Communication Protocols

A Chap­ter of the

IEC 60870–5 is a pro­to­col stan­dard for tele­con­trol, telepro­tec­tion, and oth­er telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion func­tions for elec­tric pow­er systems.

IEC 60870–5‑104 (short IEC104) is a com­pan­ion stan­dard defin­ing how to extend the IEC 60870–5‑101 pro­to­col to gain net­work access using stan­dard trans­port profiles.

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.

Mod­bus is a com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­to­col based on master/slave (RTU) or client/server (TCP/IP) archi­tec­tures that can oper­ate on the 1st, 2nd, 7th lev­el of the OSI Model.

Orig­i­nal­ly designed in 1979 by Mod­i­con for its range of PLCs, it is now a de fac­to stan­dard com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­to­col in the indus­try, becom­ming the most wide­ly avail­able pro­to­col for the con­nec­tion of indus­tri­al elec­tron­ic devices.

Dis­trib­uted Net­work Pro­to­col 3 (DNP3) is a set of com­mu­ni­ca­tions pro­to­cols used between com­po­nents for automa­tion sys­tems in elec­tric, indus­tri­al and water sectors.

It is a key pro­to­col in SCADA sys­tems, where it is pri­mar­i­ly used for com­mu­ni­ca­tions between a mas­ter sta­tion and RTUs or IEDs.

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.

PROFIBUS (Process Field Bus) is an open stan­dard for field­bus com­mu­ni­ca­tions in indus­tri­al automa­tion sys­tems that was first pro­mot­ed in Ger­many in 1989.

The now most com­mon­ly found “Profibus DP” pro­vides sim­ple com­mu­ni­ca­tions between Profibus mas­ters and their remote I/O slaves. 

Oth­er Chapters

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

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