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Blair, Steven M. and Booth, Campbell D. and Michielsen, Jurgen and

Joshi, Nilesh (2016) Application of MPLS-TP for transporting power
system protection data. In: IEEE International Conference on Smart Grid
Communications, 2016-11-06 - 2016-11-09, Four Points Hotel. (In Press) ,
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 Application of MPLS-TP for Transporting Power
System Protection Data
Steven M. Blair and Campbell D. Booth Jurgen Michielsen Nilesh Joshi
University of Strathclyde OTN Systems CommTel Network Solutions
Glasgow, UK Antwerp, Belgium Melbourne, Australia
[email protected]

Abstract—Power utilities are increasingly dependent on the Internet Protocol/Multi-Protocol Label Switching (IP/M-
use of communications networks. These networks are evolv- PLS) has become the de-facto standard for telecoms operator
ing to be packet-based, rather than using conventional Time- infrastructure in the core of the network, and utilities are
Division Multiplexing (TDM) technologies. Transporting current
differential protection traffic over a packet network is especially adopting it for their next generation networks. The capa-
challenging, due to the safety-critical nature of protection, the bilities of IP/MPLS with utility-specific applications such
strict requirements for low delay and low asymmetrical delay, as teleprotection have been demonstrated [3]–[5]. However,
and the extensive use of legacy TDM-based protocols. IP/MPLS was not designed with the inherent capability to
This paper highlights the key technical characteristics of transport power utility data. A Transport Profile within MPLS,
Multi-Protocol Label Switching-Transport Profile (MPLS-TP),
and demonstrates its application for transporting current differ- known as MPLS-TP, has the potential to directly address the
ential protection traffic. A real-time hardware-in-the-loop testing requirements and technical challenges of utility applications.
approach has been used to thoroughly validate the technologies MPLS-TP provides the ability to guarantee performance for
in various configurations. It is demonstrated that MPLS-TP legacy circuit-based applications, because paths are always
technologies can meet the requirements of current differential bidirectional (in IP/MPLS paths are unidirectional by nature).
protection and other, less critical applications. In particular, it
is shown that delay and asymmetrical delay can be controlled The complex set of protocols to organise the network (the so
through the inherent use of bi-directional paths—even when called “control plane”) is replaced by a management platform
“hitless” link redundancy is configured. The importance of ap- to create real end-to-end service provisioning, which makes
propriate traffic engineering, clocking schemes, circuit emulation it simpler to provision and maintain the network. Failover
methods is also demonstrated. switching mechanisms can ensure reliable and deterministic
Index Terms—MPLS-TP, power system protection, time syn-
chronization, wide-area communications.
services on the network, even following failures.
This paper demonstrates the application of MPLS-TP for
transporting current differential protection data. This is the
I. I NTRODUCTION
most critical and demanding application of communications
Power utilities rely on communications networks for many within power utility operations, and therefore proves that the
operational activities [1], [2]. Applications such as teleprotec- technology is suitable for many other utility applications. The
tion and supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) paper also highlights the key technologies involved, demon-
cannot operate without an appropriate and reliable telecommu- strates a comprehensive validation of the application of MPLS-
nications infrastructure. New applications, such as IEC 61850- TP in multiple scenarios, and provides critical observations of
based protection schemes and Synchrophasors, are packet- the trade-offs in configuring an MPLS-TP network.
based. Therefore, to transport these applications efficiently,
many electrical utilities have migrated to, or are evolving II. C HALLENGES T RANSPORTING C URRENT
towards, packet-based networking infrastructure. D IFFERENTIAL P ROTECTION T RAFFIC
There are challenges in adopting packet-based networking
for typical utility applications—particularly for power sys- It is essential that power systems are protected such that
tem protection which commonly relies upon Time-Division electrical faults can be detected and isolated rapidly. The
Multiplexing (TDM) technologies. The knowledge of legacy primary form of protection for transmission systems—which
telecoms technologies is declining; new telecoms engineers are contain system-critical high-voltage overhead lines—and some
skilled in Ethernet and IP technology but not in conventional distribution systems is current differential protection. Com-
TDM technologies. Similarly, vendors providing telecoms munications is required for this function to operate, and it is
products are advancing packet-based networking technologies, therefore sometimes referred to as “teleprotection”. Current
rather than the further development of TDM equipment. Exist- differential protection relays (or Intelligent Electronic Devices
ing TDM equipment—that is not yet obsolete—will become (IEDs)) compare the measured current phasors at each end of
obsolete in the near future and will become increasingly costly the line. If the vector sum of these phasors does not equal zero,
