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, Innovation, and E-Tech

The culture of information technology is one of innovation and rapid change. The culture of energy is risk-adverse and slow to change. We need to move from energy to E-Tech to address today’s problems of climate, of security, and of reliability. E-Tech will embrace diversity to customize each solution for each situation. E-Tech will support rapid quick adoption of new technologies. E-tech must not be constrained by the slow adoption of the regulated utilities. E-Tech must be more tolerant of poor power quality. E-Tech must provide better support of digital systems for business and entertainment than do today’s systems.

Today’s energy distribution systems are deeply integrated and intolerant of diversity. Utilities routinely demand new components based on 20 year old technology. SCADA security relies on physical defense of dumb systems. Every decision is made to preserve a static hierarchy of systems from generator to final user.

Tomorrows energy distribution must acknowledge and accept distributed generation and diversity of technology. Every demarcation will potentially support energy flows in either direction. Net energy users will be able to negotiate with different suppliers. Todays presumption of hierarchical control will not support this.

As new technologies hit the market, new sources of energy will appear in a patchwork across the distribution networks. Some of these will be competing brands of existing technologies. Some of these will be radical variants and extensions of existing technologies, perhaps leveraging intelligence or nanotechnology to create something that is qualitatively distinct. Some of these will use whole new approaches to electrical generation, such as the bacterial system I wrote of last fall.

Other approaches will change the way energy is used. Energy storage, conversion, and recycling are all parts of the Net Zero Energy (NZE) building. If some of these approaches create excess energy that can be sold to the grid, our interface should support it. As the price, i.e. scarcity, of electricity grows, a building may wish to redeploy more and more of its energy for sale. It is imaginable that the mix of energy sources inside a building may be unique. It is certain that the mix of energy sources in each building are likely to change over time.

The current models of grid operation will not support these new scenarios. Deep process-oriented integration will be a barrier to rapid innovation. Current assumptions of a paternalistic utility providing all control will not be sustained. New models of loose integration and symmetric interactions are required.

Today, new energy technologies have an additional hurdle to get to market; they must be accepted by the utilities as a proper peer with full process revealed. This can add years to the trip to market. This presents a huge barrier to venture funding of energy project. We must remove that barrier, through adopting service oriented integration and abandoning process integration. When we do, many more energy ventures will be funded. When we do, we will have gone a long way toward making E-Tech as agile and innovative as high tech.

Coordinating Time and Energy

Buildings use 46% of the energy used in North America. Consensus guesses are that buildings could reduce their energy use by a third while improving the amenities they offer, by becoming enterprise-responsive without other change in technology. Clearly the most basic enterprise interaction is what is the schedule for each room, and how many people will be using the room.

The best guesses are that half of the electricity generated each year in the North America is wasted due to poor alignment of generation and consumption. The way to align the behaviors of these two groups, each autonomous, and each with quite different values is price signals. As each price signal, and each energy contract, would include a schedule component, we need a standard way to discuss schedules in web services for power negotiations.

17% of North American generation is used for less than 110 hours per year. Utilities want to manage the consumption patterns using a process they refer to as Demand-Response. Demand Response always has a scheduling component. It would be nice to use the same xml object for buildings, energy markets, and demand response. Add in weather arbitrage for distributed generation and more domains need to share common scheduling information.

So I went looking for a calendar standard for web services I could use. I as surprised not to find one. I am looking for a small "micro-specification" that would not exist on its own, but would be incorporated into other specifications. I call this WS-Calendar. I want to keep WS-Calendar (or whatever) small as I think that we can get it off the ground and completed quickly. oBIX has gotten about half way there, but I fear a component of a control system standard will not be picked up elsewhere (for social reasons).

oBIX needs it because a significant component of enterprise responsiveness is letting building systems easily receive scheduling information from business programs. Most of us regularly invite 7 people and a room to a meeting. If the "room calendar" could inform the building systems to be ready on time, and to ventilate for 8 people, more efficient operations would result. We have all been in conference rooms that are freezing with 4 people in attendance, and sleepy when 15 are in attendance...

