NIST Special Publication 1108

NIST Framework and Roadmap for 

Smart Grid Interoperability 

Standards, 

Release 1.0 

Office of the National Coordinator for Smart Grid Interoperability 
NIST Special Publication 1108 

NIST Framework and Roadmap for 

Smart Grid Interoperability 

Standards, 

Release 1.0 

Office of the National Coordinator for Smart Grid Interoperability 

January 2010 

U.S. Department of Commerce 

Gary Locke, Secretary 

National Institute of Standards and Technology 

Patrick D. Gallagher, Director 
Table of Contents 

Executive Summary........................................................................................................................ 7

1 Purpose and Scope .................................................................................................................. 13

1.1 Overview and Background............................................................................................. 13

1.2 How This Report Was Produced.................................................................................... 16

1.3 Key Concepts................................................................................................................. 18

1.3.1 Definitions............................................................................................................... 19

1.3.2 Applications and Requirements: Eight Priority Areas............................................ 20

1.4 Content Overview .......................................................................................................... 21

2 Smart Grid Vision................................................................................................................... 23

2.1 Overview........................................................................................................................ 23

2.2 Importance to National Energy Policy Goals................................................................. 25

2.3 Key Attributes................................................................................................................ 28

2.3.1 Defined Architectures............................................................................................. 28

2.3.2 Different Layers of Interoperability........................................................................ 29

2.3.3 Standards and Conformance ................................................................................... 31

3 Conceptual Reference Model.................................................................................................. 32

3.1 Overview........................................................................................................................ 32

3.2 Description of Conceptual Model .................................................................................. 34

3.3 Models for Smart Grid Information Networks............................................................... 36

3.3.1 Information Networks............................................................................................. 37

3.3.2 Security for Smart Grid Information Systems and Control Systems Networks..... 38

3.3.3 IP-Based Networks ................................................................................................. 39

3.3.4 Smart Grid and the Public Internet – Security Concerns........................................ 39

3.3.5 Technologies for Standards for Smart Grid Communication Infrastructure .......... 40

3.4 Use Case Overview........................................................................................................ 40

3.5 Smart Grid Interface to the Customer Domain .............................................................. 41

3.5.1 Distinction between the Meter and the Energy Services Interface ......................... 41
3.5.2 The ESI and the Home Area Network .................................................................... 42

4 Standards Identified for Implementation ................................................................................ 44

4.1 Guiding Principles Used for Identifying Interoperability Standards ............................. 44

4.2 Overview of the Standards Identification Process ......................................................... 48

4.3 Revised List of Standards Identified by NIST ............................................................... 49

4.4 Additional Standards Identified by NIST Subject to Further Review ........................... 61

4.5 Process for Future Smart Grid Standards Identification ................................................ 74

5 Priority Action Plans............................................................................................................... 75

5.1 Overview........................................................................................................................ 75

5.2 Standard Meter Data Profiles (PAP 05)......................................................................... 78

5.3 Standards for Energy Usage Information (PAP 10)....................................................... 79

5.4 Standard Demand Response Signals (PAP 09).............................................................. 82

5.5 Develop Common Specification for Price and Product Definition (PAP 03)................ 83

5. 6 Develop Common Scheduling Communication for Energy Transactions (PAP 04)..... 85

5.7 Guidelines for the Use of IP Protocol Suite in the Smart Grid (PAP 01) ...................... 87

5.8 Guidelines for the Use of Wireless Communications (PAP 02).................................... 88

5.9 Harmonize Power Line Carrier Standards for Appliance Communications in the Home 

(PAP 15)....................................................................................................................... 90

5.10 Develop Common Information Model (CIM) for Distribution Grid Management 

(PAP 08)....................................................................................................................... 91

5.11 Transmission and Distribution Power Systems Model Mapping (PAP 14)................... 93

5.12 DNP3 Mapping to IEC 61850 Objects (PAP 12)........................................................... 95

5.13 Harmonization of IEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 and Precision Time Synchronization 

(PAP 13)....................................................................................................................... 97

5.14 Energy Storage Interconnection Guidelines (PAP 07)................................................. 100

5.15 Interoperability Standards to Support Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PAP 11) ................. 103

6 Cyber Security Strategy ........................................................................................................ 106

6.1 Cyber Security and the Electric Sector ........................................................................ 107

6.2 Scope and Definitions .................................................................................................. 108

6.3 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy............................................................................. 108
6.4 Time Line and Deliverables......................................................................................... 115

7 Next Steps............................................................................................................................. 116

7.1 Phase II – Smart Grid Interoperability Panel ............................................................... 116

7.2 Smart Grid Conformity Testing ................................................................................... 116

7.3 Other Issues to be Addressed ....................................................................................... 117

7.3.1 Electromagnetic Disturbances .............................................................................. 117

7.3.2 Electromagnetic Interference ................................................................................ 118

7.3.3 Privacy Issues in the Smart Grid........................................................................... 118

7.3.4 Safety .................................................................................................................... 120

7.4 Conclusion.................................................................................................................... 121

8 List of Acronyms .................................................................................................................. 122

9 Appendix: Specific Domain Diagrams................................................................................ 128

9.1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 128

9.2 Customer Domain ........................................................................................................ 130

9.3 Markets Domain........................................................................................................... 132

9.4 Service Provider Domain ............................................................................................. 134

9.5 Operations Domain ...................................................................................................... 136

9.6 Bulk Generation Domain ............................................................................................. 139

9.7 Transmission Domain .................................................................................................. 142

9.8 Distribution Domain..................................................................................................... 143
DISCLAIMER 

This document has been prepared by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) 

and describes standards research in support of its mandate under the Energy Independence and 

Security Act of 2007 (EISA).

Certain commercial entities, equipment, or material may be identified in this document in order 

to describe a concept adequately. Such identification is not intended to imply recommendation or 

endorsement by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, nor is it intended to imply 

that these entities, materials, or equipment are necessarily the best available for the purpose. 

