First a short history

For many, many years the IEEE Power Engineering Society has followed a somewhat rigid process in creating and updating its standards. In fact, it dates back to the AIEEE days before IEEE was formed.  The process is quite straightforward. If a working group or task force within a Technical Committee (Insulated Conductors, Substations, Power System Relaying, etc.) sees a need for a new standard (be it a full standard, a recommended practice, or a guide), the members of that group identify a leader and draft a Project Authorization Request (PAR). The PAR describes the purpose of the standard, its proposed title, and whether it is to be a full use standard (five year life) or a trial use standard (two year life). The Standards Coordinator of that Technical Committee forwards the PAR to the IEEE Standards Board for approval. If approved, those working on the document have four years to create a document ready for balloting.

For the updating of an existing standard, the process is similar. A PAR is required, but the title of the revised standard is often chosen to be the same as the old standard. The task force (or working group) then embarks on the task of updating the old standard. It may well be that only a few parts of the document need to be updated. However, if the PAR is written covering the entire document, then when it comes time to ballot, all sections are subject to comment.

 Given the rate at which technology is changing, it is burdensome to have to consider an entire document when only a few sections need updating. Also, there may be a need to add information to a standard without changing the base document. Fortunately, there already exists – within IEEE – a method of doing just that. The method is to create annexes to the base document, with a numbering system that identifies the connection.

The IEEE Communications Society used this method to create a series of facsimile (fax) test charts. IEEE 167A.1 defines the black & white test chart, 167A.2 for a high contrast gray scale test chart, and 167A.3 for a color test chart.

Even more familiar is the use by the IEEE Computer Society in defining local area and metropolitan area networks (LANs & MANs). IEEE 802.1 is the common specifications for LANs and MANs. 802.2 defines the specific requirements for Logical Link Control. 802.3 defines the specific requirements for CSMA/CD (Carrier Sense Multiple Access/Collision Detection) which is the heart of Ethernet. As other needs arose, additional .x have been created ( .4 for token passing, .5 for token ring, .6 for distributed queue dual bus, .7 for broad band, etc. The published extensions now are up to .12 (for demand priority access). Work is underway on another  .extension for 1 Gigabit Ethernet.

We think this is a better approach

The beauty of the .extensions is that they build on the base document. For example, when 802.13 is balloted, the only valid comments are those pertaining to the new .13 document. The base document (802.1) is not being balloted, so the working group’s efforts are not diluted or distracted by attempts at wordsmithing the base document. If properly used, the .extension can have a narrow scope so that when the need for updating arises, the effort can be clearly focused.

IEEE requires that a full use standard be reaffirmed, revised or withdrawn every five years. Given the size of the task, most PES Technical Committees are reluctant to start a revision effort more frequently. When started, it opens up the entire document to what can be frivolous, but time consuming, comments. If the original standard had been a base document with .extensions (like the 802 series), then only the extensions that need updating would be the subject of a PAR. The result is a much more focused effort and comments at time of balloting.

To our knowledge, neither the PES Substations Committee nor the Power System Relaying Committee have used the .extension approach in the past. However, things are about to change.

An good opportunity for DNP

The Substations Committee C3TF1 has just balloted P1379 “Recommended Practice for Data Communications between IEDs and RTUs in a Substation”. This is a full five year standard, and is an update of IEEE 1379-1997, which had the same title but with the prefix “Trial Use”. The scope of the old and new documents is the same in recommending the use of either DNP 3 or IEC 870-5-101 for RTU to IED communications in a substation. But the application of DNP has expanded to its use over LANs and WANs. The DNP Technical Committee has approved a document defining the use of DNP 3 over TCP/IP. We are urging the DNP Technical Committee to consider two approaches: join a Substations Committee effort to create a .1 extension to the new IEEE 1379, or to create a new Substations Committee task force to write a companion standard to P1525 (see September’s Publisher’s Corner for more details). A .1 extension to 1379 would define the protocol details for DNP over TCP/IP. The review and balloting of this .1 document would be confined to its content, and not spill over to the base document. This will definitely speed up the review process, and hence the time required to produce this new standard.

Substations Committee C2TF4 is at work producing P1525 a draft IEEE “Standard for Substation Protection, Control and Data Acquisition Communications”. Work has been underway on this document since mid 1997, and it will be going to ballot in late 2000. The present draft includes only the use of the Internet protocols (TCP/IP and UDP/IP), but this is only a starting point. A sub-task force has been formed within C2TF4 to draft a .1 extension to add the ISO protocols for the network, session and transport layers. With this narrow scope, the sub-task force should be able to move more rapidly than if they had to consider the entire document.

We urge both the Substations Committee and the Power Systems Relaying Committee to search out other opportunities to utilize this already available .extension method for more rapid and timely updating of their standards.