A Communication Network for IEC61850 Implementation in Electric Railway Power Systems

IEC 61850 is an international standard for substation automation, and KEPCO has adopted it as the official standard for all new transmission substations since the mid-2010s. KORAIL has also been gradually introducing IEC 61850 into its traction power and station electrical systems, although the scale and depth of implementation differ from KEPCO’s transmission and distribution networks. Implementing IEC 61850 in a network system requires defining communication protocols, including legacy interfaces such as RS-232 and RS-485, as well as protocols like Modbus and DNP3 for integration with existing equipment. In this study, we examined how to design the network topology and communication protocols necessary for IEC 61850 deployment. For our case study, we selected the GTX-A railway line as a representative network model. The railway network topology was converted into a communication network in OMNeT++ with the INET framework, and simulations were conducted to measure queueing time and transmission time. The results show that the packet transmission period for GOOSE messages—used to multicast event and state-change data—remains under 3 ms, meeting the performance requirements for high-speed protection signaling.