The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has delivered to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) a handful of smart grid interoperability and cybersecurity standards that NIST says are ready for consideration by regulators.

The five "foundational" standard sets, produced by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC), focus on "the information models and protocols important to efficient and reliable grid operations, as well as cybersecurity," NIST says.

The standards include the following:

• IEC 61970 and IEC 61968: Common Information Models (CIMs) for data-exchange between devices and networks on transmission (IEC 61970) and distribution (IEC 61968) domains;

• IEC 61850: substation automation, communication and interoperability;

• IEC 60870-6: information-exchange between control centers; and

• IEC 62351: cybersecurity for communication protocols.

The five IEC standards were among the 25 standards identified as "ready for implementation" in NIST's "Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0," which was issued in January. However, these specifications required a cybersecurity review that could not be completed until NIST finalized its initial "Guidelines for Smart Grid Cyber Security," which were published last month.

SOURCE: NIST

Why do we need a national clean-energy smart grid?

And how do we implement a national clean-energy smart grid?

What is a national clean-energy smart grid?

A national clean-energy smart grid will use long-distance, extra-high-voltage transmission lines to move remote clean-energy resources to power load centers. This expanded and upgraded interstate transmission grid will connect to a modernized distribution system—enabled with digital technology—that delivers energy and detailed, real-time information about the use of such energy to consumers. This will allow utility companies and consumers to constantly monitor and adjust their electricity use, while providing a pricing and control system to flexibly integrate new distributed energy resources such as solar and wind power, energy storage devices, and electric vehicles as the batteries in our plug-in cars become a repository for clean electricity. In other words, the grid will allow renewable energy to travel to homes around the country, and enable consumers to feed any excess power they produce back to the grid for other consumers to use.
Why do we need one?

Our current electric grid is strained. It has begun to fail us more frequently and presents substantial challenges in three primary areas: geography, congestion, and the reliability of electricity transmission and distribution.

The current high-voltage transmission grid imposes constraints on the deployment of new renewable energy resources such as wind, solar, and geothermal power. It simply does not go where many of these renewable energy resources will be developed. And congestion bottlenecks hurt the reliability of the grid overall, particularly where it is needed to move large volumes of new power from remote generation areas (where renewable energy is created) to major urban and industrial centers—where demand for that energy is greatest.

The monitoring and control technology for both transmission and distribution networks is also weak and outdated. The lack of smart technology to provide utilities and consumers with better information in real time hurts the entire electricity system’s security and efficiency, and places unnecessary cost burdens on consumers. It also slows the adoption and integration of new technology such as solar panels on our homes, intelligent appliances to cut our energy bills, or micro-grids to help first responders cope with natural disasters.

There have been five massive blackouts over the past 40 years due to grid failure—three of these in the last nine years. These cost the U.S. economy upward of $100 billion each year in damages and lost business. For example, the 2003 blackout in the Northeastern United States and Canada affected 50 million people and caused an estimated $7 billion to $10 billion in economic losses.

What’s more, our grid’s centralized infrastructure leaves us open to attack. Security experts increasingly identify cyber-security and direct terrorist threats to the grid as substantial hazards for the entire U.S. economy.

Another set of concerns is climate change and oil dependence. If we are to reduce global warming emissions and transition to clean, domestic vehicles, then renewable energy must be integrated into the nation’s grid.
How does a smart grid work?

The electricity grid delivers electricity from points of generation to consumers through two primary systems. The transmission system brings electricity from power plants to distribution substations, while the distribution system delivers electricity from distribution substations to consumers.

A national clean-energy smart grid would involve constructing feeder lines that would allow new large-scale, renewable-energy projects to connect to the grid. It will require extra-high-voltage electricity transmission upgrades to the existing grid to permit power to reach consumers from remote renewable-rich regions.

On the distribution side, the smart grid would integrate new digital technology into local electricity distribution networks that would help manage the demand that appliances and other end-use equipment place on the grid at key times of the day, improve the efficiency of electricity distribution within local networks, and provide better information about electricity use in homes, businesses, and public institutions.

A smart grid will also provide the pricing and control system to flexibly integrate new distributed energy resources—solar panels, energy storage devices, and increasingly electric vehicles—close to the point of demand. Users could charge up their plug-in cars at night to later feed that power back into the grid as their cars are parked at work or at home during the day, cutting our nation’s reliance on oil during daily commutes.
What are the benefits of a national clean-energy smart grid?

