Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC

61850 Process Bus Architecture

Rich Hunt, Jorge Cardenas, Vijayasarathi Muthukrishnan, David McGinn
GE Digital Energy - Multilin

Presented at the 2010 DistribuTech Conference & Exposition, March 23, 2010
Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

Rich Hunt, Jorge Cardenas, Vijay Muthukrishnan, David McGinn – GE Digital

Energy Multilin

Wind generation and wind farms are becoming an important part of the generating
capacity of the modern utility grid. Protection of wind turbines, and wind farm collector
systems, has been the subject of numerous technical papers over recent years, as wind
generation grows more prevalent. These papers have focused on the basics of
protecting the wind turbines, protecting the wind farm, and modeling of wind farms for
stability studies. However, few have focused on practical aspects of protection and
control systems when wind turbines and collectors systems are distributed over many
square kilometers of surface area. There are design, construction, and maintenance
decisions to make for a wind farm, such as where to physically mount protective relays,
laying out copper wiring between measurement sources and protective relays, and
realistic and affordable maintenance programs for protective relays. Maintenance can
quickly become an issue if relays are located at each individual wind turbine. These
decisions become much more complicated when the wind farms are located offshore, as
the cost of installation, and the cost of maintenance, increase dramatically.
IEC 61850 process bus communications can help address practical challenges
facing wind farm protection and control systems. This paper proposes a protection and
control (P&C) approach based on IEC61850 process bus architecture. Ruggedized
Merging Units (MUs) can be installed at individual wind turbines to acquire AC
measurements (as raw sampled values) and status information, as well as provide
control points. Data is transmitted via IEC 61850 messages over a fiber optic
communications network to a Central Relaying Unit (CRU) which executes P&C
functions for a whole wind farm. This approach of using the process bus with MUs and
CRU should reduce total installed costs for P&C systems, while increasing system
reliability.

1. Introduction
Wind power has become cost-competitive with other conventional means of power
generation. It can provide a significant amount of energy from a renewable resource with
minimum adverse impacts on the environment and is the focus of “green power”
marketing programs throughout the world. Wind generation and wind farms are rapidly
becoming an important part of the generating capacity of the modern utility grid.
Emerging trends such as government incentives, carbon limits, and decreasing costs of
wind turbine technology will all lead to increased number of wind farms in the coming
years.
There are two kinds of wind farms: (1) large wind farms located onshore or offshore
consisting of numerous wind turbines connected together and distributed over several
square kilometers, with a single interface to the transmission system; and (2) a single
wind turbine directly connected to the distribution utility’s system. The focus of this paper
shall be the large wind farms. Typically modern wind farms consist of 20-150 individual
wind turbines clustered into many groups depending on the total number of turbines. The
capacity of each turbine is in the range of 0.5 – 3MW, with some turbines as large as
5MW.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

A typical wind turbine generator unit consists of the wind turbine itself, an induction
generator, turbine/generator control, generator breaker, and step-up transformer.
Recently power converters have been employed to permit variable speed operation in
order to maximize the output power and provide reactive power. Generation voltage is
typically 690V and this is stepped up to 34.5kV. Numerous wind turbine outputs are
connected together and tied to the collector bus through a circuit breaker. Multiple
collector feeders are combined and fed to a utility transformer, which steps up the
voltage to transmission level and transfers the power. Often, reactive power
compensation units such as capacitor banks are also provided at the collector bus.
There are other modern ways such as the use of FACTS devices or advanced control of
induction generator for providing reactive power support.
When it comes to protection and control requirements of a wind farm, the wind power
industry has been using conventional and simple approaches. Even though rapid
advancements are being introduced in various fields related to wind power such as wind
turbine and induction generator design, wind turbine/induction generator control, ride-
through ability, and reactive power control, approaches adopted for implementing
protection have not seen significant advancement. It is not that protection and control
industry has not made technology breakthroughs; in fact there have been remarkable
developments. However, there might have been a gap in tuning these to the needs of
wind farm application.
The objective of this paper is to present a new approach for wind farm protection and
control implementation. Advancements in the protection and control industry have to be
brought into the domain of wind farm application to address the specific needs and
challenges of this application. This paper begins by presenting an over view of protection
and control requirements for a wind farm highlighting the key challenges. In the next
section, the technology evolution in protective relays and the direction for future
technology is explained. Further, the paper moves on to present a simple and robust IEC
61850 process bus based protection and control system. Finally, the paper proposes a
wind farm protection and control solution based on the above IEC 61850 process bus
concept. A key proposal in the presented concept is the idea of using a Centralized
Relaying Unit (CRU) to meet the P&C requirements of the whole wind farm consisting of
numerous wind turbine generators, their step-up transformers, and the collector feeder.
It is important to note that the capacity of individual wind turbine generators and wind
farms as a whole continue to increase. The simple and basic protection approaches
such as fuses will no longer be sufficient to protect these systems. More elaborate
protection functions and schemes will be required in order to enhance the availability
and reliability of wind farms. The time is ripe for the wind power industry to look at
innovative technology that not just meets their protection and control needs, but goes
beyond to solve their various other economic, operation and maintenance challenges,
while remaining simple and using proven methods.