Page 6 
Executive Summary 

Background 

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA), the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology (NIST) is assigned the “primary responsibility to coordinate 

development of a framework that includes protocols and model standards for information 

management to achieve interoperability of Smart Grid devices and systems...” [EISA Title XIII, 

Section 1305]. There is an urgent need to establish protocols and standards for the Smart Grid. 

Deployment of various Smart Grid elements, including smart sensors on distribution lines, smart 

meters in homes, and widely dispersed sources of renewable energy, is already underway and 

will be accelerated as a result of Department of Energy (DOE) Smart Grid Investment Grants 

and other incentives, such as loan guarantees for renewable energy generation projects. Without 

standards, there is the potential for technologies developed or implemented with sizable public 

and private investments to become obsolete prematurely or to be implemented without measures 

necessary to ensure security. 

EISA, which designates development of a Smart Grid as a national policy goal, specifies that the 

interoperability framework should be “flexible, uniform, and technology neutral.” The law also 

instructs that the framework should accommodate “traditional, centralized generation and 

distribution resources” while also facilitating incorporation of new, innovative Smart Grid 

technologies, such as distributed renewable energy resources and energy storage. 

Recognizing the urgency, NIST developed a three-phase plan to accelerate the identification of 

an initial set of standards and to establish a robust framework for the sustaining development of 

the many additional standards that will be needed and for setting up a conformity testing and 

certification infrastructure. In May 2009, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary Locke and U.S. 

Secretary of Energy Steven Chu chaired a meeting of nearly 70 executives from the power, 

information technology, and other industries at which these executives expressed their 

organizations’ commitment to support the plan established by NIST to meet its EISA 

responsibility. Over the past year, these organizational commitments have been realized with the 

active participation of the broad Smart Grid community to support the NIST plan. 

This document, NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, 

Release 1.0, is the output of the first phase of the NIST plan. It describes a high-level conceptual 

reference model for the Smart Grid, identifies 75 existing standards that are applicable (or likely 

to be applicable) to the ongoing development of the Smart Grid, specifies 15 high-priority gaps 

and harmonization issues (in addition to cyber security) for which new or revised standards and 

requirements are needed, documents action plans with aggressive timelines by which designated 

standards-setting organizations (SSOs) will address these gaps, and describes the strategy to 

establish requirements and standards to help ensure Smart Grid cyber security. 

This document was drafted through an open public process that engaged the broad spectrum of 

Smart Grid stakeholder communities and the general public. Input was provided through three 

public workshops, in April, May and August 2009, in which more than 1,500 individuals 

representing hundreds of organizations participated. NIST also consulted with stakeholders 

through extensive outreach efforts carried out by the Office of the National Coordinator for 

Smart Grid Interoperability. A draft of this report underwent a 30-day public review and 

Page 7 
comment period, which ended on November 9, 2009. All comments received were considered 

during the preparation of this report. 

Summary of Key Elements Included in the Report 

Smart Grid Conceptual Reference Model 

The Smart Grid is a complex system of systems for which a common understanding of its major 

building blocks and how they interrelate must be broadly shared. NIST has developed a 

conceptual architectural reference model presented in this document to facilitate this shared 

view. This model provides a means to analyze use cases, identify interfaces for which 

interoperability standards are needed, and to facilitate development of a cyber security strategy. 

The NIST Smart Grid Conceptual Reference Model, as described in Chapter 3, identifies seven 

domains: bulk generation, transmission, distribution, markets, operations, service provider, and 

customer. The model identifies interfaces among domains and actors. It also includes 

applications requiring exchanges of information, for which interoperability standards are 

needed. The Smart Grid Conceptual Reference Model described in this report will be further 

developed under the auspices of the Smart Grid Architecture Committee, a standing committee 

of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, which was established on November 16, 2009, to 

provide an open process for stakeholders to participate in providing input and cooperating with 

NIST in the ongoing coordination, acceleration and harmonization of standards development for 

the Smart Grid. 

Priorities for Standardization 

The Smart Grid will ultimately require hundreds of standards, specifications, and requirements. 

Some are needed more urgently than others. To prioritize its work, NIST chose to focus initially 

on standards needed to address the priorities identified in the Federal Energy Regulatory 

Commission (FERC) Policy Statement,1

 plus additional areas identified by NIST. The eight 

priority areas are: 

• Demand Response and Consumer Energy Efficiency 

• Wide-Area Situational Awareness 

• Energy Storage 

• Electric Transportation 

• Advanced Metering Infrastructure 

• Distribution Grid Management 

• Cyber Security 

• Network Communications 

 

1

 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Smart Grid Policy, 128 FERC ¶ 61,060 [Docket No. PL09-4-000] July 

16, 2009. 

Page 8 
Standards Identified for Implementation 

On the basis of stakeholder input and NIST’s technical judgment, this initial release of the NIST 

Smart Grid Framework and Roadmap identifies 75 standards, specifications, or guidelines that 

are immediately applicable (or likely to be applicable) to the ongoing transformation to the Smart 

Grid. In this report, the total is divided into two sets. The first set of 25 standards, specifications, 

and guidelines is the product of three rounds of review and comment. The set of 50 additional 

standards was compiled on the basis of stakeholder inputs received during the second and third 

rounds of review and comment. Some of the standards in the two sets are mature, others require 

revisions to accommodate Smart Grid applications and requirements, and still others are in the 

draft stage and not yet publicly available. As part of the Priority Action Plans devised during the 

first phase of the NIST plan for Smart Grid interoperability, candidate standards requiring 

revisions and draft standards still in development are undergoing further review and consensus 

development. Collectively, these 75 standards represent a small subset of the totality of standards 

that ultimately will be required to build a safe, secure Smart Grid that is interoperable, end to 

end. 

