Smart Grid Interoperability Standards: Overview and

Smart Grid Interoperability Standards:Overview and Regulatory QuestionsPresentation to the OEB Smart Grid Advisory Committee

Edward Arlitt, Independent Electricity System Operator (IESO)

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Premise of this presentation

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• Smart grid interoperability standards presents familiar questions to regulators, that are not unique to the electricity industry: • Why regulate?• How to regulate?• How much to regulate?

• This slide deck is not intended to supply recommendations, but rather provide an overview to various approaches and options for the smart grid interoperability question.

Part 1 – The (sometimes contradictory) Lessons of History

“Break of Gauge on the Great Western Railway”The joys of transferring between rail gauges, Gloucester, 1843

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Image source: Wikipedia

Lessons of History

Sometimes it’s too late for standards…

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Images source: IEC

Lessons of History (cont’d)

Sometimes it’s too early for standards…


Standards won’t protect you from obsolescence…

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2007:World’s most popular handset

2012:World’s most popular handset

(what a difference 5 years can make!)


Sometimes it’s the standards that become obsolete…

7e.g. 25 Hz to 60 Hz conversionImage sources: Brock University and technology.niagarac.on.ca


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Sometimes multiple regulatory jurisdictions adopt different standards for the same thing…

Image sources: Wikipedia

Part 2 – “Why?”

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9Image source: Belkin

The promise of interoperability standards

“Smart homes will improve the lives of Ontarians. Served by a marketplace that provides the tools, information, and incentives, consumers will be easily able to make intelligent energy choices that are in their interest. In the process, they will provide valued services to the electricity grid and benefit society.”Ontario Smart Grid Forum Report, ,2011

The arguments for Smart Grid Standards

• The supporting arguments for regulatory backstop/enforcement pretty much follow the same themes as other industries:

– Competition and choice: e.g.: opening markets for smart homes and services, wider range of products for Ontario utilities

– Safety: e.g.: electrical and fire codes, cyber-security, etc.

– Privacy: e.g.: third party access to smart metering data, Ontario Green Button Initiative, etc.

– Economic development e.g.: ensure Ontario smart grid products/services are exportable to other markets (an argument also used at a national level)

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Part 3 – “How to Regulate?”

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• Prescribe a standard?• Reference a standard?• Invent a standard?• Do interoperability standards actually need to

be “regulated”?

FERC, 2011: A case study…

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January 31, 2011: U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) technical conference to determine if there is “sufficient consensus” to move forward with a rule-making proceeding.

October 13, 2010: U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Identifies to the U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC), five “foundational” sets of International Electro-technical Commission (IEC) standards for Smart Grid interoperability and cyber security. These five standards were among the 25 Smart Grid-relevant standards identified as "ready for implementation"

letter to FERC Chairman Jon Wellinghoff identifying the 5 foundational smart grid standards

FERC, 2011: A case study…

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July 19, 2011:

“In this order, we find insufficient consensus to institute a rulemaking proceeding at this time to adopt the five families of standards.“

“We believe that the best vehicle for developing smart grid interoperability standards is the NIST interoperability framework process, including the work of the SGIP and its committees and working groups.”

U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission (FERC)

NIST/SGIP Standards Adoption Process

14Diagram Source: NIST

Canadian Perspectives

• Title: “The Canadian Smart Grid Standards Roadmap”, October 16, 2012

• Forum Contributors: Hydro One, Hydro Ottawa, IESO, OEB, Ministry of Energy, Natural Resources Canada, Toronto Hydro

• CPC Contributors: IBM

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“A key role governments and regulators play in this strategy is helping the private sector develop and promote standards that open up the international market to Canadian companies, while not unintentionally hampering innovation.” (Page 4)

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Canadian Perspectives (cont’d)

Canadian National Committee of the IEC(cont’d)

“The CNC/IEC should recommend the creation of a Smart Grid Steering Committee to coordinate and assist with the other recommendations contained in this Roadmap, work with other relevant standards policy bodies and technical committees, and periodically update the Roadmap.”

Recommendation G1 from the report

17Implemented.


“The CNC/IEC should recommend to governments and regulators to be very cautious about enshrining any standard in regulation in the near term, as some are not yet mature enough to have a proven track record. Also, forced early conversion to a new standard may prematurely render current infrastructure investments obsolete, unnecessarily adding cost burdens.”