2. Protection and control requirements of a wind farm

A wind farm has many protection zones from the traditional P&C perspective. Figure
1 illustrates the various protection zones in a typical wind farm. This structure remains
similar whether it is an onshore or offshore wind farm. Each protection zone has one or
more protection relays and at times other means of protection such as fuses depending
on the size and arrangement of a wind farm. The disconnecting switches are not shown
in the diagram. The wind turbine generator, which is normally an induction generator
with its associated power electronics converter and control, is protected by a separate

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

wind generator protection relay. The step-up transformer has normally a fuse at the MV
side. However for larger transformers (>1MW), a separate transformer protection relay is
used. The collector feeder is protected by a separate feeder protection relay, while the
collector bus uses a bus bar protection relay. The high voltage transformer is always
protected by a transformer protection relay while the transmission line has a distance or
current differential relay. The individual protection function requirements of each zone
are listed below.
Wind Generator Relay Zone

IG Collector Feeder Rela y Zone

1

Control

690 V / 34.5 kV

Wind Generator Relay Zone

IG
2

Control

Wind Generator Relay Zone

Collector Feeder 1

IG
3

Control HV Transform er Relay Zone

34.5 kV / 220 kV

IG
n Transm ission Line Relay Zone
Control

Wind Generator Relay Zone

Collector Feeder 2
Collector Bus
Relay Zone
Collector Feeder 3

Collector Feeder n

Capacitor Bank Relay Zone

Figure 1: Protection Zones in Wind Farm

2.1. Wind Generator Zone

• Instantaneous phase over current for LV phase faults
• Inverse time phase over current for generator overload protection
• Instantaneous neutral over current for LV ground fault protection
• Inverse time negative sequence over current for unbalance protection
• Generator under-voltage
• Generator over-voltage
• Generator under-frequency
• Generator over-frequency
• Generator over-temperature using RTDs
• Transformer short circuit protection using MV fuses
• Transformer differential for large transformers (>1MW)
• Transformer backup phase over current
• Synchronization

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

2.2. Collector Feeder

• Phase and neutral over-current
• Under-voltage
• Over-voltage
• Under-frequency
• Over-frequency
• Anti-islanding
• Synchronization

2.3. Collector Bus

• Bus differential
• Breaker failure
• Backup over-current

2.4. High Voltage Transformer

• Transformer differential
• Restricted ground fault
• Sudden gas pressure

2.5. Transmission Line

• Distance or current differential protection
• Pilot schemes
• Backup phase and neutral over-current
• Breaker failure