NIST developed criteria to help guide the evaluation of Smart Grid interoperability standards. 

Not all of the criteria could be applied to each standard identified in this report. Therefore, 

decisions were based on a cumulative assessment that considered all of the applicable criteria. 

As a general rule, however, NIST believes that Smart Grid interoperability standards should be 

open. This means that the standards should be developed and maintained through a 

collaborative, consensus-driven process that is open to participation by all relevant and 

materially affected parties and not dominated by, or under the control of, a single organization 

or group of organizations. As important, the standards resulting from this process should be 

readily and reasonably available to all for Smart Grid applications. In addition, Smart Grid 

interoperability standards should be developed and implemented internationally, whenever 

practical. 

For the purpose of this document, it should be noted that NIST is using the term standards (or 

specifications)-setting organization (SSO) to represent the broad universe of organizations and 

groups – formal or informal – that develop standards, specifications, user requirements, 

guidelines, and the like. Included under the SSO umbrella, for example, are standardsdeveloping organizations that develop standards through an accredited process. 

Priority Action Plans 

Through the NIST workshops, NIST determined that many potentially useful standards will 

require revision or enhancement before they can be implemented to address Smart Grid 

requirements. In addition, stakeholders identified gaps requiring entirely new standards to be 

developed. In all, a total of 70 such gaps or related issues were identified. Of these, NIST 

selected 15 for which resolution is most urgently needed to support one or more of the Smart 

Grid priority areas.2

 For each, an action plan has been developed. These Priority Action Plans 

specify organizations that have agreed to accomplish defined tasks with specified deliverables. 

 

2

 An additional priority action plan was conceived, but was placed on hold in order to focus on the other plans 

identified. See Section 5.2 Standard Meter Data Profiles (PAP 05) for more information. 

Page 9 
For each, aggressive milestones were established (some completed in 2009, and the others 

expected to be completed during 2010). One action plan has already been completed and 

substantive progress has been made in meeting the milestones of others. The Priority Action 

Plans and targets for completion are: 

• Smart meter upgradeability standard (completed) 

• Common specification for price and product definition (early 2010) 

• Common scheduling mechanism for energy transactions (early 2010) 

• Common information model for distribution grid management (year-end 2010) 

• Standard demand response signals (early 2010) 

• Standards for energy use information (mid 2010) 

• DNP3 Mapping to IEC 61850 Objects (2010)3

• Harmonization of IEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 and precision time synchronization 

(mid 2010) 

• Transmission and distribution power systems models mapping (year-end 2010) 

• Guidelines for use of IP protocol suite in the Smart Grid (mid 2010) 

• Guidelines for use of wireless communications in the Smart Grid (mid 2010) 

• Energy storage interconnection guidelines (mid 2010) 

• Interoperability standards to support plug-in electric vehicles (year-end 2010) 

• Standard meter data profiles (year-end 2010) 

• Harmonize power line carrier standards for appliance communications in the home (yearend 2010) 

Cyber Security 

Ensuring cyber security of the Smart Grid is a critical priority. Achieving this goal requires 

incorporating security at the architectural level. A NIST-led Cyber Security Coordination Task 

Group consisting of almost 300 participants from the private and public sectors is leading the 

development of a cyber security strategy and cyber security requirements for the Smart Grid. 

The task group is identifying use cases with cyber security considerations; assessing risks, 

vulnerabilities, threats and impacts; performing a privacy impact assessment; assessing relevant 

standards; specifying research and development topics; developing a security architecture linked 

to the Smart Grid conceptual reference model; and documenting and tailoring security 

requirements to provide adequate protection. Results of the task group’s work to date are 

summarized in this document and included in a companion Smart Grid document entitled: 

DRAFT NISTIR 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements, issued on 

September 25, 2009. This draft underwent a period of public review, ending December 1, 2009. 

A subsequent draft that incorporates comments and includes new task-group outputs will be 

published in early 2010. This cyber security document will also undergo public review and 

comment. 

 

 

3

 All acronyms are defined in the Appendix. 

Page 10 
Next Steps 

The reference model, standards, gaps and action plans described in this document provide an 

initial foundation for a secure, interoperable Smart Grid. These outputs are the results of 

consensus, achieved through participatory workshops and webinars, formal public reviews of 

draft documents and a preliminary list of standards, and extensive NIST outreach activities. 

These efforts mobilized the diverse community of Smart Grid stakeholders, and launched and 

expedited standardization efforts now spanning more than 20 standards-setting organizations. 

Under EISA, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is charged with instituting 

rulemaking proceedings, and once sufficient consensus is achieved, adopting the standards and 

protocols necessary to ensure Smart Grid functionality and interoperability in interstate 

transmission of electric power and in regional and wholesale electricity markets. Not all of the 

standards listed in this initial framework are ready or necessary for adoption by regulators at this 

time. Some of the individual standards listed require specified revisions or developments within 

formal standards-setting organizations. Additionally, some foundational standards and 

specifications listed are already in wide use by industry on a voluntary basis and, thus, 

regulatory adoption may not be necessary. NIST intends to coordinate the development of 

additional technical information on individual standards and specifications to support their 

evaluation and potential use for regulatory purposes. 

 The second phase of the NIST plan was formally launched in November 2009. It involves an 

ongoing organization and consensus process that is being formalized under the newly formed 

Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). The SGIP is a public-private partnership that provides 

a more permanent organizational structure to support the continuing evolution of the framework. 

By mid-December 2009, one month after it was established, the SGIP membership exceeded 400 

organizations divided among 22 stakeholder categories. 

The objective of the NIST plan, moving forward, is to create a robust, ongoing, “built-in” 

standards process4

 that supports cycle after cycle of Smart Grid innovation and helps to 

transform our economy. The resulting process could lead to new collaborative methods and 

vehicles for developing and deploying standards in technology-based markets, especially during 

the early phases when standards—or the lack of standards—can strongly influence the course of 

further technology development and diffusion and the growth and competitiveness of industries. 

