With the announcement earlier this month that Boulder’s SmartGridCity was fully functional, this week’s big GridWeek conference in Washington, DC and the announcement by NIST at the end of the conference on its draft interoperability standards, the smart grid has been in the news quite a bit.  The question is does all the exposure reflect real momentum?

Of the recent developments, the announcement of the initial standards in my mind is the most promising development.  Not only were the standards formulated swiftly – by government standards at least – they were done with the sort of broad and active collaboration that will be necessary in all aspects of smart grid development in order to achieve a truly intelligent and modern grid.

At a briefing at the very end of GridWeek, NIST staff provided an overview of the draft standards and the process that led to them as well as next steps.  NIST Acting Director Patrick Gallagher opened the briefing by stating that the goal is nothing short of a secure and modernized electric grid that will play a key role in America’s economic future.  He went on that standards must ensure a grid that is “effective, efficient and secure.”

Gallagher explained that while EISA assigned NIST with developing the interoperability standards, the economic stimulus accelerated the task.  Over 1500 individuals and organizations were engaged in the process.  The draft standards will be open to a public comment period.  The plan is to have the final document completed by Grid-Interop in November.

George Arnold, the National Coordinator for Smart Grid Interoperability for NIST, then gave a general overview of the process.  The first phase, which culminated in the draft standards, was to identify the initial set of consensus standards and develop a roadmap to fill in the gaps.  The second phase is to establish a public-private standards panel – dubbed the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) – to advise on the process going forward.  And the third phase will be to develop and implement a testing and certification framework. 

Jerry Fitzpatrick of NIST stressed that this was an “open, transparent and consensus-based process.”  The draft standards were informed by several stakeholder workshops, an online collaboration site and a report by EPRI that was commissioned by NIST. 

The security of the grid against cyber attacks has been a key topic as of late.  Annabelle Lee of the Cyber Security Coordination Task Group discussed her group’s work.  The first draft of the Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements has been posted online and will be open to public comment.  The plan is to have a second draft by the end of December and the final version in March 2010.  Privacy is a key area covered in the report.  Lee emphasized that the weekly conference calls of the group are open to interested stakeholders.  The online TWiki site also provides avenues for input and collaboration.

The NIST team talked a great deal about the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel.  The plan is to hold the first meeting of the SGIP at Grid-Interop in November.  The panel will be an open and transparent public-private partnership with representation from all smart grid stakeholders that will inform the process.

Comments during the Q&A session afterwards were positive regarding the efforts of NIST and the NIST representatives seemed very open to the input they received at the briefing from attendees.

An open and transparent process that involves the active and genuine participation of stakeholders will be essential. Collaboration will be vital to ensuring that the smart grid becomes a reality.  A forthcoming report from the Reform Institute highlighting smart grid initiatives around the country will bear this out.