Recommendation G3 from the report

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Other regulatory recommendations:

• R1 “SCC’s CNC/IEC should encourage Provincial, Territorial regulators and utilities, when developing business plans for Smart Grid initiatives, to ensure that systems migrate from proprietary technologies to open standards, and from their current architecture to the Canadian Smart Grid Reference Framework described in this report…”

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Other regulatory recommendations:

• P&S1 “The CNC/IEC should recommend that Canadian stakeholders participate in the specification of Smart Grid cyber security requirements and standards within NIST’s Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) and Cyber Security Working Group, to promote a harmonized North American approach to the extent possible…”

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Ontario Smart Grid Forum perspective

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2011 Ontario Smart Grid Forum Recommendation:

“Industry should take advantage of widely used interoperability standards for defining smart grid specifications. Attention should be paid to the upcoming national recommendations from the Canadian National Committee of the International ElectrotechnicalCommission and its Task Force on Smart Grid Technology and Standards (facilitated by the Standards Council of Canada), which is monitoring international standards discussions.”

Part 4 – How Much to Regulate?

22Image source: The Royal Borough of Windsor and Maidenhead.

The Gridwise Architectural Council interoperability model (“The GWAC Stack”)

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8 Layers of Interoperability

Economic/Regulatory Policy

Business Objectives

Business Procedures

Business Context

Semantic Understanding

Syntactic interoperability

Network Interoperability

Basic Connectivity Interoperability

Organizational Layers

Informational Layers

Technical Layers

Recall: The GridwiseArchitectural Council interoperability model (“The GWAC Stack”)

Recall: The GridwiseArchitectural Council interoperability model (“The GWAC Stack”)

Example: OEB Electronic Business Transactions (EBT)

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Business Objectives

Business Procedures

Business Context





Electronic Business Transactions (EBT) Standards

Electricity Act

OEB Retail Settlement Code

Internet protocol, and related standards

Example: Green Button (U.S. context)

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Business Objectives

Business Procedures

Business Context





U.S. Whitehouse challenge to industry

• Green Button Download my data

• Green Button Connect my data

Business Standards for data access

Other Recent developments

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• FERC Notice of Proposed Rulemaking: NAESB Standards, including wholesale demand response (RM05-5-022)

• Bill H.R. 2685 – “Smart Grid Advancement Act of 2013”

The changing landscape

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July 18, 2013:

FERC: Notice of Proposed Rulemaking(RM05-5-022)

Incorporation of all the NAESB standards into FERC regulations – including new standards for Wholesale Demand Response

Comment deadline: Sept. 18, 2013

U.S. Federal Energy Regulatory

Commission (FERC)

Where the NAESB standards fit in....

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Business Objectives

Business Procedures

Business Context





• The NAESB standards spans the business procedures and context layers of the GWAC stack. It also makes certain inferences about privacy principles as well.

•Electricity Act and regulations•OEB retail rules•IESO Market Rules

e.g.’s:• Extensions to the IEC Common Information Model (CIM)

• Green Button• Multispeak• OPEN ADR 2.0 • Zigbee/SEP 2.0, etc.

(SGIP)

e.g.’s:

A step closer to Aggregated,Wholesale Demand Response?

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Congressional bill H.R. 2685 Smart Grid Advancement Act of 2013

• Currently before the House Energy Committee as of July 12th

• Key features:

– Incorporate smart grid interoperability of consumer products as part of the Energy Starlabel

– Standardize the meaning of “cost effective” for end-use products and make them subject certification/verification under the Energy Star label

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Congressional bill H.R. 2685 Smart Grid Advancement Act of 2013

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Key features (cont’d):

• Define what “smart grid capability” means on the U.S. Energy Guide label (Energy Guide is similar to the “EnerGuide” label used in Canada)

• Formalize definition of what “smart appliance” means

• The bill would also call for peak demand reduction goals at the state and LSE-level

In summary

• Smart Grid is an exciting new development, but the underlying regulatory questions are timeless:• Why regulate?

• How to regulate?

• How much to regulate?

• History shows that the context to each of the above questions is at least as important as the answer.

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Thank you!

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"Separable Attachment Plug"(patented by Harvey Hubbell,1904)Image source: IEC

Documents

Smart Grid Interoperability Standards: Overview and