Communication Architecture for Monitoring of HVDC System Based on IEC 61850

A typical HVDC system contains a number of devices that intercommunicate for protection, control, and measurement applications. As the number of devices increases, the network traffic load also increases. Upon reaching the point of saturation of network traffic load, the performance of the system degrades. In this paper, a communication architecture allowing these devices to communicate with each other and human machine interface (HMI) with high network traffic saturation point is introduced. The system is designed to comply with IEC 61850 and is thus divided into three levels: a) the station level, b) the bay control level, and c) the field level. The station level consists of HMI, control devices are placed in the bay control level and field level comprise of the actual measurement and protection devices. With the help of UML, we describe the functionality of the main components and the message exchange process. Using OMNET++, we developed a network simulation model and evaluated the network performance for maximum traffic load. We also discuss the effect of traffic load on the system's performance.