­i­ly of wired com­put­er net­work­ing tech­nolo­gies com­mon­ly used in local area net­works (LAN) and also wide area net­works (WAN).

Over time, Eth­er­net has large­ly replaced com­pet­ing wired LAN tech­nolo­gies by pro­vid­ing high­er bit rates, a greater num­ber of nodes, and longer link dis­tances and decent back­ward compatibility.

Full Entry

TASE 2/ ICCP

ICCP (Inter-Con­trol Cen­ter Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Pro­to­col) is a stan­dard pro­to­col for com­mu­ni­ca­tions between con­trol cen­ters, which is part of the IEC 60870–6 stan­dard under the name of TASE.2 Tele­con­trol Appli­ca­tion Ser­vice Ele­ment 2.

It is being used around the world to exchange data over wide area net­works (WANs) between grid oper­a­tors, util­i­ties, vir­tu­al pow­er plants, region­al con­trol cen­ters and oth­er generators.

Full Entry

MMS Protocol

IEC 61850 MMS (Man­u­fac­tur­ing Mes­sage Spec­i­fi­ca­tion) is a client/server based pro­to­col for com­mu­ni­ca­tions between IEDs (IED – Intel­li­gent Elec­tron­ic Device) and high­er lev­el enti­ties (such as RTUs and SCADAs) over Eth­er­net that is part of the IEC 61850 stan­dard for com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy in substations.

It is mapped onto TCP/IP and allows to access the serv­er through its IP address in order to write/read data and exchange files.

Full Entry

RS-485

The RS-485 (Rec­om­mend­ed Stan­dard-485) or also known EIA-485 (Elec­tron­ic Indus­tries Alliance-485) stan­dard defines the char­ac­ter­is­tics of an elec­tri­cal inter­face for ser­i­al com­mu­ni­ca­tions in indus­tri­al con­trol systems.

In con­trast to the old­er RS-232, it allows to bal­ance elec­tri­cal sig­nals and con­nect mul­ti­ple device to the net­work, which can stretch over longer dis­tances and harsh­er environments.

Full Entry

The newest entries

Part of
our core
exper­tise

DLMS/ COSEM

DLMS/COSEM (or IEC 62056) is the main glob­al stan­dard for smart ener­gy meter­ing, con­trol and man­age­ment. It includes spec­i­fi­ca­tions for media-spe­cif­ic com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­files, an object-ori­ent­ed data mod­el and an appli­ca­tion lay­er protocol.

Full Entry

GOOSE (IEC 61850)

The GOOSE (Gener­ic Object Ori­ent­ed Sub­sta­tion Event) pro­to­col is a com­mu­ni­ca­tion mod­el defined by the IEC 61850 stan­dard, which uses fast and reli­able mech­a­nisms to group any for­mat of data (sta­tus, val­ue) into a data set and trans­mit it through elec­tri­cal net­works with­in a time peri­od of 4 milliseconds.

It is most com­mon­ly used for data exchanges between IEDs (IED – Intel­li­gent Elec­tron­ic Device) in elec­tri­cal sub­sta­tions over Ethernet.

Learn More

HSR

HSR (High-avail­abil­i­ty Seam­less Redun­dan­cy) is a redun­dan­cy pro­to­col for Eth­er­net net­works requir­ing short reac­tion times and high avail­abil­i­ty, as for exam­ple pro­tec­tion sys­tems at elec­tri­cal substations.

Unlike com­mon redun­dan­cy pro­to­cols like RSTP, HSR reacts to any net­work com­po­nent fail­ures seam­less­ly (with­out recov­ery time) and is invis­i­ble to the application.

Full Entry

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iGrid Solutions and Applications

Automation with IEC 61850 

The IEC 61850 stan­dard is enabling new opor­tu­ni­ties for ven­dor inter­op­er­abil­i­ty and advanced sub­sta­tion automa­tion. Find out how you can take advan­tage of IEC 61850 with easy-to-use and adapt­able solu­tions for a sim­ple migra­tion or retrofit.

IEC 61850 Automation

HV Substation Automation

Pow­er­ful sub­sta­tion automa­tion sys­tems often han­dle numer­ous com­mu­ni­ca­tion pro­to­cols and media with­in one net­work, which can result in expen­sive and com­plex projects.  Avoid these prob­lems with inter­op­er­a­ble tech­nol­o­gy and smart con­fig­u­ra­tion tools.

HV Sub­sta­tion Automation

MV Distribution Grid Automation

It is often dif­fi­cult to find the exact solu­tion you need in a MV appli­ca­tion, lead­ing to high­er costs than nec­es­sary. With our scal­able and adapt­able solu­tions you will be able to only pay for what you real­ly need, with­out com­prim­is­ing on qual­i­ty or security.

MV Dis­tri­b­u­tion Grid Automation

Photovoltaic Power Station

Using an open and scal­able SCADA sys­tem to mon­i­tor and con­trol a PV plant comes with many ben­e­fits on sev­er­al lev­els. Find out how advanced com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­nol­o­gy affects PV oper­a­tion, main­te­nance, sys­tem design, invest­ment secu­ri­ty, profits…

Pho­to­volta­ic Generation