A national clean-energy smart grid will advance key priorities for our country, including the expansion of renewable electricity, enhanced energy efficiency, increased security and reliability for the electricity system, economic benefits and cost savings for ratepayers, job creation for American workers, and opportunities for businesses.

The grid would enhance reliability, lower power-line losses, and incorporate advanced digital controls and other smart transmission grid technologies. It would be planned specifically to reach from areas with the highest potential for new renewable electricity generation to areas where that energy is most needed.
How do we implement a national clean-energy smart grid?

This vision must include substantial changes to the regulatory structure for planning, siting, and paying for an extra-high-voltage backbone transmission grid and the new transmission lines needed to connect renewable generation to that backbone.

Federal policy changes will need to include:

* A framework for collaborative multi-state planning to match new grid investments to our resource base.
* A stronger proposal for siting new transmission projects tied to this plan, giving greater power to the federal government but requiring strong state participation.
* Broad-based cost allocation to ensure that no single region must bear the cost of a national undertaking.
* Smart-grid investments and standards to deploy new information technology, controls, and advanced metering infrastructure on the transmission and distribution grid.

Our economy, environment, and national security will be profoundly affected by the investment choices we make in forthcoming years. Establishing a powerful national commitment to build a clean-energy economy—and put in place the supporting infrastructure required to reach this goal—offers a compelling opportunity to strengthen our economy now and to ensure the enduring prosperity and welfare of future generations.

This country runs on innovation. The American success story -- from Ben Franklin's bifocals to Thomas Edison's light bulb to Henry Ford's assembly line to today's advanced microprocessors -- is all about inventing our future. The companies we ran, Microsoft and DuPont, were successful because they invested deeply in new technologies and new ideas.

But our country is neglecting a field central to our national prospect and security: energy. Although the information technology and pharmaceutical industries spend 5 to 15 percent of their revenue on research and development each year, U.S. companies' spending on energy R&D has averaged only about one-quarter of 1 percent of revenue over the past 15 years.

And despite talk about the need for "21st-century" energy sources, federal spending on clean energy research -- less than $3 billion -- is also relatively small. Compare that with roughly $30 billion that the U.S. government annually spends on health research and $80 billion on defense research and development.

As many have noted, an energy future built on yesterday's technology threatens to leave people exposed to price shocks (hurting Americans and devastating the world's poor) and would exacerbate our national security problems and increase our trade deficit, given our dependence on costly foreign oil. The science is also clear that without significant efforts to tackle the climate issue, the effects of warming will grow, undermining agriculture, making droughts and floods more common and more severe, and eventually destroying ecosystems.

We need a vigorous strategy to invent our future and ensure its safety and prosperity. In the realm of energy, as with medicine and national defense, that requires a public commitment.

Why can't the private sector do this? What makes energy different from, say, electronics? Three things.

First, there are profound public interests in having more energy options. Our national security, economic health and environment are at issue. These are not primary motivations for private-sector investments, but they merit a public commitment.

Second, the nature of the energy business requires a public commitment. A new generation of television technology might cost $10 million to develop. Because those TVs can be built on existing assembly lines, that risk-reward calculus makes business sense. But a new electric power source can cost several billion dollars to develop and still carry the risk of failure. That investment does not compute for most companies.

Third, the turnover in our power system is very slow. Power plants last 50 years or more, and they are very cheap to run once built, meaning there is little market for new models.

It is understandable, then, why private-sector investments in clean energy technology are so small. Yet, while it may make sense for individual companies to make these choices, accepting the status quo would condemn our country to very bad options.

This is why we have joined other concerned business leaders -- including Norm Augustine, former chairman of Lockheed Martin; Ursula Burns, chief executive of Xerox; John Doerr, partner at Kleiner Perkins; Jeff Immelt, chief executive of GE; and Tim Solso, chairman of Cummins -- to create the American Energy Innovation Council.

There is vast opportunity in energy. Prices are declining in solar energy and wind, and they could fall further with new technology. There is a critical need for better electricity storage technologies to enable electric vehicles and very-large-scale renewable energy. Advanced nuclear power could burn non-enriched uranium -- which the world has in vast quantities. New efficiency technologies can cut energy demand by half or more in dozens of applications -- in cars, buildings and some industrial processes.

And this list just scratches the surface. Vigorous federal commitments to new energy technology would bring these options to commercial viability.

Our country has great assets to bring to the challenge. Our research universities are among the best in the world, and our federal energy laboratories have brilliant scientists capable of delivering breakthroughs.

