Abstract: To deal with the issue of IEC 61850 based configuration method for the distribution automation system（DAS）,this paper analyzes the characteristics of DAS in terms of system structure,control application and engineering scenario which make the configuration process different from the substation automation system（SAS）.The configuration requirements for DAS are presented based on the analysis,including the feeder-oriented granularity,topology information content as well as integration modes for subareas and feeder equipment.Then the neighborhood topology information related to an intelligent electronic device（IED）with both primary connectivity and instantiated communication interfaces concerned is extracted to support the application of distributed control in DAS and as a resultant expression for the configuration content.According to the system configuration descriptive language（SCL）scheme in IEC 61850,the redefined configuration files are produced including modified structure and additional content,consisting of feeder configuration description,neighborhood feeder configuration description,feeder configuration exchange description and IED configuration description,etc.For the typical engineering scenarios of"agroup of IEDs",a reference model of information flow in the first configuration and configuration updating process is put forward.Finally,the configuration mode for DAS featuring from whole to partial,from partial to whole and plug and play is concluded and analyzed with a practical example.