Networking Solutions for Electric Utilities

275,000 electric power substations worldwide are candidates for substation automation

Rapidly changing Utility market dynamics, deregulation and cyberasset protection requirements are forcing Utilities to consider new solutions to emerging issues.

As power utility and distribution companies move towards satisfying their NERC CIP requirements, demand for secure serial to ethernet equipment in substations will be required. These solutions must conform to the demanding environment conditions found at these locations such as:

• Electric Fields
• Magnetic Fields
• Electrostatic Discharge
• Conducted High Frequency Electrical Transients
• High Energy Power Surges
• Ground Potential Rise during ground faults

Specific environmental specification standards have been adopted for these environments;

• IEC 61850-3 – standards for reliability of communication networks and systems in substations
• IEEE 1613 – standards for the design of communication network equipment to be used in substations and industrial sites such as;
  • IEEE C37.90.1 – surge withstand and fast transient voltages
  • IEEE C37.90.2 – radiated frequency immunity

Perle’s IOLAN Electric Utility Terminal Servers are designed to meet the harsh environments associated with power substations. With high and low voltage AC/DC power supplies and meeting emission, immunity and safety approvals associated with substation IT equipment, IOLAN’s are ideal for connecting any serial based equipment including protective relays to ethernet.

Key features

• Electrical Utility Substation hardened
  • Meets environment specifications for substation automation products specifically IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613
• Help electric utilities protect their critical cyberassets by providing specific features that comply with the NERC CIP standard (EPCIP EU COM(2006)786);
  • Two factor strong authentication schemes such as RSA’s SecureID
  • Centralized TACACS+ and RADIUS authentication, authorization and accounting
  • IPSEC VPN secure tunneling as well as SSL, SSH session encryption
  • Keystroke and data logging
  • Provide ability to display an “Appropriate Use” Login Banner upon user access
  • Secure dialup
  • Enable only needed ports
• Universal High Voltage single and dual power models;
  • High voltage DC : 125v DC / 250v DC nominal ( range of 88-300v DC )
  • High voltage AC: 115v AC / 230v AC nominal ( range of 85-265v AC )
• Dual Feed low voltage power supply: 24v DC and 48v DC nominal (range of 18 - 72v DC)
• 10/100/1000 BaseTx ethernet
• Failsafe Alarm
• Serial ports that are software selectable RS232/422/485

Customer Stories / Application Notes US Department of Energy use Perle Terminal Servers to meet NERC CIP Compliance Challenge: Allow personnel to remotely manage the Phasor Measurement Units using a remote RADIUS authentication and authorization server. Solution: Use Perle IOLAN Electric Utility Terminal Servers to provide the access level username and passwords to the PMU over RADIUS. Results: Passwords are concealed from the user for security purposes, yet they can still perform their remote device management and administration duties.

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