The paper investigates the huge potential of IEC 61850 communication protocol to impact the design, operation, testing, and performance of modern substations. The opportunities embedded in the approach, features, and scope of IEC 61850 communication standards to develop cost effective and efficient SASs is explored in depth. It has been identified that the standard begins a new era for the design and operation of Ethernet communication based distributed substation application that cannot be achieved with legacy communication protocols.