Standards Roadmap for the Smart Grid (SGIX) (v2)

Thanks for all those comments on my earlier post. I have updated the work and am re-posting.

The smart grid is more than improved top down control; it is a grid ready for unreliable energy sources (such as wind, waves, and sun), distributed generation, and Net Zero Energy (NZE) buildings. NZE buildings sometimes buy energy, sometimes sell energy, and energy use balances out over the day, season, or year. The NZE building presents particular problems as it may switch from buying energy one minute, and selling energy the next. Plug-in electric vehicles, whether hybrid or not, present the challenges similar to those of NZE buildings, with the added complexity of mobility. The smart grid requires distributed decision making, distributed responsibility for reliability, and easy interoperability to integrate an ever-changing mix of technologies.

The smart grid will be transactional, with each decision to buy or sell power a separate transaction at a separate price. The price of these transactions will vary dynamically, as a live energy market determines the clearing price at each moment for each sale or purchase. The smart grid will be open and transparent, wherein consumers can choose what kind of power to buy, and providers can prove that they are selling the kind of power they promise.

Alex Levinson of Lockheed Martin has named the suite of standards we will need for the smart grid as Smart Grid Information Exchange (SGIX). What follows is a personal view of a dynamic roadmap of the standards that comprise SGIX.

• SG Pricing: Price is more than a number. If I ask you if prices are up or down at the store, the answer is not “7”. It is not “Tomatoes are $3.00.” The price is “$3.57 per pound for the organic vine-ripened greenhouse heritage Cherokee tomatoes.” Each buyer can choose which attributes affect their purchase decision. I may choose to buy the cheapest tomatoes. I may choose to buy only organic. I may grudgingly choose the most expensive because they are the only ones in the store. SG Pricing will flow throughout the system—a model known as Prices to Devices. Under prices to devices, each system within a home or building may make its own decisions based upon budget and priority. I will be able to choose to run the fountain in front of my office only when wind power is available and below a certain price. SG-Pricing will be part of the SG Energy Market Information Exchange TC.
• SG Metering: This is a simple standard of energy flows by time slice. It also includes direction, as power may flow one way for a time, and then the other in a distributed world. To achieve transparent clearing markets, SG-Metering report what amount of what kind of power was purchased at what price at what time. If my neighbor and I buy the same amount of power at the same time, we may pay different prices because we may have made different decisions on how to buy. I may owe to my utility or to my neighbor for that purchase of solar power. SG-Transaction is in effect the accounting journal entry for each purchase or sale of energy.
• SG Energy Market Information Exchange: There is some bidding and exchange of information in advance. In my mind, this looks somewhat like commodity markets for those who want to participate. It includes elements of weather arbitrage. It includes time and reliability. It includes all of the elements of price. SG-EMIE will be developed in the Energy Market Information Exchange TC.
• UnitsML: UnitsML offers an unambiguous way to describe all physical measurements, and an unambiguous ability for a computer to look up the translation of any units of measure to any other units. SG-Pricing, SG-Transaction, and Energy Market Information Exchange will use UnitsML. UnitsML is an existing OASIS committee which will need some assistance and wider participation to complete.
• WS-Calendar: We all use ICALENDAR (IETF RFC 2445, http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2445.txt) to unambiguously exchange information about time intervals. You used it the last time you clicked on an email attachment and suddenly had a meeting on your personal calendar. We need the same functionality standardized for web services. We will use it as part of pricing, and weather predictions, building management, and other decisions. WS-Calendar will be developed outside the SG effort as its anticipated uses extend into many business interactions.
• Digital Weather Markup Language (DWML): DWML is an existing specification developed by NOAA. NOAA offers a web service to which one can submit a longitude and latitude and receive in reply a DWML forecast. Most forward forward-looking energy markets are based on assumptions about weather. Most historical analysis of energy use includes recalling the weather environment. The most successful energy middleman base their business on understanding microclimates. We need to define a DWML profile for reporting as well as forecasting, to enable the exchange of actual conditions as well as forecasts. Such a profile would be used when querying local weather stations and even personal weather systems. Such a standard should include UnitsML (for internationalization) as well as time (WS-Calendar). We should encourage NOAA to develop the DWML specification into a standard; DWML also is of interest to the Emergency Response community.