2.6. Capacitor bank

• Phase over-current
• Neutral over-current
• Unbalance current
There are specific challenges in a wind farm protection that are worth mentioning.
There exist different topologies for connecting wind turbine generators to the collector
feeder. Radial, Bifurcated radial, Feeder-Subfeeder and Looped feeder are the different
types of topologies used. Each topology has its advantages and disadvantages. Some
provide the opportunity to isolate the faulted area and continue running the rest, while
other topologies have lower cost. However whatever may be the configuration, the MV
side of wind turbine generator step-up transformer has normally a delta winding. So the
entire collector feeder depends on the ground of the High Voltage transformer. This may
lead to a situation where a collector feeder with all its wind generators runs as an island
without a ground. This may result in transient or sustained over-voltages and wind
turbine generator relays won’t be able to see MV ground faults. The behavior of the
power converter and associated controls can act to produce voltage transients due to
neutral shift. Thus, sometimes a grounding transformer is installed on each feeder
circuit. Even then, it is not desirable to run the collector feeder as an island due to safety
reasons. Various communications based transfer trip solutions are used to trip the wind
turbine generator breakers if the collector feeder breaker trips [2]. In addition new
approaches to identify faults in different areas of a collector feeder will be a blessing
since specific areas can then be easily isolated while rest of the system could continue
to run.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

The fact that the protection relays for wind generators are located at the base of the
tower brings in several challenges associated with commissioning, operation, and
maintenance. Monitoring of a wind farm protection system from a central location means
interconnecting all the individual protection relays and configuring each relay to access
required information. This could be an elaborate process. For example, a wind farm with
36 wind turbines on a single collector feeder would have 36 relays minimum. To install,
configure, test, commission and maintain these individual relays distributed over a wide
area and that too located at the base of the wind turbine tower could be quite expensive
in terms of labor, time, and resources. Any new technology for wind farm protection
should address these challenges associated with installation, commissioning, operation
and maintenance.

3. Technology evaluation in protection relays

Numerical relays are the natural evolution for protection and control systems as
digital technology has evolved. All functions required for a zone of protection such as a
transformer, generator, line, etc., are now packaged into a single numerical (digital)
relay. In addition, other P&C functions, including metering, disturbance recording,
sequence of events recording, control, automation, and digital communications have
converged into the numerical relay. The communications capabilities have resulted in
many far-reaching impacts, especially the development of standardized protocols to
exchange data even between two geographically distant stations. The wide area based
protection system and scheme gaining rapid application is one example of the impact of
communications on P&C systems.
It is worth discussing a few hardware and software architectural aspects of these
numerical relays. A classical hardware platform of a numerical relay is shown in Figure
2. This numerical relay has a modular hardware design with specific modules for power
supply, central and communications processor, digital signal processing, contact inputs
and outputs and other peer-to-peer communication.

Power Supply DSP / (CT VT module)

)
Inter- - relay communication
Input/Output Module Module
Central Processor Unit

Figure 2: Hardware Architecture of a Numerical Relay

Relays meant for different applications such as generator, transformer, bus bar, line,
and motor are built using the same common hardware platform. The only difference is
that different software (firmware) programming is carried out to realize different
protection functions. However it is now possible in the industry to combine all these
firmware into a single entity loaded into the central processor, and then instantiate only
the required protection functions for a specific application. A logical extension to this
technique is to instantiate all functions into a single numerical relay, based on the
capability of the relay to perform all these functions and meet the application
requirements.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

4. Protection and Control System Based on IEC 61850 Process Bus

At a time when the protection industry is looking at what should be the next step in
the evolution of protective relays, it should be recognized that merely enhancing the
capabilities of numerical relays will not be sufficient to meet the real challenges facing
the utilities such as dealing with huge copper cabling installation, scarcity of workforce,
reduction in available time for new or retrofit project executions, labor cost and cyber
security threats etc. Thus a holistic approach taking into account the business
expectations of the utilities is essential. This section presents one such protection and
control solution based on the IEC 61850-9-2 process bus. This implementation is based
on the concept of distributed data acquisition units interfacing with various primary
apparatus and exchanging information with numerical relays over fiber communication.