to maintain. within the configured tolerance, then the protection system will
issue a trip signal to circuit breakers to isolate the faulted line
from the rest of the system.
Timing is critical in protection applications. The messages
between protection relays must be transported as fast as
possible to ensure that there are no undue delays involved
in isolating power system faults. Therefore, the propagation
delay must be kept within a few milliseconds, depending on
the application and the utility’s protection policy. Furthermore,
some implementations are sensitive to asymmetrical delay (or
differential delay) [5], [6], where the delays in the “forward”
and “reverse” directions are not equal.
There are several proprietary (i.e., vendor-specific) and
standardised protocols for transporting teleprotection traffic.
Two protocols—one TDM-based, and one packet-based—are
analysed in this paper:
1) IEEE C37.94 [7] is a TDM-based protocol which pro-
vides 64 kbps TDM timeslots over an optical physical
Fig. 1. MPLS-TP configuration software
layer. The number of timeslots can be selected: the
use of more slots reduces the propagation delay, at the network. This makes the network predictable and
the expense of greater bandwidth use. Relays use the dependable.
protocol to transmit current phasor data and timing • Bidirectional paths and bidirectional failover switching,
information. which guarantees symmetrical connections with very low
2) IEC 61850-9-2 Sampled Values [8], using the so-called asymmetrical delay under all circumstances.
“LE” guideline format [9], maps raw voltage and current • “In-band” Operations, Administration, and Management
sensor values into multicast Ethernet frames. This re- (OAM)—i.e. the OAM packets follow the same path as
quires relatively high bandwidth: approximately 5 Mbps the user data—allows verification of the performance of
per data stream. Sampled Values is typically comple- services during operation.
mented by GOOSE messaging for trip messages from • Static provisioning through a network management sys-
the protection relays to circuit breakers. tem including traffic engineering to create paths based on
III. MPLS-TP: K EY T ECHNOLOGIES service requirements and not based on network internals,
so that the operator has full control over the paths.
A. Overview • Isolation of service data and control plane packets.
MPLS is a feature-rich protocol suite standardized by the The following sub-sections describe the key technologies in
Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) over the last 15 years. detail.
The basis of MPLS is IP technology and is therefore often
called IP/MPLS. Over the years, IP/MPLS has become a large B. Traffic Engineering
toolbox to solve many challenges in networking environments. To be able to build a network that is capable of transporting
Some vendors have extended the use of IP/MPLS from IT- critical and non-critical traffic, the network has to be “traffic
oriented applications to critical utility applications such as engineered”. This means that traffic flows have to be identified
power system protection. However, the technologies were not on the network and treated according their service level agree-
originally designed to transport such time-critical applications, ments. The main tools are admission control, policing, and
and there is complexity associated with configuring an IP/M- shaping. These ensure that a network has suitable resources
PLS network to guarantee performance under all conditions. to transport a service, and can measure the traffic and remove
As the number of devices connected at the “edge” of the any excess traffic when needed.
network increases (i.e. where, for a power a utility, devices Another tool that a packet network can offer is prioriti-
such as protection IEDs connect), the complexity of the IP/M- sation of traffic. This means that traffic is identified to be
PLS control plane can become unmanageable. In addition, at critical (high priority) or non-critical (low priority). In a well-
the edge of the network, full “meshing” is often not possible engineered network, critical traffic flows through the network
which limits the options for an efficient defence of the network as if there was no other traffic on the network, and therefore
against link or node failures with IP/MPLS. This is why experiences minimal delays and jitter.
the telecoms industry, together with the main standardisation For off-the-shelf telecoms grade IP equipment, provisioning
bodies of the telecoms industry (the IETF and International of network-wide traffic engineering can be a very daunting
Telecommunication Union), have standardised MPLS-TP. The task. MPLS-TP is complemented with a management plat-
key features of MPLS-TP include the following: form that allows end-to-end provisioning. Parameters such
• Network failover and activation of backup scenarios, as bandwidth, packet length of the user traffic, and Quality
which do not depend on dynamic protocols that control of Service (QoS) level are requested from the user when a
service is created on the network by the management system. frames per Ethernet packet and 8.2 Mbps for a packetization
The management system then uses these parameters to define of one C37.94 frame per Ethernet packet.
the “shapers” and “policers” of the service at a network-wide Circuit Emulation Service over Packet Switched Network
level. Fig. 1 illustrates the use of an MPLS-TP management (CESoPSN) transmits only a subset of the C37.94 frame. As
