Assembling the Parts of the Puzzle: “Interoperability” is What Makes Them Fit Together John Jimison Managing Director Energy Future Coalition

My Thesis: Smart grid technology is a revolutionary force in the electric industry. It will accompany other fundamental changes: – New consumer options and participation in price setting – New environmental mandates and preferences – New competition in previously monopolized areas of service – Increased efficiency in basic electric uses causing declining overall load – New utility business models to stay profitable and attractive to investors. It will have many benefits to consumers and enable others. It must operate in an integrated, compatible fashion to achieve these benefits: “Interoperability”

I am not George Arnold George Arnold is a friend of mine. George Arnold’s employer is closed down and forbidden him to continue his important work. I do not have George Arnold’s expertise. I do not even have George Arnold’s permission to stand in for him on this panel. George Arnold’s website at NIST is down with the federal government shutdown, so I could not even pirate his work. Instead, I have borrowed excellent visuals from the IEEE website to explain the process. Deal with it.

What will a Smart Grid do? Enable two-way digital communication between electricity users and utilities for reliability, economic, and operational purposes. Enable electricity customers to respond to variable electricity prices, levelizing generation requirements and reducing system costs dramatically. Allow programmed equipment, appliances, and electric vehicles to optimize their power use for time and economics. Allow innovation in products and services on plug-and-play basis. Allow integration of small distributed resources into the grid – in particular intermittent renewable resources. Allow integration of retail-level demand-response programs and demand-side management. Allow integration of electricity storage devices – potentially including millions of hybrid electric vehicles – to further balance and improve the grid. Allow significant generation fuel efficiencies and power use efficiencies. Increase both power reliability and power quality. Enable continuous monitoring and programmed responses to electric system incidents throughout the grid. Give utilities a major new target for investment other than powerplants and transmission systems. Allow greater utilization of baseload power generators with superior carbon output characteristics. Create the basis for a fully competitive, institutionally diverse electric industry.

NIST Conceptual Model of Smart Grid The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Smart Grid Conceptual Model provides a high-level framework for the smart grid that defines seven important domains: Bulk Generation, Transmission, Distribution, Customers, Operations, Markets and Service Providers. It shows all the communications and energy/electricity flows connecting each domain and how they are interrelated. Each individual domain is itself comprised of important smart grid elements that are connected to each other through two-way communications and energy/electricity paths. These connections are the basis of the future, intelligent and dynamic power electricity grid. The NIST Smart Grid Conceptual Model helps stakeholders understand the building blocks of an end-to-end smart grid system, from Generation to (and from) Customers, and explores the interrelation between these smart grid segments.

Bulk Generation

Distribution Utility

Utility Operations

Customer

Markets

Service Provider

Smart Grid Conceptual Model

Who’s Missing from These Pictures? We are! (The regulators)

Conclusions Smart grid technology is part of an electric industry revolution. Utilities will still serve critical functions. The transition is inevitable, but will have many benefits if it is managed appropriately. Interoperability of communications, controls, monitors, and data processing is essential. So is cybersecurity. Regulators will have to recognize societal benefits and find ways to make up utility losses required to achieve those benefits.