A methodology for the evaluation of the message transmission delay over IEC 61850 communication network - a real-time HV/MV substation case study

The growing intelligence of the nowadays distribution grids is due to the integration of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs). Such a development is converting the traditional grid into the smart grid concept. Communicating over a reliable ICT infrastructure, distributed Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) perform supervision, protection, and control of the smart grid. The communication network is not errorless, and any error of the underlying communication network can degrade the power grid performance or even cause instability in it. Hence, there is a necessity to obtain a modeling method to analyze its Quality of Service (QoS). One of the most important quality measures of the Substation Communication Network (SCN) traffic is the message transmission delay. Thus, this paper proposes a methodology to evaluate the message transmission delay through an analytical model. To estimate the transmission delay, a port connection model represents the message distribution model. Then a traffic-flow-source model, and a traffic-flow-service model are applied to characterize each flow while it is served through different ports. Finally, delay is calculated based on the corresponding flow and service information. The estimation model is applied on an IEC-61850-MMS (Manufacturing Message Specification)-based communication scenario for a load-shedding goal that is considered over a real reduced-scale HV/MV smart substation test bench. The estimated results are compared to the measured values by the Wireshark network analyzer that indicates an estimation error of less than 10%. (c) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.