OpenSCD was initially developed at OMICRON out of a need for a tool to improve IEC 61850 System Configuration Description (SCD) files.
Many SCD files lacked information about the substation structure and the conducting equipment, which is stored in the substation section. To improve the understanding of the context and the efficiency of working with these data, the information in the substation section had to be added or augmented. This would be doable with most SCL tools provided by vendors, but these are not always easily available for occasional users, who are not doing IEC 61850 engineering full-time.
When the initial feature set for improving SCD files was implemented, OpenSCD was made Open-Source to become developed further by new stakeholders.