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Summary Designing For The Smart Grid 
Category Power Systems Design 
Green
and
Alternative
Energy
" ... There is plenty of loose talk about the "smart grid." To see what impact it will have on electronics designers, it's helpful to filter the noise and take a look at what's really there. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has identified seven characteristics of a smart grid:

1.It is self-healing from power disturbances.
2.It enables active participation by consumers in demand-response programs (load control).
3.It operates resiliently against physical or cyber attack.
4.It provides quality power for 21st-century needs.
5.It accommodates all generation and storage options.
6.It enables new products, services, and markets to function.
7.It optimizes utility assets and operational efficiency with the use of sensors.

Obviously, all this requires standardized architectures and interfaces to stimulate development and promote interoperability.

Well before the EPRI report was released to NIST, the GridWise Alliance—a public/private consortium with the goal of helping integrate electricity infrastructures, processes, devices, information, and markets—developed a comprehensive action plan that identifies the challenges facing the electricity industry. In addition, the GridWise Architecture Council was formed to shape the architecture of an interactive electric system.

Even earlier, EPRI had published their "IntelliGrid" architecture, a comprehensive technical framework for linking communications and the power grid. In part, EPRI proposed an architected approach to integration by deploying equipment in this order: automatic meter reading (AMR) enables energy markets and time of use pricing, utility information uses the AMR infrastructure to manage outages and demand (loads) and remote-controlled distribution devices automate restoration and enable distributed generation. ... "
 
Webpage More info 
Author SMPS Editor 
Date 1/11/2010 
 
 

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