Figure 3: Protection & Control System using IEC 61850 Process Bus
This IEC 61850 process bus architecture uses merging units to collect CT/VT signals
and circuit breaker/process control and status signals. The IEC 61850-9-2 output of each
merging unit is connected via pre-terminated fiber cable to a patch panel that directs the
appropriate signals to each relay.
In reference to Figure 3, the system includes merging units mounted at the primary
apparatus, relay, pre-terminated cables, and fiber patch panels for cross-connecting the
merging units and relays.
The merging units are designed to interface with all signals typically used for
substation automation and protection as close to their respective origins as practical,
including AC currents and voltages from instrument transformers, breaker status and
alarms, breaker control, disconnect switch status and control, temperature and pressure
readings, etc. The merging units are designed for harsh environments including
temperature extremes, shock and vibration, electromagnetic compatibility, sun load
effect, pressure washing and exposure to salt and other harsh chemicals.
Each merging unit contains multiple independent digital cores each composed of a
microcontroller with individual bi-directional (bi-di) fiber links providing dedicated point-to-
point communications with a single relay. Sampled value communications used conform
to IEC 61850-9-2, and GOOSE communications to IEC 61850-8-1.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

All cables are connectorized and pre-terminated for ease of deployment and
replacement using standard military/avionic grade components. Rugged outdoor fiber
cables connect the merging units in the field to the patch panels in the control room.
Patch panels are used to land and organize the outdoor cables. Standard patch
cords are used to accomplish “hard-fibering”, making all the necessary IEC 61850
connections between the relays and the merging units as dictated by the station
configuration on a one-to-one basis, without the use of switched network
communications as detailed.
Each relay provides protection for one basic zone, conforming to established
protection philosophies. It receives the signals to perform its function over a secure and
dedicated network consisting of direct hard-fibered links to each of the associated IEC
61850 merging units. As in Figure 5, due to the completely deterministic data traffic on
these dedicated links, a simple and robust method is used for synchronization whereby
each relay controls the sample timing of the connected merging unit cores over the link
without relying on an external clock for process bus data synchronization. Figure 4
depicts how the classical numerical relay hardware platform presented in the previous
section has been modified to adapt to the process bus based system. The process bus
relay has the process bus interface card but does not have the conventional DSP and
Contact I/O modules as these functionalities are moved to the merging units.

Power Supply Empty space (available) Inter- relay communication

Central Processor Unit Process Bus interface Module

Figure 4: Hardware Architecture of a Process Bus Based Relay

The process bus architecture presented above brings in numerous benefits to the
end user in terms of reduction in total installed cost, ease of engineering, installation,
commissioning, operation and maintenance. The rugged merging units with pre-
fabricated/connectorized cabling and highly reliable point-point fiber communication
makes this approach suitable for wind farm applications as explained in a later section.

5. Integrated Protection and Control System

Knowing that numerical relays are built on a common hardware platform and in fact
have the software programming required for various protection functions hosted within
the same unit, it is practical to think about integrating all the protection and control
requirements of a substation into a single numerical relay. There could be two
challenges to this approach to begin with: (1) the capability of the processors used in
numerical relays, (2) the need to bring all the copper wire based signals from the whole
station into a single relay. The former challenge is easily addressed by ever increasing
capabilities of the processors and perhaps by various other architectural considerations.
The distributed processing and the all-fiber numerical relay architecture presented in the

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

previous section resolve the second challenge. Before delving into this idea, it is worth
recapturing some of the efforts in the past that were invested in similar lines.

Figure 5: IEC 61850 Process Bus using Point-Point Fiber Communication

The first work on an integrated protection and control system dates to the early
1970’s through several projects sponsored by EPRI with GE and Westinghouse in the
USA. The development of practical and commercially available systems began around
1990 with the IPACS system developed by the Canadian utility Hydro One, and the
SIPSUR system developed by GE and the North West Utility in Spain, Union Electrica
Fenosa. SIPSUR was a project to integrate in a single hardware package a complete
protection system for a distribution MV substation [1]. The system comprised two
incomer feeders, one transformer and 5 distribution feeders. The specialty of this system
was the concept of “CPU backup” (Figure 6).
With the modern technology available today, it is possible to go forward with the
concept of a common numerical relay hardware platform to meet the protection and
control requirements of a complete substation. The concern around this concept is the
risk of having the P&C for substation dependent on only one device. But there are
already applications that use a single protection relay to take action on all the breakers
in the entire substation. The most common example is bus bar protection.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