Although the product of federal legislation, the collaborative standardization process that NIST 

and Smart Grid stakeholders are building must interface effectively with all states and territories 

and their regulatory agencies. Many states and their utility commissions are pursuing Smart 

Grid-related projects. For example, most states have set renewable portfolio standards that set 

goals for the percentage of electric power supplied by wind, solar, and other renewable energy 

sources. Ultimately, states and local projects will converge into fully functioning elements of the 

Smart Grid “system of systems.” The interoperability and cyber security standards developed 

under the NIST framework and roadmap should also support the role of the states in modernizing 

the nation’s electric grid. 

 

4

 As part of this process, the SGIP will help to prioritize and coordinate Smart Grid-related standards. See Section 

7.1 for further discussion. 

Page 11 
A robust framework for conformity testing and certification of Smart Grid devices and systems 

will be established as the third phase of NIST’s three-phase plan to ensure interoperability and 

cyber security. In recognition of the importance of testing and certification, the SGIP contains a 

permanent testing and certification committee. With the SGIP and its governing board, NIST has 

initiated planning for such a framework in consultation with stakeholders, and it will initiate 

implementation steps in 2010. 

Page 12 
1 Purpose and Scope 

1.1 Overview and Background 

Under the Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology (NIST) is assigned “primary responsibility to coordinate development 

of a framework that includes protocols and model standards for information management to 

achieve 

interoperability of 

Smart Grid devices 

and systems...”

[EISA Title XIII, 

Section 1305]5

There is an urgent 

need to establish 

Smart Grid 

standards and 

protocols. Some 

Smart Grid6

devices, such as 

smart meters, are 

moving beyond the 

pilot stage into 

large-scale 

deployment. 

Installation of 

synchrophasors—

sensors that provide 

real-time 

 

NIST Plan for Interoperability Standards 

To carry out its EISA-assigned responsibilities, NIST devised a three-phase 

plan to rapidly identify an initial set of standards, while providing a robust 

process for continued development and implementation of standards as 

needs and opportunities arise and as technology advances. 

• Engage stakeholders in a participatory public process to identify 

applicable standards and requirements, and gaps in currently 

available standards, and priorities for additional standardization 

activities. With the support of outside technical experts working 

under contract, NIST has compiled and incorporated stakeholder 

inputs from three public workshops, as well as technical contributions 

from technical working groups and a cyber security coordination task 

group, into the NIST-coordinated standards-roadmapping effort. 

 

• Establish a Smart Grid Interoperability Panel forum to drive 

longer-term progress. A representative, reliable, and responsive 

organizational forum is needed to sustain continued development of 

interoperability standards. On November 19, 2009, a Smart Grid 

Interoperability Panel was launched to serve this function. 

• Develop and implement a framework for conformity testing and 

certification. Testing and certification of how standards are 

implemented in Smart Grid devices, systems, and processes are 

essential to ensure interoperability and security under realistic 

operating conditions. NIST, in consultation with stakeholders, plans to 

develop an overall framework for testing and certification, with initial 

steps completed by early 2010. 

5

 DOE is the lead federal agency with responsibility for sponsoring cost-shared Smart Grid investment grants, 

demonstration projects, and other R&D efforts. The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) is tasked with 

initiating rulemakings for adoption of Smart Grid standards when it determines that the standards identified in the 

NIST framework development efforts have sufficient consensus. See Title XIII, Section 1305 of the Energy 

Independence and Security Act of 2007.

6

 While recognizing that the different names used for the future grid have meaningful distinctions to some 

stakeholders, this report generally uses the term “Smart Grid.” The capitalized version of the term is used in Title 

XIII of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. NIST recognizes that lower-case versions of the term 

also appear in the act. The decision to use Smart Grid is not intended to discount or supersede other terms used to 

describe a modernized grid that enables bidirectional flows of energy and uses two-way communication and control 

capabilities that will lead to an array of new functionalities and applications. 

Page 13 
assessments of power system health to provide system operators with better information for 

averting disastrous outages—has accelerated rapidly. By 2013, nearly 900 of these devices will 

monitor conditions on the power grid, a more than fivefold increase since January 2009. 7

In late October 2009, President Obama announced 100 Smart Grid Investment Grant Program 

awards totaling $3.4 billion. This federal investment leveraged an additional $4.7 billion in 

commitments from private companies, utilities, cities, and other partners that are forging ahead 

with plans to install Smart Grid technologies and enable an array of efficiency-maximizing and 

performance-optimizing applications. At the end of 2009, the number of Smart Grid projects in 

the United States exceeded 130 projects spread across 44 states and two territories.8

Federal loan guarantees for commercial renewable energy generation projects,9

 growing venture 

capital investments in Smart Grid technologies, and other incentives and investments provide 

additional impetus to accelerate the nationwide transition to the Smart Grid. However, given that 

investments are ongoing and ramping up rapidly, standards adopted or developed in support of 

this transition must fully reckon with the need for backward compatibility with deployed 

technologies. 

A recent forecast projects that the U.S. market for Smart Grid-related equipment, devices, 

information and communication technologies, and other hardware, software, and services will 

double between 2009 and 2014—to nearly $43 billion. Over the same span, the global market is 

projected to grow to more than $171 billion, an increase of almost 150 percent.10

In the absence of standards, there is a risk that the diverse Smart Grid technologies that are the 

objects of these mounting investments will become prematurely obsolete or, worse, be 

implemented without adequate security measures. Lack of standards may also impede future 

innovation and the realization of promising applications, such as smart appliances that are 

responsive to price and demand response signals. 

