The Smart Grid Ready Framework
Design Considerations for Smart Grid Management Systems
Larsh Johnson
President and CTO
eMeter Corporation
November, 2009
Table of Contents
Smart Grid Ready Framework: Introduction
1
Framework Definition
2
Component Overview
2
Real Time Grid Management
2
Multi-Process Interoperability
4
Consumer Engagement
5
Tools for Deployment of Smart Grid Devices
6
Adaptive, Service Oriented Architecture (SOA)
6
Conclusion
8
Smart Grid Ready Checklist
9
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready
Smart Grid Ready Framework: Introduction
The Smart Grid is a rapidly evolving combination of new intelligent
networks, information systems and regulations. The promise of Smart
Grid is to allow utilities and consumers to manage energy generation,
distribution and usage in real-time, and to collaborate to drive energy
efficiency. Arguably, this promise will be most acutely demonstrated
in the “last mile” of the Grid—that portion encompassing the
infrastructure and management processes where utility meets
consumer and supply vs. demand is optimized.
As the intelligent grid takes form, the organizational boundaries and
business processes defining today’s utility will be broken and
reformed, with interconnected communities of collaborating suppliers
and consumers. Utilities will migrate from an operational model
designed to interact with consumers on a monthly basis to one that
supports on-demand, two-way communications supported by
information processed in real-time.
For the utility, the evolution to Smart Grid will involve a continuum of
business process re-engineering (BPR.), and information systems for
Grid management must also change on a large scale to support this
transition. In this environment, utilities and their IT organizations face
material challenges:
•
•
•
•
They must navigate this transition without impacting their
existing business operations and customers.
Too costly to replace, existing IT systems must be integrated
and extended to provide Smart Grid-useful information and
automation for real-time business processes.
Projects must demonstrate early return without becoming
mired in complexity.
Faced with continuous change in requirements that define
“Smart Grid”, utilities can ill-afford to make inflexible IT
investments.
Despite these challenges, the transition to Smart Grid is underway
and utilities cannot wait for the dust to settle before they begin
deploying management systems that will drive operations in the
immediate future. Implementing systems within a “Smart Grid Ready”
design framework can insulate utilities from complexity and risk in this
fluid environment, and ensure utilities can adapt to meet the challenges
or seize opportunities as the grid takes shape. This paper will outline the
key components of the Framework; discuss the requirements for, and
respective benefits accrued, from each component.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
The promise of Smart Grid
will be most acutely
demonstrated in the “last
mile” of the Grid.
Moving to Smart Grid
demands re-engineering of
a utility’s business— and
the IT systems that drive it.
New information and
automation and is needed
to drive real–time
operations and consumer
interaction.
The transition must show
early success and not
disrupt operations or
customers.
But Smart Grid is a moving
target: Utilities can’t afford
IT investments that leave
them marooned outside the
Grid down the road.
Systems built to a Smart
Grid Ready Framework can
ensure value is delivered
as expected.
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 1
Framework Definition
The Smart Grid Ready Framework is a strategic application blueprint
that helps ensure Grid management implementations deliver
business value as expected. The Framework is defined by five
components:
•
•
•
•
•
Support for real-time Grid management
Support for process interoperability and data exchange
within and between enterprises
Support for Web-based consumer engagement
Inclusion of tools to manage deployment, operation and
maintenance of AMI, HAN, and other Smart Grid systems
Designed to Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) standards
Utilities can use the framework as a top–down primer for evaluating,
planning and deploying the IT systems that will power their transition
to Smart Grid. Today these systems include Grid sensors, Advanced
Metering Infrastructure (AMI) networks and devices, in-home (HAN)
devices and networks, Meter Data Management (MDM) systems, and
Smart Grid Management applications. Together, these form the
foundation for utility-specific applications such as Advanced Metering,
Customer Service, Demand Response, Consumer Engagement or
Distribution Grid Automation. Implementing systems within a Smart
Grid Ready framework can:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Speed migration to AMI and Smart Grid management
Ensure current and future Smart Grid technologies meet
business expectations
Insulate utilities from implementation complexity
Minimize duplicate systems and application silos
Enable systems to incrementally evolve without disruption
Allow utilities / consumer collaboration to save energy
The Framework defines key
components to support
changing Smart Grid
requirements.
There are five key
components to the
Framework.
The Framework provides
an evaluation and planning
primer for Smart Grid
Management Systems.