There are some remaining issues in such a standard. Do I put my performance contract inside the Calendar (as a meeting is) or outside but within the same payload? Would I refer to one, or several, oBIX contracts from within the Calendar? Could contracts refer to one or several calendar items? It seems to me that the same issues would come up if the calendar was part of a BPEL, or part of OpenADR, or even part of WSDM.

Watch soon for discussion prior to the formation of the WS-Calendar Technical Committee in OASIS. And drop me a line if you want to participate, or if you have other use cases you want to share.

Working with the Wind in Chicago

Chicago has long been known as the windy city, for its promises of its politicians and the quantity of its conventions and conferences. Next week, there will be a lot of wind surrounding the AHR Expo, the largest conference anywhere dedicated to the efficient movement of air, and thereby the biggest energy-related conference of the year. Numerous engineering and energy related conferences and meetings will be in town to take advantage of the more than 50,000 attendees. I, too, will be blowing into town, giving some talks, participating in some meetings, and planning still others. This may be the last time I am in Chicago until March, so drop me a line to schedule a meeting if you want to discuss plans or alignment while I am there.

The GridWise Architectural Council (GWAC) has put together several sessions as part of an AHR conference track explaining the mission of the GridWise Alliance and opportunities created by the smart grid. On Monday, I will speak on academic energy initiatives, their problems, and their promise. Many academic leaders have signed the American College and University President’s Climate Initiative, committing their institutions to change how their schools are operated in ways that are verifiable and repeatable. Unfortunately, these efforts often are characterized more by proper feelings than by proper actions, and the results are often poor. Examples abound of efforts such as the Oberlin College Lewis Center, designed to be a net zero building, yet actually producing poor performance for years before retrofits finally delivered on its promise. Other green initiatives, including some at the University of North Carolina, have made performance worse. Efforts that address only new buildings using new standards without providing for cost effective inclusion existing buildings will have little effect.

This session will provide an overview of the initiative and its participants. I will discuss existing and developing standards for making building operations and energy use visible beyond the confines of the traditional campus maintenance and operations organization. I will describe efforts to make building operations responsive to the academic and research activities, and how these actions interact with growing campus concerns over security and emergency awareness. A clear understanding of these issues is needed for any college and university to meet these goals. A clear understanding of the problems and developing standards will help the energy professional compete and perform better in this market. These same knowledge and skills apply to the challenges of new national energy initiatives and will help the professional respond to anticipated Obama federal infrastructure programs.

On Tuesday, also at the AHR show, I will be teaming up with Ken Sinclair, editor of the Automated Buildings e-zine, to aim a little farther out. We will discuss the vision of interactive buildings as full participants in the smart grid. Building-to-Grid (B2G) interactions will create whole new business models outside buildings. Developing communication standards between building and grid will make the economic consequences of each operating decision visible. These communications will be critical to the development of Net Zero Energy (NZE) buildings. Economic service interactions will create new markets for building-based equipment and new models for building system integration. Come to this session to learn what these new markets will look like, and how today’s system designs are changing to prepare for them.

On Wednesday and Thursday, I will join a couple of Department of Energy (DOE) summits on the new standards. Wednesday afternoon, the B2G Summit will bring together an impressive group of thought leaders in technology and policy to brief the HVAC and BAS industry on the business opportunities from the smart grid. The conversations between and after sessions at the Summit are always as informative and useful as the sessions. On Thursday, the DOE Commercial Building Energy Alliances have announced their own summit for HVAC, Refrigeration, and Controls Suppliers. The summit will focus on retrofitting existing buildings. The summit will address all products related to energy efficiency in buildings, except for lighting. Drop me a line if you want to catch up with me at either of these events or to schedule a discussion on how these standards might work into your plants.

The activity I am personally most excited by, however, is meetings to plan GridEcon. GridEcon will explore the economic and market requirements of the smart grid. None of the smart technologies I write about will be adopted without a firm basis in economics and markets. The primary benefit of informational interoperability in building systems and in smart energy systems will be the creation of dynamic markets, markets that reduce technological friction and reward innovation. GridEcon will take advantage of the great Chicago-based markets in commodities and weather, and of the technologists behind their trading systems, to help create the market rules we will need. Watch for future announcements of this conference which will be in Chicago in mid-March.

See you in the Windy City!