Moreover, standards enable economies of scale and scope that help to create competitive markets 

in which vendors compete on the basis of a combination of price and quality. Market 

competition promotes faster diffusion of Smart Grid technologies and realization of customer 

benefits. A recent national survey indicates that most U.S. consumers are favorably disposed 

toward anticipated household-level benefits made possible by Smart Grid technologies and 

capabilities. Three-fourths of those surveyed said they are “likely to change their energy use in 

 

7

 Vice President Biden, Memorandum for the President, “Progress Report: The Transformation to a Clean Energy 

Economy,” Dec. 15, 2009. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/vice-president-biden/reports/progressreport-transformation-clean-energy-economy. 

8

 On World, “Smart Grid Projects in 90 Percent of U.S. States,” Nov. 4, 2009. 

9

 U.S. Department of Energy, “Energy Department Announces New Private Sector Partnership to Accelerate 

Renewable Energy Projects,” Oct. 7, 2009. 

10 Zpryme, “Smart Grid: United States and Global Hardware and Software Companies Should Prepare to Capitalize 

on This Technology,” Dec. 14, 2009. 

Page 14 
order to save money on their utility bills if they were given new technology solutions.” A similar 

percentage said they “would like their utility to help them reduce energy consumption.”11

In early 2009, recognizing the importance and urgency of modernizing the nation’s electric 

power infrastructure, NIST intensified efforts to accelerate progress in identifying and actively 

coordinating the development of interoperability standards that will underpin the performance, 

capabilities, and benefits of the Smart Grid. In May 2009, U.S. Secretary of Commerce Gary 

Locke and U.S. Secretary of Energy Steven Chu chaired a meeting of nearly 70 executives from 

the power, information technology, and other industries at which they expressed their 

organizations’ commitment to support NIST’s plan. Over the past year, these organizational 

commitments have been realized with the active participation of the broad Smart Grid 

community to support the NIST plan. 

This report, NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 

1.0, is an output of NIST’s approach to expediting development of key standards and 

requirements that will enable the networked devices and systems that make up the envisioned 

Smart Grid to communicate and work with each other. It is the first official output of NIST’s 

three-phase plan to accelerate development and implementation of key standards essential to 

progress toward realizing the Smart Grid vision. 

The majority of the document presents the first steps of a Smart Grid interoperability framework 

based upon initial standards and priorities to achieve interoperability of Smart Grid devices and 

systems.

It contains: 

• a conceptual reference model to facilitate design of an architecture for the Smart Grid overall 

and for its networked domains; 

• an initial set of 75 identified standards for the Smart Grid; 

• priorities for additional standards and revisions to existing standards necessary to resolve 

important gaps and to assure the interoperability, reliability, and security of Smart Grid 

components; 

• initial steps toward a Smart Grid cyber security strategy and requirements document using a 

high-level risk assessment process; and 

• action plans with aggressive timelines by which designated standards-setting organizations 

(SSOs) with expertise in Smart Grid domains or technology areas will address identified 

gaps. 

This document is the first installment in an ongoing standards and harmonization process. 

Ultimately, this process will deliver the hundreds of communication protocols, standard 

 

11 TechNet, “New Poll Finds Wide Majority of Americans Support New Technologies for Smart Grid and Improved 

Home Energy Management,” Dec. 21, 2009. 

Page 15 
interfaces, and other widely accepted and adopted technical specifications necessary to build an 

advanced, secure electric power grid with two-way communication and control capabilities. It 

will serve to guide the work of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) that was established 

on November 19, 2009, as part of the NIST three-phase approach to achieving end-to-end 

interoperability, while ensuring the safety, reliability, and security of the grid. The membership 

of the SGIP, consisting of organizations in 22 Smart Grid stakeholder categories, will provide an 

open process for stakeholders to participate in providing input and cooperating with NIST in the 

ongoing coordination, acceleration and harmonization of standards development for the Smart 

Grid, beginning with but extending well beyond Release 1.0. 

In conjunction with and integral to this process, NIST is coordinating the development of a 

Smart Grid cyber security framework and strategy, which involves almost 300 technical experts. 

Results of the task group’s work to date are included in a companion Smart Grid document 

entitled: DRAFT NISTIR 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements, issued on 

Sept. 25, 2009. The next draft of this document is due in early 2010, and will undergo public 

review and comment. The final Smart Grid cyber security framework and strategy will be 

completed in collaboration with the SGIP and its Cyber Security Working Group, with the final 

version anticipated to be published in the spring of 2010. 

The results of NIST’s ongoing work on standards for the Smart Grid provides input to FERC, 

which under EISA is charged with instituting, once sufficient consensus is achieved, 

rulemaking proceedings to adopt the standards and protocols necessary to ensure Smart Grid 

functionality and interoperability in interstate transmission of electric power and in regional and 

wholesale electricity markets. 

1.2 How This Report Was Produced 

This section describes the steps that NIST undertook to engage diverse stakeholders in the 

identification of the first set of applicable Smart Grid standards as well as initial priorities for 

developing new standards that address gaps identified in public workshops and through NIST 

outreach to stakeholders and formal public reviews of draft versions of this document. 

This report distills insights, analyses, and recommendations from members of the general public, 

proffered during stakeholder-engagement workshops that have involved over 1,500 people and 

four rounds of public review formally announced in Federal Register notices. Participants at 

three workshops (April 28-29, 2009; May 19-20, 2009; August 3-4, 2009) represented a broad 

range of technical expertise and a diversity of stakeholder perspectives, including power 

transmission and distribution, information and communications technology, renewable energy, 

electric transportation, energy storage, smart buildings, state and federal regulators, and 

consumers. Significant portions of these workshops were devoted to developing use cases and 

generating requirements to be addressed by interoperability standards. Use cases are a systems 

engineering tool for defining a system’s behavior from the perspective of users. In effect, a use 

case is a story told in structure and detailed steps—scenarios for specifying required usages of a 

system, including how a component, subsystem, or system should respond to a request that 

originates elsewhere. 

