HOW TO READ AN IEC 61850 CONFORMANCE CERTIFICATE

Users typically request that IED vendors provide documentation that the equipment and applications delivered meets user requirements and proves conformance to IEC61850. In response to this, users are typically provided a set of UCAIug conformance certificates. There are different certificates for IEC 61850 clients, servers, performance, and sampled values. Additionally, there are variations of the certificates for the different editions of the IEC 61850 specifications (a.k.a. Edition 1 and Edition 2). In order to understand the certificate and where to request additional information, an understanding of the conformance testing process helps.

As the standard changes (e.g. revision from Edition 1 to Edition 2) or Technical Issues (a.k.a. TISSUE) are resolved, the IEC and UCAIug Conformance Tests are revised. Revised test procedures used six (6) months after the revised test procedures are officially released by the UCAIug. As part of the approval process, the UCAIug generates Test Procedure Change Lists (TPCLs) for the various conformance test campaigns (e.g. Client, Server, Performance, or SCL Conformance). Additionally, the UCAIug updates the templates that vendors need to provide in order to allow a UCAIug accredited test lab to select the appropriate test cases from within a specific conformance test campaign. The templates are for a specific single product/version combination. The vendor provides the completed templates for:

¡ Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement (PICS): Contains a vendor declaration of what communication services are supported for the specified product. Extended test information is provided in a ‘Protocol Implementation eXtra Information for Testing’ (PIXIT) document.

¡ Technical Issue Implementation Conformance Statement (TICS): Specifies which technical issues have been implemented in the specific product.

¡ Model Implementation Conformance Statement (MICS): Documents the object model (e.g. Logical Nodes and Data) supported by the vendor for the specific product.

¡ Substation Configuration Language (SCL) Implementation Conformance Statement (SICS): Specifies the SCL options supported by the specific engineering tool. In some cases, the engineering tool function may be embedded within an IED.

An accredited test lab then uses the completed conformance test templates with the appropriate versions of the conformance test procedures to select which mandatory and conditional test cases should be executed.

The selected test cases are executed and when all are passed, the test lab forwards the certificate to the UCAIug for a review of the test results and log files. When the review is complete and the results are found appropriate, the Conformance Certificate is posted on the UCAIug website. The actual implementation conformance statements and test results are owned by the vendor, therefore, those documents should be requested from them directly. These statements, along with the appropriate version of the test procedures are needed by the user to properly interpret a conformance certificate.

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A conformance certificate consists of two (2) pages currently. Page 1 of the certificate contains seven (7) sets of key information regarding:

(1) The type of certificate. If the certificate indicates Level A, then the test lab is not affiliated with any vendor.

(2) The vendor and the product being tested. If there are multiple product variants being tested, those are declared on page 2 of the certificate.

(3) The version of test cases and TPCL used as the basis of testing.

(4) The specific implementation conformance statements provided by the vendor for the product under test.

(5) Which conformance blocks are claimed and how many of the possible test cases were executed.

(6) The version of the test tools used for testing.

(7) The name and address of the accredited test lab.

In order to interpret the summary test results (shown on page 2), users should obtain the appropriate TPCL, implementation conformance statements, and PIXIT. Page 2 restates certain information found on page 1 and provides a summary of the test cases which were executed and passed. The summary test results are divided amongst:

(8) Mandatory tests that are selected based upon the PICS and potentially modified by the TICS, provided by the vendor. As an example, it is acceptable to have an IED that does not support IEC 61850 file transfer. If no file transfer model support was declared in the PICS, no mandatory tests would even be executed by the test lab and no mandatory or conditional test results would be present in the table.

(9) Conditional tests that are selected based upon a combination of the PICS and PIXIT information provided by the vendor.

In the columns, the test case name is shown if the test case passed. In order to obtain a conformance certificate, all mandatory and required conditional tests must pass. Although users need to understand the mandatory tests at a high level (e.g. if the user needs an IED to publish GOOSE, mandatory test results need to be present), they also need to know which conditional tests need to be executed in order to meet their application requirements. The best place for a user to start is the TPCL and the abstract test case document, both of which are posted on the UCAIug website. As an example of a summary, a user might see:

GopN1 When GoEna=TRUE, no attribute of the GoCB con-trol block can be set except GoEna

GopN1 is the test case name. Test case names have the general format of:

<service model name> [service constraint][negative]<test number>

The service model name and test number are mandatory. The service constraint (e.g. publisher or subscriber) and negative (e.g. “N”) are optional.

It is important for users to understand that two vendor’s products each with an equivalent conformance statement (e.g. the same mandatory and conditional test passing) does not guarantee application interoperability as object models and other constraints may also have an impact on interoperability.

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