Smart Grid Ready speeds
migration and insulates
utilities and customers
from complexity and
disruption in transition.
Component Overview
1. Real-Time Grid Management
The need for a real-time infrastructure is a pervasive theme within the
Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and Department of
Energy specs for Smart Grid. This is driven by requirements for realtime monitoring and control of the distribution grid, time-based energy
pricing and two-way consumer/supplier participation in the process.
Effective adoption of Smart Grid and the processes that make it run
must be based on a robust platform that can handle event-driven
distribution of information and execution of business process in a way
that is consistent, reliable and auditable.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Real–time infrastructure is
a pervasive theme within
EISA and DOE specs for
Smart Grid.
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 2
Key functional attributes are:
• Continuous validation and processing of meter interval,
sensor and other data
• Real-time handling of alerts, exceptions, messages and
network events
• On-demand, bi-directional exchange of current, consistent
information between systems and users
• Support for just-in-time operations between dependent
systems and processes
• Online provisioning of newly installed meters, HAN devices,
distribution switches and other hardware
Smart Grid Real-time Applications
In a Smart Grid context, AMI collection and recording of meter
interval data is necessary but insufficient. Providing data based on
monthly, even daily estimates is not useful. Interval data must be
validated continuously and made immediately available for any use—
as it is received. In addition, exceptions, alerts or messages required
to invoke action must be processed on-demand. In the new world,
Demand Response requires the marriage of time-based rates with
real-time consumer usage patterns so informed choices are made
about how to optimize supply, cost and usage. Dispatchable time-ofuse or critical peak pricing are event-driven processes requiring a
real-time infrastructure. Soon, real-time control commands and
receipt verification of home and commercial devices must be
supported.
Today’s Real-time Challenges
Future capabilities not withstanding, timing is everything, especially
with a utility’s first Smart Grid step: meter-to-cash applications. These
deployments link meter installation, provisioning, interval data
validation, billing and customer service processes in a dependent
fashion. Just-in-time events must be handled and current data must
be available at the precise time required by each process. If billing is
based on stale data, or today’s service logistics are executed on
yesterday’s status, the process will be inefficient and invariably
generate complaints from customers. With a real-time infrastructure,
outage alarms can be received and power restoration checked
immediately. Service can be enabled while a customer is on the
phone. Meters (and other devices) can be provisioned while service
crews are in the area to handle problems, and cutover when ready.
Scalability for Real-time Processing
Real-time Smart Grid management must be designed to handle
extreme loads. Systems must be able to accommodate growth from
thousands to millions of Grid devices and data points–and potentially
billions of pieces of dynamic data. Advanced Metering networks,
MDM solutions and their dependent applications should be designed
to validate and process these data on a continuous basis, rather than
with a batch approach. Finally, vendor systems should carry an
independent benchmark to validate capability to handle multi-million
meter deployments.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Continuous data validation,
processing and real-time
automation is required.
Collection and storing of
interval data is necessary
but insufficient.
Smart Grid applications are
event-driven.
Current information must
be delivered to consumers
to enable energy saving.
Moving today’s operations
to a real-time model is a
high-impact first step.
Advanced Metering (AMI)
and Grid management
systems will generate
extreme network and
processing loads.
AMI and MDM solutions
should be independently
benchmarked to handle
multi-million meter
deployments.
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 3
2. Multi-Process Interoperability
To effectively manage operations, improve customer interaction and
increase energy efficiency in a Smart Grid context, utilities must
extend their IT systems to support process interoperability and data
exchange within and between enterprises.
Interoperability Within the Enterprise
Today, many of a utility’s IT systems are monolithic applications
designed to manage single discrete processes (e.g.: Billing, Service
Logistics, Call Center, Asset Management, etc). Process
interoperability is driven by manual or periodic batch data exchange
and synchronization. To manage events and exchange data across
systems within the enterprise in an end-to-end flow, feeding each
dependent process at the optimal time, utilities must re-engineer
toward a more real-time, integrated view.
For example, when deploying initial AMI Meter-to-Cash applications,
systems should be extensible beyond the stovepipe process of
collecting interval data and feeding the billing system. Deployment
should be easily extended to incorporate processes such as asset
lifecycle management, service requests and incident resolution.