In addition, NIST drew on the technical contributions of domain expert working groups 

(DEWGs) that it established in 2008 in partnership with DOE’s GridWise Architecture Council 

Page 16 
(GWAC) to provide an open, regular means of collaboration among technical experts interested 

in furthering the goal of Smart Grid interoperability.12 Involving more than 400 people 

representing 100 different organizations, the DEWGs engaged in technical activities such as 

developing domain-specific requirements for Smart Grid functionality and interoperability and 

identifying cyber security risks and vulnerabilities. 

Also, in April 2009, NIST awarded a contract to the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), a 

private, nonprofit research organization to facilitate the April and May stakeholder workshops. 

Subsequent to the April workshop, NIST identified a preliminary set of standards and 

specifications for inclusion in the NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid 

Interoperability Standards, Draft Release 1.0. When the list was announced, NIST stressed its 

preliminary nature. “Existing standards that do not appear in this first installment to Release 1.0 

have not been eliminated from consideration,” NIST advised on its Smart Grid Web site. 

“Moreover, standards currently on the list ultimately may not be included.”13

The initial list was reviewed at the May 19-20, 2009, stakeholders’ workshop, where additional 

standards were identified as candidates for inclusion in Release 1.0. In addition, NIST submitted 

the preliminary list for public review and comment, June 9 to July 9, 2009, as announced in the 

Federal Register.

14

Following the workshops, EPRI—using its technical expertise— compiled, distilled, organized, 

and refined stakeholder contributions, integrated the results with previously prepared 

information, and produced a Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 

Roadmap.15 Delivered to NIST in mid-June 2009, the report identified issues and proposed 

priorities for developing interoperability standards and conceptual reference models for a U.S. 

Smart Grid. The report listed more than 80 existing standards that might be applied or adapted to 

Smart Grid interoperability or cyber security needs and identified more than 70 standardization 

gaps and issues. 

The EPRI-prepared document was made available for public review and comment.16 NIST 

consulted the report and evaluated the comments received as it drafted this standards roadmap. 

A key intermediate NIST output was a distillation of priorities that, in addition to the longstanding, cross-cutting requirement for cyber security, NIST proposed for immediate, focused 

action by standards-setting organizations (SSOs) and stakeholder groups. A formalized Smart 

Grid standards Priority Action Plan (PAP) approach was developed to define the problem, 

establish the objectives, and identify the likely standards bodies and users associations pertinent 

 

12 Organized by Smart Grid domains, the six DEWGs are: transmission and distribution, building to grid, industry to 

grid, home to grid, business and policy, and a cross-cutting cyber security coordination task group. An additional 

working group on electric-vehicle-to-grid issues has recently been initiated. 

13 74 FR 27288 (June 9, 2009). 

14 Ibid. 

15 Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap (Contract No. SB1341-09-CN-0031—

Deliverable 7) Prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), June 17, 2009. Available at: 

http://www.nist.gov/smartgrid/Report%20to%20NISTlAugust10%20%282%29.pdf

16 74 FR 31254 (June 30, 2009).

Page 17 
to the standards modifications, enhancements, and harmonization required. This fast-tracking 

PAP approach was applied to the initial top priorities and has been instituted as part of the SGIP 

structure to support the continued evolution of the framework. 

The initial PAPs and the status of cyber security efforts were reviewed and further developed at a 

public workshop, held on August 3 and 4, 2009. With representatives of more than 20 standards 

organizations among the participants, the workshop was devoted to discussing individual SSO 

and stakeholder perspectives on the evolving roadmap for Smart Grid interoperability standards, 

reaching agreement on which organizations should resolve specific standards needs, and 

developing plans and timelines for meeting these responsibilities as described in the PAPs. 

Progress on the PAPs and cyber security are summarized in Chapters 5 and 6 of this document, 

respectively. 

On September 24, 2009, U.S. Commerce Secretary Gary Locke announced the availability of the 

draft version of this report, NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability 

Standards, Release 1.0 (Draft) and the DRAFT NISTIR 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security 

Strategy and Requirements. In his remarks, Secretary Locke invited public review of both 

documents. Subsequently, NIST solicited public review and comment on both drafts through 

Federal Register notices.17 Individuals from more than 80 organizations submitted 

approximately 400 comments on the NIST framework and roadmap document. All of these 

comments were reviewed by NIST, and responses were incorporated into this document when 

appropriate. 18 However, not all comments were relevant to the scope of the framework and 

roadmap. 

1.3 Key Concepts 

Although it makes up only one aspect of the transformation to a Smart Grid infrastructure, the 

expedited development of an interoperability framework and a roadmap for underpinning 

standards is fundamentally important. 

Technical contributions from numerous stakeholder communities will be required to realize an 

interoperable, secure Smart Grid. Because of the diversity of technical and industrial 

perspectives involved, most participants in the roadmapping effort are familiar with only subsets 

of Smart Grid-related standards. Few have detailed knowledge of all pertinent standards, even in 

their own industrial and technical area. 

This report contributes to an increased understanding of standards-related priorities, strengths 

and weaknesses of individual standards, the level of effective interoperability among different 

Smart-Grid domains, and cyber security requirements that are critical to realization of the Smart 

Grid. 

 

17 74 FR 52181 (October 9, 2009) for Release 1.0 and 74 FR 52183 (October 9, 2009). 

18 NIST’s responses will be posted at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/IKBFramework

Page 18 
1.3.1 Definitions 

Several important terms appear throughout the roadmap. Definitions of some may vary among 

stakeholders. To facilitate clear stakeholder discourse, NIST used the following definitions for 

the key terms below: 

Architecture: The conceptual structure and overall organization of the Smart Grid from the 

point of view of its use or design. This includes technical and business designs, 

demonstrations, implementations, and standards that, together, convey a common 

understanding of the Smart Grid. The architecture embodies high-level principles and 

requirements that designs of Smart Grid applications and systems must satisfy.19

Harmonization: The process of achieving technical equivalency and enabling interchangeability 

between different standards with overlapping functionality. Harmonization requires an 

architecture that documents key points of interoperability and associated interfaces. 

