Power for the energy industry - zenOn introduces IEC61850

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.

What are the advantages of IEC 61850?
Because many different communication protocols are being used in substation automation, protocol converters 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.
zenOn-based IEC 61850 is already in use

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.
Automatic engineering saves time

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 (see image), communication elements can be immediately mapped into the picture within the Integrated Development Environment (IDE) and the data points are subsequently generated. This removes the need for manual re-working, typing and re-defining the data within zenOn, saving valuable engineering time and costs.

COPA-DATA is the most innovative leader in the HMI/SCADA software market. They have become global trailblazers due to their know-how and experience gained from the installation of more than 50,000 systems in the automotive and machine construction industries, and energy and production plants worldwide. COPA-DATA has been developing HMI/SCADA technology at it’s headquarters in Salzburg, Austria since the mid- 80s. With the program suite zenOn® the company released the first graphical visualization system that ran fully under Windows. The system’s universality from Windows CE up to XP has facilitated full compatibility from the terminal up to the control room, and a sophisticated distributed network technology.

The new generation 6 of zenOn, with automatic engineering and highly efficient reusability of existing project parts reduces engineering time considerably. In addition, COPA-DATA’s STRATON® offers an extremely flexible IEC-61131-3 development environment for embedded systems and soft logic. Together, zenOn and STRATON yield a completely integrated solution. Today’s COPA-DATA distribution network has subsidiaries in Germany, Italy, France and Middle East and partners all over the world. COPA-DATA presently employs more than 100 staff, and has an impressive client reference list including companies such as Festo, BMW and Audi.

COPA-DATA GmbH
Karolingerstrasse 7b
5020 Salzburg / Austria
www.copadata.at

This release was published on openPR.