The present disclosure is directed to an exemplary interface description or structure of an inter-bay Substation Automation (SA) application. The interface of the application to other elements of the SA system, for example to a bay controller, IED, OPC server, HMI, and/or gateway, is examined to fully automate the inter-bay SA application configuration and implementation. A formal description or structure of the base SA system as for example, including an IEC 61850 SCD file can be used to generate a formal description of the interfaces of the inter-bay SA application to be engineered. Logical nodes can be connected to the process single line diagram and integrated into the SCD file of the base SA system, thereby generating an enhanced SCD file.