• WS-DD and WS-DP: Device discovery and device profiles have been used in computer networking for some time. Device Discovery lets you find all printers on the network. Device profiles let you decide which printer to use when you want color duplexing. These functions are being standardized for the web. Schneider, one of the largest conglomerates providing systems for the grid and building is looking at providing WS DD and WS DP for all the equipment it sells. I think it will have a big role in the future world of distributed generation and Net Zero Energy facilities.
• SG Energy Interoperability: I envision this as a short, light, exchange of the information we need to plug technologies together without knowing the details. I see it as smaller than, but perhaps derived from, ISO-61850. It includes some basic safety information. It includes estimates of reliability and capacity. It may include some of the “price attributes” (Am I a source of carbon-credit eligible power?). SG Energy Interoperability includes critical Demand Response, i.e., non-market emergency curtailment of energy. A draft of the Energy Interoperability TC Charter is attached.
• SG-Load Control: The OASIS standard oBIX offers an extensible WS framework for communication with building control systems. OBIX defined a concept of Contracts, used to define higher level interactions. The ASHRAE BACnet Load Control Object offers a model for building systems to report on their energy use, to negotiate responsiveness, and to make load shedding agreements. SG-Load Control would build on the BACnet model to define a web service standards for contacts as defined by oBIX
• SG Telemetry: What is going on on the grid, and where is it failing. I recommend that we apply the watches, trends, and messages of oBIX into this critical area.
• SG Remote Operation: This one may be a literal transform from the ISO 61850 standard for substation communications. To the extent that SG Remote Operation moves into web services, it should apply interaction patterns and data models of oBIX.
• SG Curtailment. Sometimes, no matter how you plan, stuff happens. The daily temperature is 5 degrees warmer than expected. The turbine seizes. A truck drives into the transmission tower. Shed load NOW! Prices and markets for curtailment have been evolving rapidly; perhaps this addresses the grid integrity issues more directly. SG-Curtailment is part of the deliverable of the Energy Interoperability TC.
• SG Quality Of Service (SG-QOS): Participants in the smart grid must exchange information about reliability and performance. QOS information must be exchanged both as a promise and as a result. We may be able to adapt the Business Process QOS (BQOS) work from the EERP TC
• SG CyberSecurity: Security issues need to be integrated within every TC from the beginning—and not merely a veneer layered on after the fact. We need a separate security toolkit/framework, perhaps a profile from current fine-grained security standards, key management, and related areas. SG Telemetry may be an area to start defining so the broader integration of physical security, fine-grained networking and commercial security, and situation awareness technologies can be brought to bear.

Keep those comments and suggestions coming...

Why do we need all these smart meters?

Why do we need all these smart meters – so someone asked over at GreenTechMedia. We can run the grid with far fewer, and it will cost less. Why do we need these complicated protocols when we only need a price and a use? This perspective is correct; it is good engineering unencumbered with vision. This perspective is wrong; we cannot build tomorrow by doing what we day just a little bit better. Without pervasive metering, LEEDs and Green Buildings will remain a sham. Smart utility meters are only the first step.

Peter Drucker is still the most important and most visionary of thinkers about business and organizations. Drucker’s work ranged from identifying the long term sources of GM’s problems in 1942 to coining the term knowledge worker in the 1980’s. There are very few writers in this field whose work is more than a fad or a fashion. Few are worth re-reading. Drucker’s work is still relevant – even in the post DotCom world.. (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_gw?url=search-alias%3Daps&field-keywords=Peter+Drucker).

Drucker fans are prone to invoking the pithy statements that sprinkled his work. My favorite Druckerism is "There is nothing quite so meaningless as doing well that which need not be done at all." There are many opportunities to invoke it at a state university where process often trumps any actual goals.