A Smart Grid ready infrastructure should also support availability of
current data from multiple systems to complete real-time call center
processes such as new accounts, turn on service or customer moves
all while the customer is on the phone. The system should be
extensible to migrate this process to a Web-based self service model.
Interoperability Between Enterprises
In an extended enterprise model in which several companies are
involved in energy distribution, process execution must span
company boundaries and access to data must be managed to each
entity’s authorized view. Beyond traditional utilities, participating
entities can include aggregators, retailers, distributors, market
operators, service providers and consumers. For example, a merged
utility may need to support multiple operational models serving
customers and regulatory bodies in multiple states, provinces or
countries. A Meter Operator may have to deliver data from a common
source to distribution companies, energy retailers and to a market
settlement agency–each with differing requirements.
Utilities must extend their
IT systems for
interoperability within and
between enterprises.
Meter-to-Cash deployments
should be extensible
beyond a stovepipe data
collection and billing
process.
Integrating current data
from multiple systems to
support customer service
is required.
New business models will
require interoperability
between companies.
These applications require interoperability between multiple legacy
A single platform should
support process flows
CIS, asset management, logistics systems and potentially multiple
unique to each company
AMI/smart meter infrastructures, each with differing process flows
with customized data views
and data models. With state-of the-art deployments, an MDM system
for entitled users.
is the core component to enable this integration. Integration should
be enabled without disruption or changes to in-place application logic.
A single platform should support multiple instances of “customized”
process flow and provide the data management, audit trail and
access control to deliver appropriate, authorized views of information
created by the overall system. This includes automated aggregation
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 4
of information from multiple operational systems to provide consistent
datasets for planning, pricing, forecasting and other analytics.
Incremental Deployment
Finally, multi-process systems should be configurable for modular
deployment: Allowing a tailored implementation to meet the functional
requirements of a pilot, but scaling in-place to add new capabilities.
This will enable the utility to “think big” while starting small,
demonstrate early success and then scale fast.
Systems should be
designed for incremental
deployment, a.k.a “think
big, start small, and scale
fast.”
3. Consumer Engagement
One of the key tenets of Smart Grid is to empower consumer
interaction for optimal energy management. Consumer Engagement
defines the system characteristics that educate, inform and
encourage sustained, proactive behavior to optimize power demand
and save energy. Early attempts to communicate with consumers
about their energy consumption have come in the form of tips or
energy analysis presented on individual monthly bills. However, these
steps fail to effectively tie usage and behavior to cost or
environmental impact in a meaningful manner that builds
understanding or encourages conservation.
Consumer Engagement will leverage the Web as a focal point for
engaging the consumer more deeply, and represent a critical next
phase in Smart Grid deployment. To better encourage behavior
changes, consumers need to be clearly and simply shown the
connection between usage, cost and environmental impact. They
must have immediate access to answers for their questions regarding
their options to minimize/optimize their energy usage to reduce costs.
There are six key requirements for consumer engagement:
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•
•
•
•
•
Real-time visibility of the relationship between usage, cost
and environmental impact.
Clear and simple, cross-platform access to power usage
education, trusted tips and FAQs.
Integrated promotion of conservation options with expert
opinion and peer recommendations.
Immediate notification of usage and cost changes to allow
users to better manage their bills.
Support for Web communities to encourage conservation and
best practices.
Aggregation and presentation of PUC and ratepayer
reporting on cost reductions and load demand shift.
Consumer Engagement
enables utilities / consumer
collaboration to save
energy.
Consumer Engagement
goes beyond existing Web–
Presentment or Portal
systems.
The next generation will
leverage the web as a focal
point and engage the
consumer more deeply.
Immediate notification,
peer communities and
context promote energy
conservation.
Cause and effect feedback
promotes sustained
behavior change.
Presenting timely usage data allows consumers to associate the cost
of their bill with their usage of individual appliances or heating/cooling
systems. Time-of-use rate plans can be applied to show the savings
benefits of behavior change. Real-time delivery of alerts allows users
to respond appropriately to Grid events such as peaks, rolling
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 5
brownouts or extreme weather events, and the impact of actions can
be linked on an individual, or community level. Peer comparison and
advice from the local community and respected experts motivates
changes in consumption patterns, which are supported by actionable
information and reinforced with immediate feedback.
