Dissertação de mest., Engenharia Electrónica e Telecomunicações, Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia, Univ. do Algarve, 2011The Substation Automation System (SAS) is the backbone of the Energy Power System
(EPS) and IEC 61850 is becoming its single most important standard. This is a world wide accepted
standard that is being adopted by the industry in order to provide for all current and future
needs. This standard defines not only the communication protocols but also its own Substation
Configuration Language (SCL) and even best practices for related engineering processes. In
order to keep up with the current fast technological developments the substation data model is
separated from the communication protocols allowing both to be changed without affecting each
other. Also defined in the standard is an extensive conformance testing procedure in order to
guarantee that different vendors interpret and implement the standard correctly. The substation
and its SAS must undergo thourough testing procedures specificaly in the Factory Acceptance
Test (FAT) and Site Acceptance Test (SAT). The conformance tests insures that the SAS devices,
the Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), conform to the same standard but on its own
does not guarantee its interoperability. An automated testing tool capable of, quickly and easily,
testing the SAS functions (IEDs interoperability) provides significant savings in both time and
money to the testing process. This work aim is to develop such a tool, capable of interoperability
testing. In order to achieve such big accomplishment this initial work focus on only two
of the most used functions of the SAS: switching and interlocking. A simulation model, built
on top of OMNeT++, for both the IEDs and the substation was developed. In this work an initial
stage prototype with an IED simulation model capable of communicating with real devices
will be developed. In a later stage, postponed for future work, the substation simulation model
will be extended in order to include real-time interaction with external devices that emulate the
substation switchgear
