EPRI To Facilitate Development of Smart Grid Roadmap

EPRI’s development of this “interim roadmap” will be a major step toward harmonizing interoperability standards for the Smart Grid. It is intended to ensure that different vendors’ products will work together effectively, and that consensus standards should drive down the cost of components and systems, reduce the risk of early obsolescence and spur innovation.

Scheduled to be completed by early summer, the interim roadmap will inventory existing standards, identify gaps, and list priorities for reconciling differences among current standards or developing entirely new ones.

Under terms of the US $1.3 million contract, EPRI will develop the interim roadmap that has consensus support of utility industry, independent system operators, manufacturers, standards development organizations, state regulators and consumer representatives.

“EPRI is in a unique position to launch this effort quickly and efficiently because our research and development programs have been focusing on a number of key aspects of the Smart Grid,” said Arshad Mansoor, vice president of the Institute’s Power Delivery and Utilization sector. “We are already collaborating with many of the key players in smart grid in our R&D, and we understand who must be involved and the direction in which we must move.”

The Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007 assigned NIST “primary responsibility to coordinate development of a framework that includes protocols and model standards for information management to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems.”

For a whole range of smart grid stories and interviews, check out the Inside Renewable Energy podcast. Host Stephen Lacey will be exploring the topic all month long.