Interoperability: The capability of two or more networks, systems, devices, applications, or 

components to exchange and readily use information—securely, effectively, and with little or 

no inconvenience to the user.20 The Smart Grid will be a system of interoperable systems. 

That is, different systems will be able to exchange meaningful, actionable information. The 

systems will share a common meaning of the exchanged information, and this information 

will elicit agreed-upon types of response. The reliability, fidelity, and security of information 

exchanges between and among Smart Grid systems must achieve requisite performance 

levels.21

Interchangeability: An extreme degree of interoperability characterized by a similarity 

sometimes termed “plug and play.” Interchangeable components can be freely substituted 

without loss of function and requiring minimum to no additional configuration. 

Reference Model: A set of views (diagrams) and descriptions that are the basis for discussing 

the characteristics, uses, behavior, interfaces, requirements, and standards of the Smart Grid. 

This model does not represent the final architecture of the Smart Grid; rather it is a tool for 

describing, discussing, and developing that architecture. 

Requirement: 1) A condition or capability needed by a user to solve a problem or achieve an 

objective. 2) A condition or capability that must be met or possessed by a system or system 

 

19 Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, U.S. Department of Energy. GridwiseTM Architecture Tenets and 

Illustrations, PNNL-SA-39480 October 2003. 

20 Recovery Act Financial Assistance, Funding Opportunity Announcement. U. S. Department of Energy, Office of 

Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Smart Grid Investment Grant Program Funding Opportunity Number: 

DE-FOA-0000058. 

21 GridWise Architecture Council, Interoperability Path Forward Whitepaper, November 30, 2005 (v1.0).

Page 19 
component to satisfy a contract, standard, specification, or other formally imposed 

documents.22

Standards: Specifications that establish the fitness of a product for a particular use or that define 

the function and performance of a device or system. Standards are key facilitators of 

compatibility and interoperability. They define specifications for languages, communication 

protocols, data formats, linkages within and across systems, interfaces between software 

applications and between hardware devices, and much more. Standards must be robust so 

that they can be extended to accommodate future applications and technologies. An 

assortment of organizations develops voluntary standards and specifications, which are the 

results of processes that vary on the basis of the type of standards setting-organization and its 

purpose. Government regulations may incorporate or reference voluntary standards. 

Additional terms pertinent to cyber security and to other important security-related 

considerations relevant to the safety, reliability, and overall performance of the Smart Grid and 

its components are defined in the DRAFT NISTIR 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and 

Requirements. 

1.3.2 Applications and Requirements: Eight Priority Areas 

The Smart Grid will ultimately require hundreds of standards. Some are more urgently needed 

than others. To prioritize its work, NIST chose to focus on six key functionalities plus cyber 

security and network communications, aspects that are especially critical to ongoing and nearterm deployments of Smart Grid technologies and services, including priority applications were 

recommended by FERC in its policy statement:23 

• Wide-area situational awareness: Monitoring and display of power-system components 

and performance across interconnections and over large geographic areas in near real time. 

The goals of situational awareness are to understand and ultimately optimize the management 

of power-network components, behavior, and performance, as well as to anticipate, prevent, 

or respond to problems before disruptions can arise. 

• Demand response and consumer energy efficiency: Mechanisms and incentives for 

utilities, business, industrial, and residential customers to cut energy use during times of peak 

demand or when power reliability is at risk. Demand response is necessary for optimizing the 

balance of power supply and demand. 

• Energy storage: Means of storing energy, directly or indirectly. The significant bulk 

energy storage technology available today is pumped hydroelectric storage technology. New 

storage capabilities—especially for distributed storage—would benefit the entire grid, from 

generation to end use. 

 

22 IEEE Std 610.12 

23 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Smart Grid Policy, 128 FERC ¶ 61,060 [Docket No. PL09-4-000] July 

16, 2009. 

Page 20 
• Electric transportation: Refers, primarily, to enabling large-scale integration of plug-in 

electric vehicles (PEVs). Electric transportation could significantly reduce U.S. dependence 

on foreign oil, increase use of renewable sources of energy, and dramatically reduce the 

nation’s carbon footprint. 

• Cyber security: Encompasses measures to ensure the confidentiality, integrity and 

availability of the electronic information communication systems and the control systems 

necessary for the management, operation, and protection of the Smart Grid’s energy, 

information technology, and telecommunications infrastructures.

• Network communications: The Smart Grid domains and subdomains will use a variety of 

public and private communication networks, both wired and wireless. Given this variety of 

networking environments, the identification of performance metrics and core operational 

requirements of different applications, actors, and domains—in addition to the development, 

implementation, and maintenance of appropriate security and access controls—is critical to 

the Smart Grid. 

• Advanced metering infrastructure (AMI): Currently, utilities are focusing on developing 

AMI to implement residential demand response and to serve as the chief mechanism for 

implementing dynamic pricing. It consists of the communications hardware and software and 

associated system and data management software that creates a two-way network between 

advanced meters and utility business systems, enabling collection and distribution of 

information to customers and other parties, such as the competitive retail supplier or the 

utility itself. AMI provides customers real-time (or near real-time) pricing of electricity, and 

it can help utilities achieve necessary load reductions.

• Distribution grid management: Focuses on maximizing performance of feeders, 

transformers, and other components of networked distribution systems and integrating with 

transmission systems and customer operations. As Smart Grid capabilities, such as AMI and 

demand response, are developed, and as large numbers of distributed energy resources and 

plug-in electric vehicles (PEVs) are deployed, the automation of distribution systems 

becomes increasingly more important to the efficient and reliable operation of the overall 

power system. The anticipated benefits of distribution grid management include increased 

reliability, reductions in peak loads, and improved capabilities for managing distributed 

sources of renewable energy.

