Investigation and comparison between international standards for information integration and control of ECSs based on RESs over IP-based networks

Abstract

Energy converting systems (ECSs) based on renewable energy sources (RESs) are penetrating rapidly in the power system including their associated software and hardware (SW/HW) systems. These systems are geographically dispersed, and related to different manufacturers. Therefore, the future power system can be considered as a distributed SW/HW system. Information integration and interoperability are two serious problems in distributed systems, which mainly include communication networks and communication protocols. The International Electrotechnical Committee (IEC) standards are proposed for this purpose and for the control as well. Indeed, some of these standard protocols can be used over IP-based WANs. However, future power systems, which contain many RESs in all voltage levels, could employ the Internet/Intranet WAN for both control and telemeter. This paper investigates the available standards related to power systems, discusses the possibility of applying some of these standard protocols for the control and telemeter of ECSs over Internet/Intranet WAN, compares between two legacy standard protocols and presents the factors for choosing the right protocol for such purposes. In addition, it covers the gaps, the last advances and projects related to these standards.