De-Mystifying Smart Grid Standards - Introduction to IEC 61968
If a utility Common Information Model (CIM) is essential for guaranteeing true end-to-end open standards-based Smart Grid communications, a major challenge is the requirement that it cover all domains and data exchanges in electrical networks. (Similar challenges exist for water and gas networks.)
The disparate and distributed applications a utility runs to manage electrical distribution networks range from distribution management to system outage-management, planning, metering, work management, geographic information, asset management, customer information and enterprise resource planning systems. Obviously a set of interfaces and a common language must be defined under a Distribution Management System (DMS) framework.
Toward this end, the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) is actively developing the IEC 61968 standard series, which defines the architecture and interface reference model facilitating the implementation of middleware services that broker messages among applications within a distribution management domain.
The IEC 61968 series of standards - not all of them yet published - consists of:
- IEC 61968-1 - Interface architecture and general requirements
- IEC 61968-2 - Glossary
- IEC 61968-3 - Interface for network operations
- IEC 61968-4 - Interfaces for records and asset management
- IEC 61968-5 - Interfaces for operational planning & optimization
- IEC 61968-6 - Interfaces for maintenance & construction
- IEC 61968-7 - Interfaces for network extension planning
- IEC 61968-8 - Interfaces for customer support
- IEC 61968-9 - Interfaces for meter reading & control
- IEC 61968-10 - Interfaces for business functions external to distribution management
- IEC 61968-11 - CIM extensions for distribution maintenance
- IEC 61968-12 - CIM use cases for 61968
- IEC 61968-13 - CIM Resource Description Framework (RDF) Model exchange format for distribution maintenance
- IEC 61968-14-1-3 to 14-1-10 - Proposed IEC standards to map IEC61968 and MultiSpeak standards
- IEC 61968-14-2-3 to 14-2-10 - Proposed IEC standards to create a CIM profile to implement MultiSpeak functionality
It is important to highlight the adoption of the eXtensible Markup Language (XML) - an open enterprise web standards and data format - as the common language for all IEC 61968 interfaces. This represents a powerful acknowledgement that the industry is moving toward the adoption of end-to-end IP-based stacks such as Arch Rock PhyNet-Grid.
Tags: IEC, IEC 61968, PhyNet-Grid, smart-grid