Users are familiar with and trust peer rating social tools such as
eBay’s user seller ratings, and tools such as these will be invaluable
in encouraging trust in peers for recommendations. In addition,
integrated communications with users across a wide variety of media
including printed bills, mail, web, mobile phone and community
events are key to influencing behavior. A Consumer Engagement site
should integrate all and become the focal point for consumer-utility
collaboration to save energy.
Real-time alerts allow
effective response to
extreme load conditions.
Community involvement
encourages participation
and promotes trust.
4. Tools for Deployment of Smart Grid Devices
Industry-wide adoption of Smart Grid requires the successful
deployment of many millions of intelligent meters, in-home devices,
distribution grid sensors and controllers—without disruption to energy
supply, customer service or billing. For the industry as a whole, the
cost, time and risk required to accomplish this is a material obstacle
to achieving the vision. For the individual utility, deployment expense
can add millions of dollars to an average project, and manual
deployment can add years to the schedule.
Tools to optimize deployment logistics and automate provisioning of
smart meter devices can dramatically reduce these costs and
accelerate the rate at which AMI is brought online. Moreover, these
tools offer the benefit of reducing or eliminating the risk of billing and
customer service disruption. Following initial deployment, these
benefits are extended to reduce ongoing maintenance overhead.
Tools should manage the end-to-end AMI deployment process in an
automated, closed-loop fashion, from planning and installation
through provisioning and cutover. Validation of individual meter
operation, data and the complete billing feed process should be
supported—as well as automated cutover after successful validation.
The system should have provisions for exception handling and
closed-loop integration with Work Management and other logistics to
drive optimized problem resolution. Finally, off-the-shelf interfaces
should exist for both AMI and back-end systems to simplify
deployment and downstream system maintenance.
Smart Grid requires
deployment of millions of
devices without disruption
to utility operations.
Deployment tools can
reduce risk, expense and
project duration.
Tools should manage
deployment in a closedloop fashion.
Off-the-shelf adapters
should be available to
speed integration.
5. Adaptive, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA)
The evolution to Smart Grid will be a continuum of business process
reengineering (BPR) for the adopting utility. Adopters cannot afford to
rewrite systems each time new regulations and requirements
emerge, or when new technologies enter their Smart Grid community.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Moving to Smart Grid
means continuous
business process
reengineering for the
adopting Utility.
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 6
SOA is the systems foundation to support iterative BPR. For ongoing
operations, it enables the real-time processing, interoperability and
scalability for Smart Grid management. SOA removes dependencies
that paralyze traditional monolithic business systems. With an SOA,
application processes can be more easily coupled and decoupled,
and required information flows freely within and across reengineered
systems. Equally important, SOA environments can be extended with
new capabilities without retrofit.
An effective SOA should break the hardwired connections between
business process, data, applications and infrastructure to allow:
•
•
•
•
•
Change in process and data flow between applications
Integration of wholly new application function
Integration of SOA based solutions into non-SOA
environments
Incremental addition of processing capacity
System fault tolerance if individual components fail
A Service Oriented
Architecture (SOA) is the
foundation to support
reengineering.
SOA breaks hardwired
system connections to
allow change without retooling applications.
Although there are many specific instantiations of an SOA, all have
common attributes:
Interfaces that insulate process from physical infrastructure:
This provides a common way of expressing processes that operate
across different systems. For example, with an SOA interface layer,
one service can be implemented to perform device reads and
“bound” to many device types. The service does not have to be recreated for each device type, or updated as infrastructure changes.
Many solutions promote the importance of “SOA compliant”
interfaces. Although these are a necessary component, by
themselves they are insufficient to achieve the full benefit of SOA.
Interface-only implementations merely wrap monolithic code in a
more maintainable interface. Complete architectures go beyond this
to support full process interoperability and re-engineering. They
provide the ability to delegate service execution to multiple
applications and to manage that delegation in the context of an endto-end process. They allow changes to these flows without re-tooling
in-place applications. To accomplish this, more is required:
Application–independent business process rules: Providing a
mechanism to create and manage business rules that is separate
or “abstracted” from application logic enables change in process
flow within and between systems without having to rewrite
applications each time a business process changes. In addition,
process interoperability can be supported. Requests for service
can be published to applications and replies fielded to kick off other
processes according to specified rules.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
An interface layer should
mask differences or
changes in physical
infrastructure.
Compliant interfaces SOA; more is required.
Business rules should be
maintained separately from
application logic.