system to define and visualize configuration parameters such per the standard, the useful data of a C37.94 frame is between
as bandwidth and the links that are used for the service under 1 and 12 timeslots (this is the so-called N value). A single
test. timeslot is 64 kbps. With CESoPSN, the “useful” timeslots are
extracted and only this data is transported over the service. As
C. Clocking Types a result, bandwidth can be saved. Bandwidth can be as low as
Differential protection relays typically require some form 2.3 Mbps for N=12 (i.e. 12 timeslots) and a packetization of
of time synchronization, often over long distances. As per four C37.94 frames per Ethernet packet. When the same useful
the IEEE C37.94 specification, protection relays should be data is transported but only one C37.94 frame is transported,
configured to “slave” their clocking from the communications the bandwidth requirement is 7 Mbps. The drawback of this
network (i.e. extract the clock from the local MPLS-TP router). technology is the fact that the C37.94 frames have to be
To achieve synchronization between the two (or more) IEEE interpreted which can cause an additional delay of 700 µs
C37.94 interface ports across an MPLS-TP network, different within the end-to-end delay.
options are possible: For transporting Ethernet-based services over a wide area
1) Synchronize the network via Synchronous Ethernet and network, E-Line can be used to connect two end-points. This
use a so-called “internal clocking” scheme. Synchronous means that only the two points that are configured in this
Ethernet (SyncE) allows the distribution of a common service can communicate as if they would have their own
frequency via the physical link between the nodes. As a private Ethernet connection. Alternatively, E-LAN can be used
result, all synchronized nodes have the same frequency. for multipoint connections; in a multipoint service, more than
This frequency can then be used to directly synchronize two ports can be added and these ports can communicate with
the C37.94 interface ports across multiple distributed each other as if they reside on a private LAN. Other ports on
relays. This scenario is useful if a single clocking the network have no access to the service.
domain for all protection relays is the goal, and if there
IV. VALIDATION OF MPLS-TP FOR C URRENT
is physical-layer support for SyncE.
D IFFERENTIAL P ROTECTION
2) “Differential clocking” is similar to internal clocking,
but it allows a different clocking domain per service (e.g. A. Overview
per pair of protection relays) which gives the advantage It is important to systematically validate the MPLS-TP
that different TDM oriented data (e.g. voice and telepro- technologies to ensure that they are suitable for the demands of
tection) do not have to be in the same clocking domain. power system protection applications. Network performance,
This offers greater flexibility when implementing differ- including delay and asymmetrical delay, has been tested with
ent types of services over the network. This technology legacy teleprotection under different kinds of circuit emulation
also requires that the network is synchronized via SyncE methods, background traffic, network failover (the use of
because it requires to have the same reference frequency. alternate communications paths following link or node failure),
3) When no synchronization is possible between the two migration scenarios, and communications fault scenarios. The
nodes, a third option, called “adaptive clocking”, can be performance of the network with IEC 61850 traffic (Sampled
used. With adaptive clocking, the reconstruction of the Values and GOOSE) traffic has also been tested.
clock on the specific service is based on the average An MPLS-TP network has been implemented using
arrival time of packets. This has the advantage that commercially-available off-the-shelf equipment (based on the
no direct synchronization, such as SyncE, is required, XTran platform), as illustrated in Fig. IV. In order to im-
but very strict traffic engineering of the network is plement various network migration scenarios, a link between
essential to avoid large packet delay variation which two MPLS-TP nodes has been established via an SDH net-
would influence the relative accuracy of the relay clocks. work; thus, Ethernet over SDH/SONET has been implemented.
Protection equipment has been connected via IEEE C37.94
D. Service Types
(legacy teleprotection) and Ethernet (IEC 61850) interfaces.
The IEEE C37.94 standard expects a circuit-based commu-
nications link between relays, and there is a choice of ap- B. Legacy Protection Validation
proaches for emulating this over a packet network. Structure- For an IEEE C37.94-based “legacy” protection scheme, a
Agnostic Time Division Multiplexing over Packet (SAToP) is pair of commercial transmission current differential protection
a technology where the entire C37.94 frame is packetized and relays has been used in combination with a real time digital
transported over the network (where the C37.94 frame is a 2 simulator (RTDS) [10], as shown in Fig. 3. The simulator
Mbps signal). This technology is fast but requires more band- allows detailed modelling of transmission lines, including
width than CESoPSN (see below). Bandwidth requirements the simulation of faults on the line and other scenarios.
can vary between 3.6 Mbps for a packetization of four C37.94 The corresponding voltages and currents—which authentically
 Fig. 2. Validation overview

