Lessons learned from commissioning of IEC 61850-9-2 process bus-based busbar protection system

Distributed busbar protection systems are common these days compared to traditional centralized busbar protection systems. A digitally distributed busbar protection system is often implemented using the proprietary technology of the numerical relay’s original equipment manufacturer. The IEC 61850-9-2 standard for process bus communication and the IEC 61850-9-2 Light Edition (LE) guidelines provide a standardized and interoperable IEC 61850-based distributed busbar protection system and digital secondary system (DSS). This paper introduces several of the necessary test processes and performance metrics sufficient for a DSS installation and the specific commissioning results for a DSS serving a large, distributed busbar protection application. This paper discusses an IEC 61850-9-2 process bus, Precision Time Protocol (PTP) power profile, and software-defined networking (SDN)-based busbar protection system, which was implemented at a 400 kV substation for the Power Grid Company of Bangladesh (PGCB). The implemented solution protects four diameters of a one-and-a-half breaker busbar scheme and has the capacity for future expansion to accommodate up to eight diameters. This paper also discusses lessons learned from the project and provides data and evidence of the health and performance of the process bus-based DSS protection system.