Ensure MAC Address is unique for all GOOSE Control Blocks

It is important to have unique MAC addresses for each GOOSE Control Block (and even sampled values). The reason being ensuring communication stability. In Helinks STS, MAC addresses are assigned to control blocks after communication configuration and sometimes they are not unique.

The GOOSE control block properties can be found after configuring the communication in the Helinks Communications Editor, in the tab GOOSE Matrix. the picture below shows the MAC addresses for three GOOSE applications and as it shows, they all have the same one.

There are a few ways to change the MAC address for GOOSE control blocks or to make it unique.

One way to change MAC address is to change it for each control block after the communication has been configured.

After Communication Configuration

If the communication is configured already and MAC addresses are not unique, users can change them manually in the Communications Editor for each GOOSE control block. The last picture shows where to find the MAC address. In the same location, under the MAC Address column, simply press on the address filed and edit it to be unique.

It is good practice to change the APPID number too to reflect the last four digits of the MAC address.

Simply just save the project at this point.

During Communication Configuration

After specifying the communication application, they can be configured using the following button labeled: “Set SCL settings from specification“.

The communication configuration settings offers a variety of options in how the communication protocols should be configured. One of these options is changes to the MAC address and APPID for GOOSE and Sampled Values as shown in the picture below:

The GOOSE MAC address can be set to the same as the one from the control block in the Applications option.

The MAC address can be set to be unique for each control block.

Finally, the MAC address can be chosen to be a fixed value in the communication configuration settings. The fixed value is written by the user.

For each choice, by enabling “Recalculate“ the MAC address can be configured to the user’s demands.

As an example, the MAC address is set to be unique and recalculated for applications from three IEDs.

As it can be seen from the picture, the MAC addresses for each control block is unique