Congratulations to IEEE 1379 Update Team
Let’s Build On Their Work
by John T. Tengdin -- Editor-in-Chief
March 2001
IEEE Std 1379-1997 is titled “IEEE
Trial-Use Recommended Practice for Data Communications Between Intelligent
Electronic Devices and Remote Terminal Units in a Substation”. It was the
culmination of a four year effort by the Substations Committee Working Group C2
Task Force 1 to bring some order to the chaos of far too many different
protocols being specified for this application. C2TF1 considered over eighty
candidate protocols before settling on two – DNP3 and IEC 870-5-101 – for
this standard. The choice was also made to make this a “trial use”
recommended practice, as this would force its re-evaluation, revision, or
withdrawal in two years. Since IEEE 1379 was actually published on March 16,
1998, the two years would be end in March 2000 .
At the 1999 PES Summer Meeting, the
decision was made by Substations Working Group C3 to request a PAR (Project
Authorization Request) from the IEEE Standards Board for this re-evaluation and
possible update. The PAR was approved on September 16, 1999 with the same title
as before, but with the words “Trial Use” removed. With that approval, the
work began in earnest. A new Task Force – C3TF1 under the leadership of Lee
Smith – was formed to focus this effort. Fortunately, we had very
knowledgeable people – some with DNP3 and some with IEC 850-5-101 expertise
– to work on this update. Key contributors to this effort were Ameen Hamdon,
Bruce Muschlitz and Andrew West. Lee Smith scheduled teleconferences between the
regular face to face meetings to move the process along.
It is significant, in your
editor’s opinion, that the version balloted was Draft 11. The document had
gone through ten iterations before being balloted
electronically starting on May 18, 2000. Based on the “Affirmative with
Comments” and “Negative Ballots” received, a new draft was prepared. D12
was electronically (and successfully balloted) in August and approved by the
IEEE-SA Standards Board on September 21, 2000! It was just one
year after PAR approval – clearly a new record in the Substations
Committee.
The
new document clarifies implementation and conformance testing procedures. The
result is improved interoperability between suppliers’ products and sets the
stage for LAN based substation communication systems.
Certain formatting changes were
needed for the final document, and those are now complete. We now expect the
revised standard to be published in March 2001. As a full “Recommended
Practice”, it will have a five year life.
Next Steps
When the work began on this update,
a few people wanted to expand the scope of the document to include other
applications already in use. These included file transfer, virtual terminal,
DNP3 for master to substation communications, and DNP3 over TCP/IP (LAN/WAN
applications). The decision
was made in July 1999 to defer this work until the update to 1379 was completed.
Now it is time to look at these
additional applications. At the Substations Committee Annual Meeting in Tampa
May 6 – 10, 2001, this matter will be addressed at the C3 Working Group
meeting which your editor chairs. The present thought is to consider these
additions as a “dot” extension to 1379. Thus the new document, if approved,
would be IEEE 1379.1 to cover the additions, and would reference 1379 without
requiring the parent document be revised.
The IEEE Computer Society has made
extensive use of the “dot” extension approach to extending the scope of
existing standards. By its use, effort can be focused on the new application
without the need to re-examine and open up for comment everything in the parent
document. The
use of “dot” extensions is new to the IEEE Substations Committee, and this
is an application where it clearly fits. If you are interested in this effort to
extend 1379, come to the Tampa C3 meeting. All are welcome, even if you have
never before attended an annual meeting of the Substations Committee. Unlike the
IEC TC working group meetings, one need not be a member – even of IEEE – to
attend and participate.
We need input from all
interested parties.
Where do you want to go now?
WiseOwl™