What protection engineers need to know about networking

The communications infrastructure of the electric grid has been evolving rapidly in the last decades due to the need for transporting ever more sophisticated information, both data and control. More recently Ethernet based networks have been added into the picture, as modern relays need to communicate with control and dispatch centers and centralized management systems over local and wide area networks. Notably, the need to support IEC 61850 standards encouraged relay vendors into speeding up the development of Ethernet as a preferred method of communication.