Fig. 4. Asymmetrical (or differential) delay monitoring

(a) Real-time simulation laboratory Fig. 5. Ethernet load injection

Ethernet traffic, with various the packet sizes, including the use
of jumbo frames. An external, off-the-shelve Ethernet tester
has been used, as illustrated in Fig. 5, to introduce extra traffic
on the network. The tester created data flows with a fixed or
random packet size with a configurable network load.
1) Delay and asymmetrical delay results: With legacy
protection, the network delay varies based on the configuration
of the circuit emulation stream (which is a trade-off between
bandwidth and delay). The end-to-end delay of the service
(b) MPLS-TP equipment
is driven by the packetization delay and by the size of the
jitter buffer used on the service. This jitter buffer is located
Fig. 3. Hardware-in-the-loop testing environment
at the egress router of the service where the TDM data is
represent a real power system—are supplied to the relays. With restored (i.e. played-back to the receiving relay) and where
the RTDS monitoring software, it is also possible to precisely continuous playout of data must be guaranteed. Buffer sizes
measure trip performance and the presence of potential false of 3-6 ms have been tested for different configurations and the
trips caused by misconfiguration of the communications net- performance has been verified.
work. A representative summary of the results from the validation
The protection relays have been configured to measure the is given in Table I, which shows how each configurable param-
end-to-end propagation delay from the relay’s perspective. To eter affects the required bandwidth, delay, and asymmetrical
provide a more detailed measurement of the network perfor- delay. Comparing Tests 1 and 2, it can be observed that
mance between the two end-points of the IEEE C37.94 service, each clocking scheme offers similar performance, but with
a custom measurement card has been used. This measurement differential clocking requiring slightly more bandwidth than
card, installed in one of the MPLS-TP nodes, temporarily internal or adaptive clocking. Test 4 illustrates that increasing
replaces the protection relays. It is able to measure the delay the number of TDM frames per MPLS packet improves
in both directions and calculate the actual asymmetrical delay bandwidth efficiency, at the expense of delay. Test 5 shows
between two devices by introducing a recognizable pattern in that an increased jitter buffer has a direct influence on delay.
the IEEE C37.94 data. The card then displays the delay and Comparing Test 1 and Test 6 illustrates the trade-off between
asymmetrical delay over time in a user-friendly way (Fig. 4). CESoPSN and SAToP; CESoPSN requires less bandwidth but
To verify protection performance under various adverse load at the expense of delay. Delays can be as low as 3.6 ms
scenarios, the network has been loaded with parallel excessive with CESoPSN, or 2.7 ms with SAToP (at the expense of
 the switch-over, the longest delay from the two paths must be
used—regardless of the “active” path delay.
All features and functions described above have been fully
tested. Based on the gathered test results it can be concluded
that, before and after the switch-over, the delay and asymmet-
rical delay remain within expected values. A small change in
asymmetrical delay can occur because the data stream into the
jitter buffer is interrupted at failover and can cause a lock on a
slightly higher or lower level (i.e. the jitter buffer is reset, and
may restart playing-out with a slightly different average delay).
Fig. 6. Reproducible fiber cut hardware
However, all test results showed the expected values and are
bandwidth). Asymmetrical delay was always less than 500 µs in range with the industry norms for protection functionality.
with CESoPSN and less than 180 µs with SAToP. Note that
C. IEC 61850-Based Protection Validation
network delay and asymmetrical delay are stable (and within
the expected ranges) under all tested configurations. Although protection implemented via IEEE C37.94 inter-
A unique feature of the MPLS-TP provisioning tools, which faces remains very common, vendors of protection relays are
are used to configure the communications network, is the providing next-generation protection applications using IEC
ability to predict the delay when provisioning services. As 61850 messaging (using the Sampled Values and GOOSE
shown in Table I, this prediction was in line with the measured protocols). To verify the capabilities of MPLS-TP with IEC
values of the actual services. The additional background traffic 61850 traffic, a configuration implementing streams of Sam-
had no measurable influence on the stability of the circuit pled Values and GOOSE messaging has been validated. Using
emulation services. the RTDS simulation model, Samples Value data streams,
generated from an emulated Merging Unit, have been sent
To verify the actual trip times on the protection relays,
to protection relays at both ends of the transmission line.
electrical faults have been simulated within the RTDS, with
The remote messages were then compared with the local
the corresponding measurements being supplied to the relays,
Sampled Values data stream to perform differential protection.
with the direct trip and inter-trip delays being recorded. Trip
In the case of fault detection, the protection relay transmitted
times can be as fast as 24.9 ms with a corresponding backup
a GOOSE message to activate a local and a remote circuit
inter-trip time of 39.2 ms. The influence of the network was
breaker. The protection functionality was implemented via an
minimal compared to the back-to-back configuration (i.e. with
external IEC 61850-enabled microcontroller as described in
the relays directly connected). There was no significant dif-
[2].
ference between the trip performance of the different clocking
1) GOOSE traffic: MPLS-TP routers are capable of trans-
schemes.
porting GOOSE traffic in a point-to-point or multipoint ser-
2) Network failover switching results: One of the chal- vice (i.e. an E-Line or E-LAN). GOOSE transport has been
lenges in a packet-based network is to maintain symmetrical tested with a service providing bandwidth of 500 kbps. The
delay when the network has to reconfigure in a link failure additional delay due to the network was approximately 20-
situation. In MPLS-TP, this issue is managed by a standardized 40 µs (with a measurement resolution of 20 µs). When the
bidirectional failover switching feature. network is loaded with parallel traffic, there was no noticeable
An optical-to-electronic conversion board has been used to influence when GOOSE traffic was configured as high priority.
electronically create a convenient and repeatable “cut” in a In addition, if GOOSE traffic gets competition from other
single optical fiber, to facilitate the testing of link failures, as traffic in the same class of service, the GOOSE traffic was
illustrated in Fig. 6. This provides a reproducible link failure, still effectively transported due to the strict admission control
compared with manually disconnecting the fiber. After each and traffic engineering of the MPLS-TP platform.
link failure scenario, it was confirmed that asymmetrical delay The Ethernet services can be protected via MPLS-TP in a
remained constant following the failover switching. sub-50 ms failover scheme. Due to specific nature of GOOSE
The benchmark in telecoms networks is to provide backup traffic (i.e. its periodic retransmission requirement), the impact
activation after a failure in the network within 50 ms, similar of the failover switching varies between no impact (when
to SDH/SONET technology. MPLS-TP can guarantee this the network convergence happens in between two GOOSE
protection switching via the standardised automatic protection transmissions) and approximately 64 ms (when the network
switching. However, the tested MPLS-TP equipment can also convergences cause a missing GOOSE message and the IED
protect services in a “hitless” manner. This allows 100% has to wait for the next GOOSE retransmission). Of course,
path protection (sometimes described as “1+1”) for all circuit this behaviour may not be suitable for GOOSE trip messages
emulation services, including IEEE C37.94. Hitless switching which are event-driven, and therefore hitless backup paths
results in a small additional delay associated with the combi- should be provisioned.
nation of the latency of the delay difference between the two Increasing the bandwidth of Ethernet services does not
paths and additional buffering. I.e. to eliminate the impact of cause a shorter delay on the network. This is one of the
 TABLE I
S UMMARY OF TYPICAL RESULTS

