Introduction#
The document from the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) outlines the progress in smart grid interoperability. It builds upon previous versions and focuses on four key areas: Grid Operations, Cybersecurity, Grid Economics, and Standards Testing & Certification. The document explores how changing grid technologies will affect these areas and discusses the evolving interoperability requirements. It also outlines roadmaps for further research, standards development, and technical advancements to enhance interoperability in the smart grid.
Key Messages - NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Framework
Interoperability — the ability to exchange information in a timely, actionable manner — is a critical yet underdeveloped capability of the power system. Significant grid modernization has occurred in recent years, but the proliferation of technology and associated standards has only modestly improved interoperability.
The expansion of distributed energy resources and other technologies, along with changing customer expectations, have complicated the interoperability challenge. This revision of the NIST Smart Grid Interoperability Framework uses evolving technology and power system architectures as context for describing a new set of interoperability perspectives.
Distributed and customer-sited resources figure prominently in the future smart grid, as do intelligent distribution systems and other key integrators. As society modernizes the physical mechanisms by which we produce, manage, and consume electricity, strategies for system operations and economic structure will diversify. This diversification will benefit from — and eventually rely upon — enhanced interoperability.
The benefits of interoperability are broad and reach all stakeholders at all scales. Interoperability is a hedge against technology obsolescence, maximizes the value of equipment investments by increasing usage for secondary purposes, and facilitates combinatorial innovation by allowing coordinated small actions across diverse stakeholders and devices to have grand impacts. The interoperability value proposition can be realized in any system domain, from the utility to the customer and beyond.
Interoperability requires a cybersecurity approach that manages risk while opening new communication interfaces. The desired outcomes for the grid and the information exchanges that must be protected will have to be considered in concert and will benefit from a structured approach to system security. New interfaces can benefit from existing security processes.
Testing and certification is a critical enabler of smart grid interoperability. However, the current industry focus on certifying conformance to individual standards is only the first step on the pathway to assuring interoperability for devices or systems, and cannot provide interoperability without significant additional effort.
Interoperability Profiles are a proposed solution to the interoperability challenge. Built upon concepts of physical and informational interoperability and drawn from existing standards, these Profiles describe a subset of requirements that — when implemented and verified through testing and certification — would ensure interoperability across devices and systems.