But we need to rethink the scale and urgency of the energy endeavor. The federal government must invest more and be smarter about the innovation process.

In a few months our group will offer detailed recommendations to strengthen and reform American energy innovation. As we develop recommendations, we are reaching out to leaders in business, government and academia, as well as experts in science and technology. Eventually we plan to advocate to Congress, the White House and others. We are pleased that energy innovation has never become politicized because Republicans, Democrats and independents share a common interest in scientific breakthroughs that improve people's lives. We are confident that this spirit will be reflected in these discussions.

The core force of innovation -- vision, experimentation and wise investments -- has led to thousands of breakthroughs that benefit us all. A serious commitment to innovation can be transformative, as we saw with the effort to replace chlorofluorocarbons two decades ago. We need the same serious commitment in the energy sector to developing the original American energy supply: innovation.

Bill Gates is chairman of Microsoft Corp. Chad Holliday was chairman and chief executive of DuPont from 1998 to 2009.



We liked this article from the Star Tribune - published on October 30, 2009.It is wonderfully written by
By GEORGE BENNETT, Cox Newspapers | Last update: October 29, 2009 - 7:05 PM

President Obama stood in front of a field full of solar panels this week during a visit to the DeSoto Next Generation Solar Energy Center in Arcadia, Fla. The president announced the allocation of $3.4 billion in government stimulus dollars to help modernize the U.S. power grid.

ARCADIA, FLA. - Invoking America's construction of the Interstate highway  system half a century ago, President Obama this week called for creation of a "clean  energy superhighway" in remarks at what Florida Power and Light Co. (FPL) bills as the largest photovoltaic solar plant in the nation.

The president announced $3.4 billion in federal grants for "smart grid" projects aimed at boosting the efficiency of the nation's electricity network and enabling consumers to conserve energy and cut their utility bills. The $3.4 billion includes $200 million to FPL and more than $44 million to five other Florida recipients.

Minnesota didn't fare as well, getting just $1.54 million for Minnesota Power, a unit of Duluth-based Allete Inc.

Standing amid 90,500 solar panels at FPL's $152 million Next Generation Solar Energy Center on 180 acres in DeSoto County, Obama compared improving the national
power network to President Dwight Eisenhower's push for a national four-lane highway network in the 1950s.

"It's time to make the same kind of investment in the way our energy travels, to build a clean energy superhighway that can take the renewable power generated in places like DeSoto and deliver it directly to the American people in the most affordable and efficient way possible," Obama said.

The president toured the DeSoto County plant, billed as the largest solar farm of its kind, and used it as a backdrop to announce the grants for "smart grid" projects. The solar center produces 25 megawatts of power, or enough to supply about 3,000 homes.

The Obama administration says the grants, which are part of the $787 billion economic stimulus package approved this year, will create or save "tens of thousands" of jobs while making the nation's electricity network more reliable and efficient and more compatible with renewable energy sources.

FPL's $200 million grant will be used at least in part to install more than 2.6 million "smart meters" in homes to provide more detailed consumption information to customers and enable them to reduce energy use and cut their bills.

During a briefing for reporters on the grants, Carol Browner, assistant to the president for energy and climate change, called the nation's current power system "outdated" and "dilapidated."

She noted that some have compared the development of the smart grid to the building of the Interstate highway system.

"That was about building so many miles," Browner said. "This is about more than building miles of wires. This is about really making something function in a modern way so consumers can have better choices, we can manage the flow of electricity and we can bring renewables into the system."

The recipients of the $3.4 billion in smart-grid grants are matching the federal money with a combined $4.7 billion in private investment, Browner said. FPL is putting up $380 million to match the $200 million federal grant.

"With these grants we're going to unleash the vast potential of our economy to develop the infrastructure that will support the president's goal of replacing demand for foreign fossil fuels with renewable energy produced here at home," said Jared Bernstein, the chief economic policy adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

The administration cited an analysis by the Electric Power Research Institute that says smart-grid technologies could reduce electricity use by more than 4 percent by 2030 and save more than $20 billion in energy costs.

The grants will be used to pay for 18 million smart meters, administration officials said. Other consumer-focused measures include installation of more than 1 million in-home displays, 170,000 smart thermostats, and 175,000 other load control devices to enable consumers to reduce their energy use.

For power companies and grid operators, the grants will pay for more than 200,000 "smart transformers," 850 sensors and 700 automated substations that will provide more information and help prevent minor disturbances from cascading into major outages or blackouts.