Engineering for Success

About This Session

As utilities invest in digital substations, the engineering approach becomes just as important as the equipment itself. Today’s bottom-up engineering methods often rely on per-vendor tools, disconnected workflows, and repetitive manual steps, slowing projects and creating inconsistencies. IEC 61850 introduces a powerful alternative: a structured top-down engineering process that enables standardization, reusability, and clear system-wide documentation.

In this webinar, we will walk through the IEC 61850 Engineering Process as described in IEC 61850-4 and 61850-6, explore the limitations of today’s bottom-up workflows, and showcase real-world benefits through Southern Company’s pilot digital substation example.

The session will conclude with a live demonstration using the Helinks STS System Engineering Tool, showing exactly how top-down engineering works in practice — from substation design to templates to SCD integration.

If you’re exploring digital substations or looking to modernize your 61850 engineering workflow, this webinar will give you a clear, practical roadmap.

The IEC 61850 engineering process is the backbone of modern digital substations. Utilities that adopt structured, top-down engineering are seeing dramatic improvements in standardization, speed, testability, and cross-vendor interoperability. This webinar gives you the foundations, real examples, and a hands-on demonstration to help you begin applying the process in your own organization.

What You'll Learn:

1. Why Today’s Bottom-Up Engineering Falls Short

• How traditional workflows rely on multiple IED Configuration Tools (ICTs) without a unifying engineering process.
• The inefficiencies of repeated CID exchanges and inconsistent signal mapping.
• Why multi-vendor environments struggle without a central SCD-driven approach.

2. The IEC 61850 Engineering Process

• An overview of the structured engineering process defined in IEC 61850-4 Ed2.1.
• How the System Configuration Tool (SCT) becomes the integration point for communications, datasets, GOOSE, SV, and reports.
• How a single SCD file enables consistent engineering, documentation, and testing across vendors.

3. Templating for Speed and Repeatability

• How bay templates, GOOSE scheme templates, and Sampled Values templates accelerate design.
• Why the template concept is key to building standardized, scalable digital substations.
• How templates reduce engineering rework across an entire fleet.

A guided demonstration showing how top-down engineering is performed using the Helinks System Engineering Tool, including:

• Creating the substation structure
• Assigning functions and applications
• Engineering communication and data exchange
• Building templates for reuse
• Exporting the resulting SCD for downstream IED configuration

This demo will bring the engineering process to life and show how the workflow looks in a modern IEC 61850 tool.

5. Why Top-Down Engineering Is a Better Way

• One SCD file to manage, rather than multiple vendor-specific configurations.
• Easier testing and simulation workflows, including automated population of test tools.
• Clear, consistent documentation used throughout design, testing, and commissioning.
• Reduced back-and-forth effort across tools, teams, and vendors.

• Protection and control engineers
• Substation design and automation engineers
• System integrators and EPCs
• Utility engineering managers
• Anyone moving toward digital substations or modernizing their 61850 workflows

Series Information

This is Part 5 of a multipart training series. If you'd like to receive updates on future modules, Join the Notification List 

If you missed the earlier sessions or would like to catch up, you can view Part 1,  Part 2,  Part 3 and Part 4 on our IEC 61850 Training Series page. Both include companion exercises and live demo recordings.

Don't Miss Out!

Join industry experts and peers for this comprehensive training on IEC 61850 communications.