Standards Development

Scope

IEC 61850-8-3 defines the direct mapping of the ACSI communication models and client/server services defined in IEC 61850-7-2 to an optimized and efficient ASN.1 message schema. An ACSI service becomes a (message) type with the same name (defined as an ASN.1 schema).

IEC 61850-7-2 defines a comprehensive and detailed set of abstract communication service models and services. The functions of the service models (for example the state-machines of report control blocks) in combination with the services (messages) shall be applied to complement this part IEC 61850-8-3. The implementation of IEC 61850-8-3 shall always be done in conjunction with IEC 61850-7-2 (ACSI).

NOTE 1 The application of a service model and its services needs to implement (a subset) of the definitions in IEC 61850-7-2 AND IEC 61850-8-3. The details of how the service models work (procedures and state-machines in the ACSI) are not repeated in IEC 61850-8-3. One has to read and understand both documents. IEC 61850-8-3 makes the ACSI implementable with an easy direct message definition.

The encoding of the messages according to IEC 61850-8-3 shall use the text based ASN.1 JER (JSON Encoding Rule, ISO/IEC 8825-8:2021) or the binary ASN.1DER (Distinguished Encoding Rule, ISO/IEC 8825-1:2021). During the development and test phases of an application it is recommended to use ASN.1 JER, because it is easier to analyse the exchanged messages. Once the application is finally tested and stable, switching to ASN.1 DER reduces the needed bandwidth for messages drastically.

The ASN.1 JER combines the advantages of the popular JSON data format and the benefits of ASN.1. ASN.1 schemas are easy to read and can be used to validate regular JSON messages. ASN.1 endpoints can communicate with JSON endpoints (the encoding of primitive types matches the encoding of JSON messages), etc. JER enables ASN.1 users to easily debug and troubleshoot an ASN.1 based protocol.

The messages are exchanged using the WebSocket protocol (IETFRFC 6455, The WebSocket Protocol). WebSocket is a communication protocol that enables a persistent, full-duplex communication channel over a single TCP connection, allowing both the client and server to send data to each other at any time. This differs from the standard HTTP request-response model, making it ideal for real-time applications.

This standard is mainly intended for the real-time information exchange between control-centers of DSOs (Distribution System Operators) and, e.g. a huge number of modern (web-based) control devices in Distributed Energy Resources (PV, DER, Wind, …).

NOTE 2 Real-time in the context of IEC 61850-8-3 means Transfer Times TT1 and TT2 (measured in ms) according to IEC 61850-5:

TT1 500 < t ≤ 1 000 Events, alarms TT2 100 < t ≤ 500 Operator commands

This new section is mandatory for any IEC 61850 (all parts) namespace (as defined by IEC 61850-7-1).

The parameters which identify this new release of this namespace are:

–        Namespace Version: 2026

–        Namespace Revision: A

Namespace name: "IEC 61850-8-3:xxxx"

Edition Publication date Webstore Namespace                                

The Code Component included in this IEC standard are also available as electronic machine readable file at:   http://www.iec.ch/tc57/supportdocuments/IEC 61850-8-3.xxxx.NSD.xxxx.full.ziphttp://www.iec.ch/tc57/supportdocuments/IEC 61850-8-3.xxxx.NSD.xxxx.light.zip

http://www.iec.ch/tc57/supportdocuments/IEC61850-8-3_NSD.full.2026-07-31.asn

The Code Component will be available in full version:

–        Full version will contain definition of the whole types and functional constrains defined in this standard.

The Code Components for IEC 61850 (all parts) data models (like the mapping of the control service parameter in this IEC standard) are available as the file format NSD defined by standard IEC 61850-7-7.

NOTE The core of this IEC standard is an electronic machine readable format for the protocol syntax (message schema) defined using the ASN.1 notation. This ASN.1 module is (in conjunction with an ASN.1 encoding rule JER (JSON) or DER (binary) the direct base for message encoding and decoding.

The Code Component included in this IEC standard are potentially subject to maintenance works and user shall select the latest release in the repository located at:   http://www.iec.ch/tc57/supportdocuments

The latest version/release of the document will be found by selecting the file IEC 61850-8-3.xxxx.NSD.{VersionStateInfo}.full.zip with the filled VersionStateInfo of the highest value.

Each Code Component is a ZIP package containing the electronic representation of the Code Component itself, with a file describing the content of the package (IECManifest.xml).

The IECManifest contains different sections giving information on:

–        The copyright notice

–        The identification of the code component

–        The publication related to the code component

–        The list of the electronic files which compose the code component

–        An optional list of history files to track changes during the evolution process of the code component

The IECManifest related to this publication is:

<insert manifest>

The package is identified using the following naming rule:

{RefStandard}.{CodeComponentName}.{VersionRevision}.{LightFull}{PublicationStage}.zip For current publication, the Code Component package name is:

IEC 61850-8-3.xxxx.NSD.xxxx.full.zip

The life cycle of a code component is not restricted to the life cycle of the related publication. The publication life cycle goes through two stages, Version (corresponding to an edition) and Revision (corresponding to an amendment). A third publication stage (Release) allow publication of Code Component without need to publish an amendment.

This is useful when InterOp Tissues need to be fixed. Then a new release of the Code Component will be released, which supersedes the previous release, and distributed through the IEC TC57 web site.