Ethernet in the Substation

Excerpts from this 2014 Newton-Evans study of the world market for substation automation show some interesting trends regarding the use of Ethernet networks in substations around North America. Some of these trends include:

1. Electric utilities in North America are showing increased interest in IEEE 1613 as a requirement for Ethernet switches and routers
2. Single network without failover is the most frequently used Ethernet LAN architecture, and one of the most planned for Ethernet LAN architectures in substations for year end 2016 (along with “Single network with multiple paths/failover” and “Independent primary devices/network and backup devices/network.”
3. Roughly half of utilities surveyed do not have redundancy in substation Ethernet networks.

Although this year’s sample reported a much different (lower) average number of ports than had been reported in the 2011 sample, Newton-Evans believe that there will be additional Ethernet ports installed in many North American substations by 2016.

By year end 2013, the majority of North American utilities surveyed reported that their Ethernet ports are secured. This is about the same as what was reported in 2011.

By year-end 2013 the lack of redundancy in Ethernet networks had fallen from 55% to 49%, while 35% reported use of Ring approaches and 18% used STAR approaches to provide redundancy in their Ethernet networks as shown in this chart. There were some differences in Ethernet redundancy based on type and/or size groupings. For example, among public power utilities in the sample, 48% said they use Ring topology for redundancy and only 26% claimed they do not have redundancy in their substation Ethernet.

The new study found predominant use of Rapid Spanning Tree protocol (78%) to provide redundancy in Ethernet networks. This is a significant increase over the 57% of survey respondents reporting such use in the previous study. Use of Hot Standby Router protocol (IEC 62439) was reported by 14% of the subgroup, while 10% were using Parallel Redundancy (also IEC 62439) at year-end 2013.

For more information or to order a copy of “The Worldwide Market for Substation Automation and Integration programs in Electric Utilities: 2014-2016” visit our reports page.