Abstract: The present disclosure is concerned with a validation of a configuration description of automated devices in a power network such as a Substation Automation (SA) system, or of a part or component thereof such as an individual Intelligent Electronic Device (IED), that is extended beyond the mere XML schema validation as provided by the known SCL-validation tools. In particular, the disclosure introduces machine-based validation of notations, requirements and/or conventions to be respected by the configuration description and/or the SA system, but not incorporated in or represented by the standardized syntax of the XML schema as defined in part 6 of the IEC 61850 standard. To this end, notations, requirements and/or conventions are initially converted into, or defined as, extended or augmented rules encoded in computer readable format.