There may not have been two phrases that garnered much more buzz in 2009 than “smart grid” and “cloud computing.” They have a lot in common too. Both refer to a collection of technologies that few people understand in depth. Both are understood to refer to forward looking, game changing technologies. And both have the potential to change the paradigms of their respective industries. Only one of the technologies (that would be cloud computing) is truly consumer focused at this time and although smart grid aspires to be a consumer focused technology it will likely have to piggy back on the cloud to get there.
What does a smart grid enabled future look like? And what does it mean for customers? In this video, Duke Energy offers a look. It was shot on location at the company’s Envision Center near Cincinnati, Ohio.
The following document was prepared by the U.S. Department of Energy and is available at their website – http://www.oe.energy.gov/smartgrid.htm
From the introduction – “This document is designed to capture key questions posed by stakeholders concerning implementation of smart grids. These perspectives were compiled during a series of discussions among members of the Smart Grid Stakeholder Roundtable Group.”
After two and half months and over 1000 participants in two Smart Grid workshops, EPRI finally submitted their 1.6 million dollar report to NIST full of challenges, ambiguity about handling un-interoperable standards, and most importantly “the train has left the station – SMART Grid deployment are in progress” and EPRI had not concrete solution to this issue.
Nevertheless the report is very well written and covers all aspects and challenges facing the creation of Interoperable Smart Grid technology.
In April 2009 NIST announced a 3-phase plan to fast-track the development of consensus on an initial suite of Smart Grid standards while establishing a robust framework for the longer-term development and evolution of additional standards. By year-end 2009, after engaging utilities, equipment suppliers, trade organizations, consumers, and others, NIST plans to:
1.Publish a report that documents stakeholder consensus on: the Smart Grid architecture, standardization priorities for securing and assuring the interoperability of Smart Grid components, an initial set of standards (Smart Grid Release 1), and a roadmap for addressing remaining standards needs.
2.Launch a formal public-private partnership to coordinate and facilitate development and evolution of additionally needed standards; and
3. Develop an overall plan for testing and certification to ensure that Smart Grid devices and systems conform to standards for both cyber security and interoperability.
Comments can be submitted electronically to smartgridcomments@nist.gov or by mail to: George Arnold, 100 Bureau Drive, Stop 8100, National Institute of Standards and Technology, Gaithersburg, MD 20899-8100.
If you have missed the IEEE P2030 meeting at Santa Clara on June 3 through the 5th and would like to have access to the information, you can watch the video of Task Group 1 about Power Engineering delivered by Sam Sciacco.
At the Churchill Club’s 11th Annual Top Ten Tech Trends, venture capitalists discuss whether the smart grid and smart meter trends will continue to produce innovation and what the motivating factors will be.
The first meeting of the P2030 working group is being held on June 3–5, 2009, in Santa Clara, CA. Intel Corporation has volunteered to host this P2030 inaugural meeting.Meeting Notice/Agenda
The NIST Roadmap II meeting on May 20th addressed “Customer Service”
Out of 600+ people, only 7 attended the Customer Service breakout!
Utilities have a fundamental mission to provide safe, secure, and reliable electricity to their customers
Generally, utilities (wires companies) are regulated, limiting market-based financial benefits which are largely weather-driven.
The physics of electricity follow natural laws, not man-made laws.
A major focus of utilities is asset-protection, balanced with outage prevention/amelioration.
Utilities would prefer an end-to-end Smart Grid, not pockets of intelligence.
The vendors generally expect market-based profits, and often do not appreciate that the utility must serve all customer segments the same (at least in the current regulatory environment).
Since significant Smart Grid costs will generally need to be approved by Regulators and passed through to customers, then Smart Grid systems need to be deployed at the pace of value.
The NIST Roadmap II meeting on May 20th resulted in many findings and reports. The PHY, MAC & Network Group cross cutting session addressed many issues and published their findings.
The NIST Roadmap II meeting on May 20th delivered many reports.
The Business, Markets & Policy Group cross cutting session addressed many issues and delivered several reports based on the workgroup discussions. Some of the policy and business issues were:
Three points:
1. Why interoperability standards -
- you define the functionality of the smart grid
- helps define universe of participants – the more broadly its written, the more that can participate
- a lot of how 3rd parties participate depend on how the standards are set
- sets a regulatory construct for how to evaluate smart grid decisions – need a definition; having standards puts everything in context
2. What do standards need to do/what ARE interoperability standards
- need to facilitate development of a smart grid; need to facilitate the growth of a smart grid; for instance, what version of a smart grid can we make with what we have right now. How do we get those standards to get us to the standards we want.
3. How should they be implemented?
- start from in-place standards first of all; from a regulator’s point of view, certain exist due to market structure. NASB; for AMI, OpenAMI task force. 1547. these are starting points. Distributed generation also; UL labs, these are groups that are already doing this.
The NIST Smart Grid Workshop II meeting on May 19th and 20th resulted in various findings by the each specific workgroup. The Grid Operation Group cross cutting session has identified existing applicalable standards and gaps. the below file contains the power point and worksheets with their finding on each of the standards and its application as it related to requirements such as time synchronization, encryption, and cyber security.
The NIST Smart Grid Workshop II meeting on May 19th and 20th resulted in various findings by the each specific workgroup.
The Cyber Security Group cross cutting session has addressed standards and its application as it related to requirements such as time user secuurity and authentication, roaming Electric vehicle and many other issues