BUS

CPU BACKUP
CT/VT

CT/VT

CT/VT
Comms
CPU

CPU

CPU
I/O

I/O

I/O
BUS

50/51 50/51

Comms

Redundant Common PS
66 kV

CT/VT

CPU

CPU
CPU
I/O

Power Supply

Power Supply
50/51/81/59

BUS

CPU BACKUP
87T

CT/VT

CT/VT

Comms
CPU

CPU
I/O

I/O
BUS
50/51
15 kV

CPU B ACKU P
C T/VT

C T/VT

C omm s

CT/VT
C PU

C PU

C PU
I/O

I/O

I/O
50/51/ 50/51/ 50/51/ 50/51/ 50/51/
67N 67N 67N 67N 67N
BUS

C PU B ACKUP
CT/VT

CT/VT

CT/VT
Com ms
CPU

CPU

CPU
I/O

I/O

I/O
Industrial PC

Figure 6: SIPSUR - A Project on Integrated Protection & Control

There are several numerical bus bar protection systems that use a single hardware
platform, a single processor and a single power supply. This has gained wide
acceptance and there are no concerns about the reliability or the risk of depending on a
single component for a complete HV substation. Additionally several functions and
zones are integrated in the same hardware platform: bus bar protection, breaker failure
protection for each breaker, and protection functions for each individual feeder such as
overcurrent and end zone fault. The majority of the distributed bus bar protection
systems have peripheral units acquiring and sending data to the central unit, while the
central unit executes the bus bar and other protection functions.
The protection industry has been exploring the idea of integrating more and more
protection functions into a single numerical relay. As mentioned earlier, the real
challenges are the capability of the processors used in numerical relays and the issue of
wiring all copper based signals from the whole station to a single relay. Two architectural
choices presented in this paper solve these issues.
The protection and control system based on IEC 61850 process bus presented in the
previous section has merging units distributed across a sub-station to acquire signals
from the primary apparatus and send it over fiber communication. This approach
eliminates the need to wire signals from the whole station using copper cables to a relay
in the control room. So it is now really easy to have an all-fiber central relay and access
information from every apparatus in a sub-station. The concept is similar to the many
existing distributed bus bar protection systems but this new solution adds the
revolutionizing idea of rugged outdoor merging unit and connectorized cabling that
addresses specific challenges facing the utility industry.
The second problem is that of processing power. This paper proposes new hardware
architecture for numerical relays using the concept of ‘parallel processing’. Separate,
multiprocessor units can perform parallel processing at the same time while running
primary function and device diagnostics on self and other members of the clustered
hardware. One example of the architecture of “process in parallel” already exists in the
implementations of Real Time Digital Simulators (RTDS) implementation (Figure 7).
The proposed architecture for Integrated Protection and Control System for the
whole sub-station is based on the two concepts presented earlier: (1) distributed
merging units and (2) parallel processing. This approach would find immediate

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

application in bus bar protection, MV switchgears and Wind farms. The whole hardware
can be duplicated to address reliability concerns. In the next section, this integrated
protection and control system is explained considering wind farms specifically.

Figure 7: Hardware Architecture in RTDS

6. Wind Farm Protection & Control Using IEC 61850 Process Bus
The present practice using conventional numerical relays or process bus based
relays is to use an individual protective relay dedicated to each zone of protection. If the
same approach is adopted, one relay will be needed for each wind turbine, and collector
feeder protection. However, use of the integrated protection and control system allows
for one protective relay to acquire signals from multiple zones of protection, and provide
protection for multiple zones, further reducing maintenance and installation costs.
Protection and Control requirements of the whole wind farm can be met by a single
protection relay with distributed merging units.
Referring to Figure 8, this system has merging units placed at the wind turbines and
feeder breaker. They are brought to the Central Relaying Unit (CRU) using point-to-point
fiber communication. The CRU is essentially an all-fiber numerical relay and has multiple
process bus interface cards to connect to the numerous merging units out in the field.
Each process bus interface card connects to a pre-defined number of merging units and
each CRU has a fixed maximum number of process bus interface cards it can support.
The CRU implements the parallel processing approach. The CRU uses multiple
processors running in parallel to execute the protection and control functions of the
whole wind farm. Each process bus interface card in turn consists of multiple processors
that have the power and ability of a single numerical relay. So it can be said that the
CRU essentially contains multiple relays. The protection functions of a whole wind farm
are distributed among the different process bus interface cards and the main processor
card.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

