OpenSCD is a comprehensive configuration platform for fully digital substations. From communication design, configuration, and commissioning; through to modelling, monitoring, maintenance and replacement, OpenSCD offers a universal tool built on industry standards.

Its modular architecture is designed to give OpenSCD ultimate flexibility — with core functionality extended by a plug-in ecosystem, to support the widest possible array of current and future use cases.

THE IEC 61850 TOOL

IEC 61850 provides a unified set of vendor independent standards for defining, modelling, configuration and communications integration of heterogeneous substation components and intelligent electronic devices (IEDs).

Within complex electrical grids, the various components like substations, transformers, and switches need to communicate to ensure electricity flows smoothly and safely. IEC 61850 provides standards to define how these devices communicate — exchanging important information like voltage levels, current status, and providing commands for controlling the flow of electricity. This communication is essential for tasks like monitoring the health of the power system, detecting faults, and coordinating actions to maintain grid stability.

The IEC 61850 standards are among the many important industry standards published and maintained by the International Electrotechnical Commission.

OpenSCD leverages the immense industry investment into IEC 61850. It provides a free and open source software platform that dramatically simplifies a broad range of tasks around substation design, configuration, and management.

Users can configure, model and manage entire digital substations and broader grid architecture based on the IEC 61850 standard. The standards-based “define-once:reuse-everywhere” approach to each component follows a similar philosophy to object-oriented programming. This promotes consistency and interoperability across a broad range of tasks, speeding workflows and development pipelines, and reducing the chance for errors.

CURRENT KEY FEATURES OF OPENSCD

• SCD File Improvement: Enhance existing SCD (Substation Configuration Description) files by seamlessly incorporating crucial substation information, ensuring comprehensive documentation and efficient workflow.
• IEC 61850 Configuration and Engineering: Facilitate engineering of compliant IEC 61850 devices with ease, supported by a plug-in architecture for effortless integration of vendor-specific components.
• IEC 61850 System Design and Configuration: Realize the vision of a comprehensive system configuration tool with evolving features, enabling top-down engineering of IEC 61850 systems.

FLEXIBILITY & INNOVATION AROUND A UNIFIED IEC 61850 CORE

OpenSCD is designed to maximize freedom and flexibility across different use cases. Our philosophy is that flexibility is the best way to build a thriving open source community around the development of a common core platform. Our objective is to deliver the benefits of IEC 61850 standardization into all areas of grid design and management, giving users greater efficiency savings through economies of scale.

Beyond the purposely minimized core, almost all the functionality and features within OpenSCD are delivered as interchangeable plugins. This gives users ultimate freedom to build and customize a more diverse range of applications, and to share code, knowledge, and experience as part of a broader, common community.

PROGRESSIVE WEB APP

OpenSCD is built as a progressive web app to enable full-featured offline usage. We cache OpenSCD and plugins so that engineers can browse and design their digital substation and field teams can access designs offline.

WEB COMPONENTS

The app uses the Web Components standards for flexibility, performance and long-term maintainability. This also supports the widest range of browsers and frontend technologies and offers an inclusive approach for new developers, allowing them to start new OpenSCD plugin projects in whatever language they prefer. We don’t restrict the technologies our community uses. It only needs to be compiled to a custom element.

GETTING STARTED

Experience the power of OpenSCD by visiting our demo here.

For offline use, OpenSCD can also be installed locally on your PC.

GET INVOLVED

Join our thriving Open Source community on GitHub, where developers can contribute plugins and participate through our support and development channels on https://lists.lfenergy.org/. Collaborate with us to bring desired features to life and shape the future of OpenSCD.

COLLABORATION

Join our growing OpenSCD community:

OPENSCD IN THE OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY

As part of LF Energy, OpenSCD contributes to other open source projects in the electrical power industry. In particular, OpenSCD has a close relationship with CoMPAS, another IEC 61850 focus project that focuses on delivering backend services, such as SCL data management — explore the relationship further in this video.

THE LF ENERGY SUBSTATION SUITE ALSO INCORPORATES

	The primary goal of the CoMPAS project is to develop open source software components related to IEC 61850 model implementation, specifically for profile management and configuration of a power industry Protection Automation and Control System (PACS).
	SEAPATH, Software Enabled Automation Platform and Artifacts (THerein), aims at developing a “reference design” and “industrial grade” open source real-time platform that can run virtualized automation and protection applications (for the power grid industry in the first place and potentially beyond). This platform is intended to host multi-provider applications.
	FledgePOWER is a multiprotocol translation gateway for power systems based on the industrial IoT LF Edge project Fledge.

INTERESTED?

Discover the benefits of OpenSCD and explore opportunities for involvement. For more information, join the LF energy Slack channel (#openSCD) or reach-out on GitHub.