[1st-mile-nm] A Dozen Things the Smart Grid Can Learn from theInternet

[Harris, Brian, WEU NMAGO]

"The digital economy will only work if both governments and industry
embrace 'trans-sector thinking'. Infrastructure developments such as
broadband, smart grids and other smart infrastructure need to be
developed in such a way that they generate an economic multiplier
effect."  Paul Budde

Entire story here:

http://www.buddeblog.com.au/government-leaders-need-to-put-trans-sector-
policies-in-place-for-stimulus-packages/

Brian Harris

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Subject: [1st-mile-nm] A Dozen Things the Smart Grid Can Learn from
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A Dozen Things the Smart Grid Can Learn from the Internet

Written by Balaji Natarajan
Posted April 30th, 2009 in Energy

Balaji Natarajan is a senior IT strategist for Capgemini, focusing on
smart
grid, mobile computing, and unified communications.


History is a great teacher. The Internet took decades to evolve and take
shape.
Now upon us is a more critical challenge: how to build and sustain a
smarter
power grid. The tech community is already starting to initiate
significant
efforts to address this challenge, but here are some thoughts for how we
can
learn from the history of how the Internet was built, which will help us
move
into the fast-lane to tackle this massive task and monumental
opportunity.

1. Scalable, Service-Driven Smart Grid Architecture: The smart grid
needs to
develop architecture that can scale up quickly, driven by the same kind
of
on-demand service-based models by which bandwidth is sold on the
Internet. Like
the Internet, the smart grid represents a combination of systems at an
unprecedented scale: supporting millions of users demanding access to
services
that must be responsive, robust and always available. The number of grid
communication sessions and grid access requests by interacting
components
(producers, consumers and gateways) translates into a very high number
of
network requests, placing an enormous demand on resources.

It is well-documented that power systems experience huge variations in
service
load, with bursts coinciding with the times that the service has the
most
value. In the early days of the Internet, the network relied upon the
scaling
capabilities of the operating system UNIX. Later, several systems
capable of
handling high-volume transactions were developed and coined as ?Internet
Servers.? Similar capabilities need to be provisioned for servers of the
smart grid.

2. Defined Communication Protocols: The smart grid needs to standardize
around a
set of protocols and, importantly, define a key protocol for smart-grid
communications. It could even take a cue from, and if necessary
re-architect,
the Open Systems Interconnection Reference Model to adapt to the
?Internet of
Things.? In the case of the Internet, the Internet Protocol Suite (also
referred to as TCP/IP) enabled a common inter-network protocol and,
instead of
the network being responsible for reliability (as in the ARPANET), the
hosts
became responsible. With the role of the network reduced to a bare
minimum, it
became possible to connect almost any network, with any characteristics,
together. A similar protocol design will be essential for the smart
grid, given
the immediate need to connect diverse component types.

3. Security & Encryption: The smart grid community needs to publish
detailed
specifications for different levels of security and encryption
standards. For
secure communication purposes, the Internet leveraged data encryption
standards, including variants of Digital Encryption Standard (DES) as
endorsed
by the National Institute of Science & Technology (NIST). To ensure
secure user
authentication and data integrity, techniques like digital signatures
and the
network authentication protocol Kerberos were also created. Some of
these
standards are openly available whereas certain encryption tools are
patented
and require licensing.

Similarly, smart grid security needs to be thoroughly investigated to
enable a
multi-tiered security model for the grid. Once this is done, startups
should be
encouraged to build innovative tools that adhere to these standards.
It?s
important to note that the smart grid?s cyber-security layer may need to
be
more regulated (by federal policies) than the Internet?s has been, given
the
potential direct impact on national security systems. (See more details
in No.
9.)

4. Management & Communication Tools for Energy: Simple HTML pages
publicized the
concept of the Internet to the common user back in the mid-1990s. A tool
like
this that offers a rich user experience can help in connecting the
customer to
the concept of the smart grid.

5. Open APIs: Companies building the next generation of the smart grid
need to
regularly publish APIs through working-groups and to meet specification
requests. As they have done for the Internet, open APIs would ensure
ease of
integration of the grid with different endpoints, like smart meters,
advanced
metering infrastructure (AMI), programmable logic controllers (PLC),
wireless
mesh networks and portal gateways.

6. Find the Killer App: The smart grid needs to clearly evangelize its
first
killer app that could appeal across all grid user communities, including
customers, utilities, the federal government, local governments and
business
sectors. Email did the trick for the Internet. So what will it be for
the smart
grid? Demand response? Energy management?

7. Connect the Grid to Consumers: Extend the functionality of the smart
grid
into a variety of always-on lifestyle interfaces, including meters,
panels,
garages, vehicles, recharging stations and mobile devices. The Internet
really
took off within universities (and then everywhere else) because of the
concept
of the ?browser.? From that point on, Internet access wasn?t tied to an
IBM supercomputer or a Windows proprietary desktop. With that shift, the
tantalizing possibilities of open access invited strong investment, and
we
continue to reap more benefits of such a model more than two decades
later.

8. Make a Task Force: The smart grid?s standardized framework needs to
be
driven by an engineering task force, similar to the Internet Engineering
Task
Force. Like the IETF, the smart grid task force (SGTF) would produce
high
quality, relevant technical and engineering documents that influence the
way
people design, use and manage the smart grid in such a way as to make
the smart
grid work better. These documents would include protocol standards, best
current
practices, and other informational documents. When the informational
tools are
dispersed, let application innovation (driven by businesses) drive the
growth.

9. Allow for Secure Grid Layer: OK, this one is a little specific, but
still
quite relevant given the Internet?s roots with the Department of
Defense.
Because power grid security is so important, the smart grid needs to
build
policies and procedures that allocate a limited percent of a grid layer
to be
fully regulated and completely off limits for business access. This
layer can
be used for Pentagon/DoD grade security for administering, monitoring
and
controlling the resources and functions of the grid. It would basically
be a
virtual nerve center with selective access. While the Internet doesn?t
have a
nerve center per se, certain secure transmissions leverage the same
distributed
collaboration-architectures, and are fully controlled for classified
access
only ? e.g., command and control communications.

10. Recovery in a Disaster: In the event of an emergency or disaster,
the smart
grid needs to have a fault-tolerant channel and ensure that all
resources are
set up for collaboration to deliver an automated, self-healing recovery
operations process. This channel should not disrupt any other basic
channels of
communications or utility services. In the early days of the Internet,
the
network was successfully able to keep basic telephony services running
during
network disasters.

11. Government Labs: Over the years, as the smart grid matures in the
open
market, it is important for a smart grid governing body to still own and
maintain state-of-the art lab environments to focus on the technologies
involved. This ensures that the smart grid will still be current, open
and
standardized and not influenced too greatly by specific vendor
interests. In
the case of the Internet, the Department of Defense created ARPANET,
which was
helpful in the development of early application-services like email, FTP
and
protocols like NCP and TCP/IP.

12. Demonstrate the Value: Finally, but probably most importantly, the
smart
grid needs to develop and clearly communicate and market its value
proposition.
Basically: Why do we need the smart grid now? This should be
demonstrated and
measured in terms of economics, lifestyle enhancements, energy
conservation,
and renewable energy integration. The value proposition of the Internet
?
making the world smaller and connecting every one of us ? was more clear
to
consumers, and the Internet was its own chief marketing officer in its
early
days.




-- 
Richard Lowenberg
1st-Mile Institute
P.O. Box 8001, Santa Fe, NM 87504
505-989-9110;   505-603-5200 cell
rl at 1st-mile.com  www.1st-mile.com

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