The growing number of Distributed Energy
Resource (DER) deployments in Electrical Networks (ENs) have
significant impacts on existing networks. In an effort to control
these impacts, it is proposed to divide them into more
manageable smaller sets which are called ‘microgrids’. Unlike
conventional utility grids, microgrids include generators, storage
devices and loads at all levels of the system. Power generation,
distribution and consumption levels are not discrete and power
flow may occur at any direction. Furthermore, some microgrids
may have changing structures with alternative paths and the
coupling point for a device or a part of the microgrid may change
due to the altering conditions. In order to sustain a safe operation
in such a versatile and dynamic structure, which has numerous
parameters and variables (data) to be monitored, communicated
and controlled, a new management strategy with extensive
communication capability is required. The need of extensive
communication between the microgrid components is widely
accepted in the Power Engineering field. In an effort to
standardize the communication methods and the data to be
communicated, the IEC 61850 standard is issued by
International Electrotechnical Commission. Currently, there are
studies underway to extend this standard with IEC 61850-7-420
so that DERs can also be modeled in a standard way. This paper
focuses on the review of IEC 61850-7-420 and its implementation
for DER modeling. It also proposes an extension for devices with
fault current limiters, a feature not previously included in the
existing published standards