If we are creating a smart grid merely to meet the needs of the existing regulated market structures, much metering is not worthwhile. There are some limited benefits in peak management that accrue to the traditional utilities. There are few incentives for energy users to change, because benefits come to the diligent and free riders equally.  It is not worthwhile to have well-implemented smart meters everywhere if their interfaces are only for the power provider.

The real opportunity of the smart grid is its ability to work with more business models then the current top down reliable far-away power for dumb buildings and homes. The smart grid will support a network of power, with a network of new business opportunities for technology to insert itself into the energy chain.

Alternative Energy changes the grid because it is unreliable. If any significant amount of power on the grid comes from unreliable sources, we will have more peak energy events, when demand exceeds supply, per day than we now have per year. Distributed energy means that the neighborhood wind farm is now a full peer on the grid. Net Zero Energy means your dishwasher might bid against the grid for the output of your solar panel.

The smart grid offers choice. Homes and business will choose what power they buy, and they will want the smart grid to leave audit trails that they actually are getting it. A decade ago, supermarkets laughed at the idea that a significant number of consumers would choose more expensive groceries. Today, Whole Foods has transformed that industry and nearly every chain offers an organic produce section.

Why, you may even buy conventional reliable power to run your business but tell the fountain out front to run only when it can buy wave power. You may agree to pay a slight premium for your neighbors wind power when he is on vacation to keep his system working. We, or our software agents, will be active market participants in the national smart grid, in regional smart grids, in neighborhood smart grids, and even in in-building grids.

More metering, and more functional metering is worthwhile. Minimally functional metering is merely a way to reduce meter reading, not a step to the smart grid. And so, a final Druckerism: “We need to Measure, not Count.”

What Standards do we need for the Smart Grid (SGIX)

As I do periodically, I have been thinking about what standards we need for the smart grid. The smart grid is more than improved top-down control, it is a grid ready for unreliable energy sources (such as wind, waves, and sun), distributed generation, and net zero energy buildings. Net zero energy buildings are particularly troublesome because from minute to minute, they may be buy power or selling power. The smart grid will be transactional, with each purchase of energy at a market clearing price. The smart grid will be open and transparent, wherein consumers can choose what kind of power to buy, and providers can prove that they are selling the kind of power they promise.

Earlier this week, Alex Levinson referred to the suite of standards we will need for the smart grid as Smart Grid Information Exchange (SGIX). So what are the standards we need for SGIX?

• SG Pricing: Price is more than a number. If I ask you if prices are up or down at the store, the answer is not “7”. It is not “Tomatoes are $3.00.” The price is “$3.57 per pound for the organic vine-ripened greenhouse heritage Cherokee tomatoes.” Each buyer can choose which attributes affect their purchase decision. I may choose to buy the cheapest tomatoes. I may choose to buy only organic. I may grudgingly choose the most expensive because they are the only ones in the store. And I will be able to choose to run the fountain in front of my office only when wind power is available and below a certain price.
• SG Transaction: I buy what I buy at the time that I buy it. That transaction may be different because of my price decisions than what my neighbor is buying at the same time. I may owe for that purchase of solar power to my utility or to my neighbor.
• SG Market Operations: There is some bidding and exchange of information in advance. In my mind, this looks somewhat like commodity markets for those who want to participate. It includes elements of weather arbitrage. It includes time and reliability. It includes all of the elements of price. I am looking forward to GridEcon in March to begin the discussions on SG Market Operations.
• UnitsML: UnitsML offers an unambiguous way to describe all physical measurements, and an unambiguous ability for a computer to look up the translation of any units of measure to any other units. I think UnitsML will be part of pricing and market operations
• WS Calendar: We all use ICALENDAR to unambiguously exchange information about time intervals. You used it the last time you clicked on an email attachment and suddenly had a meeting on your personal calendar. We need the same functionality standardized for web services. We will use it as part of pricing, and weather predictions, and other decisions.
• WeatherML v2: I don’t actually know what version WeatherML is on – but it is not usable. Most forward looking energy markets are based on assumptions about weather. Most historical analysis of energy use includes recalling the weather environment. The most successful energy middleman base their business on understanding microclimates. We need a standard way to report weather information, in whatever detail is available, from forecasters, local weather stations, personal weather systems. Such a standard should include UnitsML (for internationalization) as well as time (WS-Calendar) and probabilities (for forecasts).
• SG Interoperation: I envision this as a short, light, exchange of the information we need to plug technologies together without knowing the details. I see it as smaller than, but perhaps derived from, ISO-61850. It includes some basic safety information. It includes estimates of reliability and capacity. It may include some of the “price attributes” (Am I a source of carbon-credit eligible power?).
• SG Metering: This is a simple standard of energy flows by time slice. It also includes direction, as power may flow one way for a time, and then the other in a distributed world.
• oBIX: The web service standard for technology-agnostic operation or distributed control systems could well have a place Remote Operation and Telemetry.
• SG Telemetry: What is going on on the grid, and where is it failing.
• WS DD and WS DP: Device discovery and device profiles have been used in computer networking for some time. Device Discovery lets you find all printers on the network,. Device profiles let you decide which printer to use when you want color duplexing. These functions are being standardized for the web. Schneider, one of the largest conglomerates providing systems for the grid and building is looking at providing WS DD and WS DP for all the equipment it sells. I think it will have a big role in the future world of distributed generation and net zero energy.
• SG Remote Operation: This one may be a literal transform from the ISO 61850 standard for substation communications.

