IEC TR 61850-90-2:2016

Overview

IEC TR 61850-90-2:2016 is a technical report from the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) that explains how to use the IEC 61850 standard for information exchange between substations and control or maintenance centres. It provides guidance on use cases, communication requirements, configuration (SCL / IEC 61850-6), service selection and architectures, engineering workflows, and the Proxy/Gateway concept for system-level integration.

Key Topics

• Use cases & requirements: Telecontrol, synchrophasor exchange, disturbance recording, counting, power quality, asset management and parameter configuration - each with actors, sequence diagrams and communication constraints.
• Configuration language (SCL / IEC 61850-6): Guidance for extending SCL, modelling data references between SCL files, redundancy modelling and functional naming to support SS‑to‑CC communication.
• Communication services & architectures: Selection of services compatible with IEC 61850, message performance classes, data/communication quality (availability, reliability) and requirements for WAN/LAN links.
• Proxy/Gateway model: Principles for data forwarding, control block modelling, service tracking and applying cyber security to Proxy/Gateway components.
• SCSM (Specific Communication Service Mapping): Mapping aspects for MMS/TCP-IP and Sampled Values over ISO/IEC 8802-3 (IEC 61850-9-2) and related T‑profiles.
• Engineering workflow: Separated vs integrated workflows, scope of configuration exchange, and practical steps for coordinated engineering across substations and control centres.
• Conformance & examples: Protocol Implementation Conformance Statement template, SCL XML schema, and example SCD files for substations and control centres.

Applications

IEC TR 61850-90-2 is a practical reference for:

• Power utilities planning SS‑to‑CC communications and remote telecontrol systems.
• System integrators and OEMs implementing IEC 61850-compliant gateways, servers and control centre interfaces.
• Protection and automation engineers defining performance classes, redundancy and cyber security measures.
• Asset managers and operations teams integrating substation data (power quality, disturbance records, asset status) into system-level applications.

Using this TR helps ensure interoperable, secure and repeatable SS‑to‑CC communication architectures that leverage IEC 61850 modelling and SCL configuration.

Related Standards (if applicable)

• IEC 61850 family (core standard and IEC 61850-6 for SCL)
• IEC 61850-9-2 (Sampled Values over Ethernet)
• MMS / TCP-IP mappings and ISO/IEC 8802-3 (Ethernet)

Keywords: IEC TR 61850-90-2, IEC 61850, substation to control centre, SCL, Proxy/Gateway, telecontrol, synchrophasor, SCSM, IEC 61850-9-2, MMS, engineering workflow, redundancy, cyber security.