In many discussions about selection and use of IEDs for IEC 61850, the subject of compliance is often raised. Compliance is certified by certain approved testing agencies which are controlled by the UCAIUG. The current list of Type A (vendor independent) and Type B (vendor specific) test houses is published by UCAIUG here. KEMA, as one of the authorised test houses, has their own register of Conformance Certificates issued by KEMA here Up until 2010, Certification clearly referred to Edition 1 of the parts of the Standard available at that time. As at December 2012, there is no official published IEC 61850 Part 10 Ed2 - this means there are no official new test procedures as yet. The particular parts that are tested are Parts 6, 7, 8 and 9 as appropriate to the IED and as may be requested by the vendor. You may be familiar with the certification wording:
 Naturally any Certificate is relative to the Standard as available at the time. In the case of IEC 61850, there may be modifications to the Standard determined out of the specific release of any new Edition which is managed and documented through the TISSUE process. Consequently it is vital to cosnider any Certification statement in terms of the date of issue and any TISSUES since the relevant Edition of those Parts that are claimed to have been incorporated by the vendor as stated in the TISSUES Implementation Conformance Statement (TICS) However since 2010, certain Parts of the Standard have been issued as Edition 2 and hence there can be different interpretations of what is meant by "the IED is conforming to IEC 61850" in general and even in respect of which Parts it is conforming to and which Edition of those Parts. As an example an IED may well conform to the Edition 1 or even Edition 2 of the four Parts of IEC 61850-7-1, 7-2, 7-3, 7-4 Data Models but not conform to new features associated with Edition 2 of Parts 6, 8 or 9. | Warning |
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In the mean time as an example, it is unclear from the wording on the Conformance Certificate itself if a Certification for Part 8-1 issued in say December 2011 refers to the original 8-1 Ed1 or 8-1 Ed2 as issued in June 2011. Update: As of end 2018, IEDs will no longer be tested for conformance to Ed1 |
It is therefore not sufficient to simply state as a specification requirement "all IEDs shall conform to IEC 61850". In fact the detail of the specification of an IEC 61850 System and/or the IEDs should not be underestimated: Specifying IEC 61850 Systems and/or IEDs The following table indicates the current Edition status of the Parts of the Standard, and the future proposed Edition 1 or Edition 2 of other Parts of the Standard. As further work is done to improve and expand the Standard, there will be times when the current Editions are a combination of Edition 1, Edition 2 and Edition 3 etc amongst the Parts. A list of the parts of the Standard is available here Parts and associated Standards |