Have I missed any partis of SGIX?

Update on 2009-02-27 11:56 by Toby Considine

There is nothing like publishing to make your spelling errors and your ommissions come to light. Some things I left out:

• SG Curtailment. Sometimes, no matter how you plan, stuff happens. The daily temperature is 5 degrees warmer than expected. The tubine throws a spandrel. A truck drives into the tramission tower. Shed load NOW!
• SG QOS: Somehow we have to exchange information about Quality of Service, both as a promise, and as a result. I hear hints that we may be able to find QOS communication standards in another standard. Perhaps one of my readers can suggest a pointer...

Energy Interoperability Standards: Smart Buildings, Smart Grid

Earlier this month, Bill Cox of Cox Software Architects proposed the formation of standard committee for Energy Interoperability at OASIS. The core of the proposed work is the definition of XML and Web services interactions for so-called Automated Demand Response, growing out of work at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory Demand Response Research Center. The proposal comes from the context of many discussions in and related to the OpenADR Technical Advisory Group, GridWise Architecture Council, Grid-Interop, the NIST Smart Grid project, and GridEcon (an upcoming conference on the economics of the Smart Grid - http://www.gridecon.com/ ).

The UCAIug, whose members are largely utilities and their suppliers, is an identified source of requirements, goals, data models and comments. Before chartering, the committee wishes to identify other stakeholders with other perspectives. Collaboration with other groups of stakeholders is actively being sought. Other stakeholders include energy market makers, Independent System Operators, and policy and regulatory groups.

Smart buildings are critical to the success of energy interoperability. Owners and integrators of smart buildings are invited to participate. The proposed committees work will be particularly important to those working on Net Zero Energy (NZE) buildings.

The proposed work offers a path to national and perhaps international markets for energy-responsive systems. Today, such communications are balkanized and suppliers must re-develop all core functionality for each state. A national standard is expected to speed innovation and adoption of new E-Tech products.

The original proposal can be found at http://lists.oasis-open.org/archives/smartgrid-discuss/200902/msg00007.html To join the smartgrid-discuss@lists.oasis-open.org list, send email to smartgrid-discuss-subscribe@lists.oasis-open.org. There is no commitment to join OASIS or participate in a technical committee.

The discussion is part of a broader effort within OASIS to apply applying the standards and methods of e-commerce to new energy. You can read about this effort, known as OASIS Blue, at http://www.oasis-open.org/resources/white-papers/blue/.

For information or inquiries about either the Energy Interoperability committee or about OASIS Blue, contact me.