Test Service Clocking Time slots TDM frames Jitter buffer Calculated Calculated Measured Measured
type scheme (1-12) per packet size (ms) bandwidth Delay (ms) Delay (ms) Asymmetrical
(Mbps) Delay (ms)

1 CESoPSN Internal 12 1 3 6.98 3.78 3.68 0.38

2 CESoPSN Differential 12 1 3 7.74 3.79 3.63 0.30
3 CESoPSN Adaptive 12 1 3 6.98 3.78 3.57 0.48
4 CESoPSN Internal 12 4 3 2.32 4.67 4.11 0.06
5 CESoPSN Internal 12 1 6 6.98 5.28 5.38 0.18
6 SAToP Internal 12 1 3 8.26 3.00 2.79 0.03

major differences between a packet-based network and a TDM can be realised with differential clocking in combination with
network. In a packet network, speed is based on the QoS hitless switching. When a reliable and redundant clocking
configuration, whereas in TDM networks speed is increased scheme is not possible, an adaptive clocking scheme is a useful
by increasing the bandwidth. alternative when combined with strict admission control and
2) Sampled Values: Sampled Values has been tested with traffic engineering to minimise asymmetrical delay.
different VLAN configurations and service schemes, with a This validation work described in this paper shows that
provisioned service bandwidth of 6 Mbps. An MPLS-TP net- the traffic engineering capabilities and strict guidance of the
work delay of <20 µs has been measured. When the network is management platform, can provide a multiservice backbone
loaded with additional traffic, there is no noticeable influence for present and future critical protection applications.
when traffic engineering is correctly configured and Sampled
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