IEEE Updates Standard for Control & Protection

Whether they know it or not, every control and protection engineer uses the IEEE C37.2 standard. In continuous use since 1928, this vital standard has been updated multiple times, but the 2008 update takes it further than ever before.

Revised for the first time since 1996, IEEE C37.2-2008?, "IEEE Standard Electrical Power System Device Function Numbers, Acronyms and Contact Designations" continues to include the concept of device numbers 1 through 99 for substation control and protection devices, which have become the accepted short-hand for control and protection engineers. This most recent revision also includes 17 acronyms for new functions never previously covered by the standard, as well as a method of describing the intra-substation communication systems now in common usage.

The newly added function numbers and acronyms cover topics such as arc fault detection, high impedance fault detection, human machine interface, communications devices, digital fault and sequence of event recorders, power quality recorders, substation time sources and synchrophasor devices.