Peer-Peer Comms Interface Card

Communication Interface Card

Process Bus Interface Card

Process Bus Interface Card

Process Bus Interface Card

Process Bus Interface Card

Process Bus Interface Card

Process Bus Interface Card

Main processor card
Power Supply
Multi-fiber cables and
Patch panels
MU - N

MU - N

MU - N

MU - N
MU - 1

MU - 1

MU - 1

MU - 1
Merging
units
MU
MU
MU
MU

MU
MU
MU
MU

MU
MU
MU
MU

MU
MU
MU
MU
MU
MU

MU
MU

MU
MU

MU
MU
Figure 8: Hardware Architecture for a Modern Integrated Protection & Control System
Figure 9 shows the application of this integrated protection and control system in the
typical wind farm example explained in Section 2. Each wind turbine generator has a
merging unit as part of its generator breaker, which can easily be installed, wired and
tested by the breaker manufacturer before even shipping to site. This merging unit
acquires current, voltage and breaker signals. Similarly each feeder breaker merging
unit is installed as part of it to acquire CT and breaker interfaces.
The CRU executes all protection and control requirements for a specific collector
feeder and all the wind generators connected to it. This means the CRU instantiates a
copy of all the protection functions mentioned as part of Wind Generator Zone in Section
2 for each of the wind generator in that collector, and also instantiates the collector
feeder zone protection functions. Therefore, a single relay has the visibility into the
whole of that collector section in the wind farm. The success of such a system is as
dependent on the user interface for the system as the hardware and firmware. The
software for such a system must consider various aspects such as intuitive appearance,
simplicity of configurations, ease of navigation, transparent monitoring screens and one-
shot view of the connected system.
One CRU shall be used for each of the collector feeders. The collector bus shall be
protected by a single bus bar protection relay that has access to the merging units from
all collector feeders and the HV transformer breaker merging unit. The capacitor bank
protection relay, HV transformer protection relay, and transmission line protection relay
all shall access appropriate merging units to execute the respective protection elements.
It is possible to integrate all these into the collector bus bar protection relay, or a different
CRU, as well. Such an arrangement will result in one CRU for each collector feeder and
a CRU for collector bus bar, capacitor bank, HV transformer and transmission line
protections.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

Merging Unit1 Integrated Wind

Generator Protection
IG
1 CRU

Inter-Relay
Control

Comms
690 V / 34.5 kV

CPU
PS
Merging Unit2

IG
2 Feeder 1
Merging Unit HV Transformer Transmission Line
Control
Relay Relay

Merging Unit3
Collector Feeder 1

IG
3

Control

Merging Unit ' n '

34.5 kV / 220 kV

IG
n

Control

Collector Feeder 2

Collector Bus
Bar Relay
Collector Feeder 3

Collector Feeder n

Capacitor Bank
Relay

Figure 9: Wind Farm Protection using IEC 61850 Process Bus and Integrated P&C System
This integrated protection approach for the whole wind farm makes the installation
and commissioning easy as the merging units come installed and tested with the
breaker. Further the need to configure and test individual relays have been eliminated
and only a single relay - CRU needs to be configured, tested and maintained. Further,
procedures such as transfer trips will no longer be needed as the CRU can issue trip
signals to the feeder breaker and all the wind generator breakers simultaneously. The
whole of protection and control system will simply be one cabinet as shown in Figure 10.
Wind Farm Protection Cabinet

Fiber
Patch
Panels

CRU

Figure 10: Integrated Protection System Cabinet for Wind Farms

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

The advantages of the integrated wind farm protection and control system over the
conventional ways of protecting the wind farms are summarized below:
• Rugged merging units, suitable for outdoor installation and fully connectorized for
ease of installation and maintenance.
• Significant part of site tests could be done in factory.
• Merging units have no settings or firmware identity, essentially dumb units and so
ease of maintenance.
• Eliminates the need for separate relays for each wind generator and the need to set,
configure, test, and maintain the individual relays.
• One setting file for the whole collector section and so ease of engineering.
• Eliminate the need for transfer trips as simultaneous trips to feeder and generator
breakers possible as the CRU has both feeder and generator breakers access
instantly.
• Possibility of new operational schemes within the collector section for fault location
and to automatically isolate faulty sections and restore operation of rest of the
system.
• Monitoring the whole collector section is configuration free as CRU has all the
information already.
• Disturbance recording at each wind turbine and single sequence of event recording.
• Easy integration and exchange of data with other collector feeders or
interconnection systems.
• Last but not the least, use of a widely accepted open standard protocol – IEC 61850.