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 7
Application–independent data exchange:
A common repository where data and events are collected and
managed can act as the central hub to provide a consistent view of
data between applications. The repository performs data
transformation and mapping services to ensure the common data
representation can meet the unique format requirements of each
application served. In addition, a complete history must be
maintained to provide an audit trail for original source data versions,
changes and event processing.
Real–time messaging for inter–process communication:
Provides a common standards-based backbone for real-time
information flow between systems. This component is essential to
enabling interoperability as well as scaling to manage the high data
and event traffic Smart Grid management will drive. The messaging
platform should be independent from the application layer it supports,
enabling loose coupling (and re-coupling) of applications. To
guarantee message transfer for the full spectrum of data interchange,
it should support synchronous and asynchronous messaging, and
request/reply or publish/subscribe interactions. Finally, it should be
implemented in a distributed fashion to avoid introduction of a single
point of failure and enable modular addition of capacity.
Integration with non–SOA systems
Recognizing the majority of utilities’ in-place systems are not today
SOA-compliant, it is critical that the introduction of SOA systems
allows for coexistence. Interfaces to legacy systems should support
interactions mandated by a wide range of legacy application and data
models. This includes translating data into types and formats that
legacy systems can use without having to make extensive changes to
the legacy systems. For example, filtering and converting outage
alarms to look like phone messages that legacy outage management
systems can handle; and delivering these via the right interface.
A common data store
should manage a
consistent view of data for
exchange between
applications.
An independent message
platform should handle
communication between
systems.
A distributed
implementation should
provide for fault tolerance
and modular addition of
capacity.
SOA systems should coexist with non-SOA legacy
systems.
Conclusion
When implementing Smart Grid management systems, successful
utilities will first seek to achieve greater flexibility and efficiency for
existing, discrete operations. Typically this involves automating
existing monthly metering processes with AMI infrastructure. This will
lay the foundation for more real-time operations and integration of
end-to-end processes— within and outside the enterprise. But before
this effort is complete, they will be required to integrate entirely new
advanced applications, and evolve in-step with a fluid regulatory
environment. Building to a Smart Grid ready framework can ensure
required capabilities are supported and systems evolution can take
place seamlessly, without disruption to existing operations and
customer service.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Utilities will evolve to
Smart Grid. Building to the
proper systems framework
ensures that requirements
can be met and changes
take place seamlessly.
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 8
Smart Grid Ready Architecture Check List
Feature
Y/N
Real–Time Processing
Continuous validation and processing of meter interval, sensor, and other data
Real-time handling of alerts, exceptions, messages and network events
On-demand exchange of current, consistent information between systems and users
Support for just-in-time operations between dependent systems and processes
Online provisioning of newly installed meters, HAN devices, distribution switches and
other hardware
Automatic update of backend system databases
Independent benchmark supports multi-million meter deployments
Multi–process Interoperability
Supports process interoperability within and between enterprises
Discrete processes extensible to integrate other operations
Mechanism for data exchange between systems and users
Data aggregation from multiple systems to support analytics and other processes
Single platform can support multiple operational and data models
Access control and audit trail to support custom data views to entitled entities
Modular deployment
Consumer Engagement
Real-time visibility of the relationship between usage, cost and environmental impact.
Cross platform access to power usage education, trusted tips and FAQs
Integrated promotion of conservation options with expert opinion and peer
recommendations
Immediate notification of usage and cost changes to allow users to manage their bills.
Support for Web communities to encourage conservation and best practices.
Aggregation and presentation of PUC and rate payer reporting on consumer cost
reductions and load demand shift.
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 9
Smart Grid Ready Architecture Check List (cont.)
Feature
Y/N
Tools for Deployment of Smart Grid Devices
Device deployment planning and management support
Automated provisioning of smart meter, home and Grid devices
Integration with work, asset management and other logistics systems
Closed loop device provisioning with end-to-end process validation
Automated device cutover
Off-the-shelf adapters for both AMI and utility information systems
Service Oriented Architecture
Interface layer abstracts physical infrastructure from services
Common way of expressing service requests
Business rules independent from application logic
Common data repository maintains consistent data view
Support for data translation between systems
Audit trail for all managed data
Application independent messaging services
Store and forward model, push and pull delivery
Distributed model supports fault tolerance and modular capacity adds
Full participation of non-SOA systems
Third party validation of SOA compliance
© eMeter Corporation 2009
Whitepaper: Smart Grid Ready 10