Modern substations increasingly rely on IEC 61850 for protection, control, and automation, yet many practising electricians, technologists, and junior engineers have only been exposed to legacy hard‑wired schemes and proprietary protocols. Utilities and OEMs are deploying IEC 61850‑based systems faster than entry‑level staff can be trained, creating a skills gap at the interface between traditional power‑system knowledge and digital communications.
This course is intended to bridge that gap by giving new practitioners a clear, structured introduction to the concepts, terminology, and practical implications of IEC 61850 before they are asked to interpret SCL files, commission IEDs, or troubleshoot GOOSE‑based schemes.
This course introduces the IEC 61850 series of standards as the modern communication and data‑modelling framework for substation protection, control, and monitoring systems. Starting from the limitations of traditional hard‑wired and vendor‑specific solutions, the course explains the objectives and architecture of IEC 61850, including station‑bus and process‑bus concepts, logical devices and logical nodes, and the standardised naming of data objects and attributes