The integrated protection and control system explained here find its application not
only in wind farms; it can easily be applied for large bus bars with numerous feeders, MV
switchgears with multiple feeders and incomers. In fact, it is also possible to have the
protection and control requirements of a whole HV substation met by this integrated
protection system.

7. Conclusions
Wind energy is a rapidly growing environmentally friendly generating means. The
technology around wind energy is also growing very fast. However the protection and
control requirements of a wind farm are still met using conventional means of protective
relaying only. The protection industry is evolving at its own rate with breakthrough next
generation P&C systems that addresses key challenges facing the utility industry today.
This paper briefly presented the protection and control requirements of a wind farm and
discussed the evolution of technology in protective relays. An Integrated Protection and
Control System for Wind Farms is presented that uses the concepts of IEC 61850
process bus and a centralized relaying unit with parallel processing ability. The
application of this system in a wind farm brings in significant improvements such as
reduction in P&C system total installation cost; ease of installation, commissioning and
maintenance; ease of configuration; faster and reliable transfer tripping schemes; and
new approaches to identify and isolate faulty sections and restore operations.

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Wind Farm Protection Using an IEC 61850 Process Bus Architecture

8. References
[1] “Integrated Protection System for Rural Substations – SIPSUR”. GE Protection & Control
and Union Electrica Fenosa (Spain) under a PIE research project, 1990.
[2] “Wind Farm System Protection and Stability Using Peer to Peer Communications”,
M.L.Reichard, D. Finney, J.T. Garrity, CIGRE Canada, Conference on Power Systems, 2006.

9. Biographies
Richard Hunt is the Market Development Leader for GE Digital Energy process bus solutions.
Rich earned the BSEE ('86) and MSEE ('98) degrees from Virginia Tech. Rich has over 20 years
experience in the electric utility field, is a Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of
Virginia, and is Chair of the System Protection Subcommittee of the IEEE Power System
Relaying Committee.

Jorge Cardenas received his Engineering degree from the Universidad de Ingeniería (Peru) in
1977 and his MBA from the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (Spain) in 1998. Jorge began
his career with the Utility Electroperu (Peru) as a Protection & Control Engineer, and in 1987
he moved to ABB (Spain) as HV equipment Sales Engineer, and than promoted to a Control
Design Engineer. In 1989 he joined GE, where he has held several positions. Currently Jorge
works as EMEA - Application Manager with GE Digital Energy-Multilin. He authored several
papers presented on the most prestige protective relay conferences around the world. He is
a member of Cigré WG B5.31.

Vijayasarathi Muthukrishnan is currently an Application Engineer with GE Multilin in

Markham, Ontario. Previously he had worked as Technical Advisor and Field Engineer with GE
Energy and ALSTOM Ltd. during the period 1998-2005. He has supervised commissioning of
protection systems and excitation control systems at various power stations in Asia and
Africa region. He received the B.Tech degree from the Pondicherry Engineering College,
Pondicherry, India in 1998 and the M.E.Sc degree from the University of Western Ontario,
London, Ontario, Canada in 2007. Vijay is a member of the IEEE.

David McGinn is currently an Application Engineer with GE Multilin. Previously, David was a
Senior Protection and Control Engineer with Hydro One. During his 30 years at Hydro, he had
positions doing field commissioning and trouble-shooting of P&C equipment, head office
support for field P&C personnel, design of the Integrated Protection And Control System
product, and protection application engineering. He was also at times the Hydro
representative to the Northeast Power Coordinating Council’s Task Force on System
Protection and the Canadian representative to the North American Electric Reliability
Council’s Interconnection Dynamics Working Group. David holds a degree in Electrical
Engineering from the University of Waterloo, is a registered professional engineer in the
Province of Ontario, and is a member of the IEEE.

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