1.4 Content Overview 

Chapter 2, “Smart Grid Vision,” provides a high-level description of the envisioned Smart Grid 

and describes major organizational drivers, opportunities, challenges, and anticipated benefits. 

Chapter 3, “Conceptual Reference Model,” presents a set of views (diagrams) and descriptions 

that are the basis for discussing the characteristics, uses, behavior, interfaces, requirements, and 

standards of the Smart Grid. Since the Smart Grid is an evolving networked system of systems, 

the high-level model is a tool for developing the more detailed, formal Smart Grid architectures.

Page 21 
Chapter 4, “Standards Identified for Implementation,” presents and describes existing standards 

and emerging specifications applicable to the Smart Grid. It includes descriptions of proposed 

selection criteria, a general overview of the standards identified by stakeholders in the NISTcoordinated process, and a discussion of their relevance to Smart Grid interoperability 

requirements. 

Chapter 5 describes 16 “Priority Action Plans,” to address standard-related gaps and issues for 

which resolution is most urgently needed to support one or more of the Smart Grid priority areas. 

For each, an action plan has been developed, specific organizations tasked, and aggressive 

milestones in 2009 or early 2010 established. One—a plan to develop a smart meter 

upgradeability standard—already has been completed. The full set of detailed priority action 

plans, which are works in progress undergoing continuing development and refinement, can be 

reviewed on-line at the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Web site.24

Chapter 6, “Cyber Security Risk Management Framework and Strategy,” reviews the criticality 

of cyber security to the Smart Grid, and describes how this overriding priority is being 

addressed. 

In Chapter 7, “Next Steps,” the report concludes with a discussion of the establishment of the 

Smart Grid Interoperability Panel to assist NIST to sustain expedited development of standards 

and continuing evolution of the framework, plans to establish a conformance testing and 

certification infrastructure, and additional issues impacting standardization efforts and progress 

toward realizing a safe, secure, innovation-enabling Smart Grid. 

 

24 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/WebHome 

Page 22 
2 Smart Grid Vision 

2.1 Overview 

In the United States and many other countries, modernization of the electric power grid is central 

to national efforts to increase energy efficiency, transition to renewable sources of energy, 

reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and build a sustainable economy that ensures prosperity for 

current and future generations. Around the world, billions of dollars are being spent to build 

elements of what ultimately will be “smart” electric power grids. 

Definitions and terminology vary somewhat, but whether called “Smart,” “smart,” “smarter,” or 

even “supersmart,” all notions of an advanced power grid for the 21st century hinge on adding 

and integrating many varieties of digital computing and communication technologies and 

services with the power-delivery infrastructure. Bidirectional flows of energy and two-way 

communication and control capabilities will enable an array of new functionalities and 

applications that go well beyond “smart” meters for homes and businesses. The Energy 

Independence and Security Act (EISA) of 2007, which directed NIST to coordinate development 

of this framework and roadmap, states that support for creation of a Smart Grid is the national 

policy. Distinguishing characteristics of the Smart Grid cited in the act include:25

• Increased use of digital information and controls technology to improve reliability, security, 

and efficiency of the electric grid; 

• Dynamic optimization of grid operations and resources, with full cyber security; 

• Deployment and integration of distributed resources and generation, including renewable 

resources; 

• Development and incorporation of demand response, demand-side resources, and energyefficiency resources; 

• Deployment of ‘‘smart’’ technologies for metering, communications concerning grid 

operations and status, and distribution automation; 

• Integration of ‘‘smart’’ appliances and consumer devices; 

• Deployment and integration of advanced electricity storage and peak-shaving technologies, 

including plug-in electric and hybrid electric vehicles, and thermal-storage air conditioning; 

• Provision to consumers of timely information and control options; 

• Development of standards for communication and interoperability of appliances and 

equipment connected to the electric grid, including the infrastructure serving the grid; and 

• Identification and lowering of unreasonable or unnecessary barriers to adoption of Smart 

Grid technologies, practices, and services. 

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), which leads the overall federal Smart Grid effort, 

summarized the anticipated advantages enabled by the Smart Grid in its June 25, 2009, funding 

opportunity announcement. The DOE statement explicitly recognizes the important enabling 

role of an underpinning standards infrastructure: 

 

25 Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [Public Law No: 110-140] Title XIII, Sec. 1301. 

Page 23 
The application of advanced digital technologies (i.e., microprocessor-based 

measurement and control, communications, computing, and information systems) are 

expected to greatly improve the reliability, security, interoperability, and efficiency of the 

electric grid, while reducing environmental impacts and promoting economic growth. 

Achieving enhanced connectivity and interoperability will require innovation, ingenuity, 

and different applications, systems, and devices to operate seamlessly with one another, 

involving the combined use of open system architecture, as an integration platform, and 

commonly-shared technical standards and protocols for communications and information 

systems. To realize Smart Grid capabilities, deployments must integrate a vast number of 

smart devices and systems. 26

To monitor and assess progress of deployments in the United States, DOE is tracking activities 

grouped under six chief characteristics of the envisioned Smart Grid:27

• Enables informed participation by customers; 

• Accommodates all generation and storage options; 

• Enables new products, services, and markets; 

• Provides the power quality for the range of needs; 

• Optimizes asset utilization and operating efficiently; and 

• Operates resiliently to disturbances, attacks, and natural disasters. 

Interoperability and cyber security standards identified under the NIST-coordinated process in 

cooperation with DOE will underpin component, system-level, and network-wide performance in 

each of these six important areas. 

The framework described in EISA lists several important characteristics. These include28: 

• that the framework be “flexible, uniform and technology neutral, including but not limited to 

technologies for managing smart grid information;” 

• that it “accommodate traditional, centralized generation and transmission resources and 

consumer distributed resources;” 

• that it be “flexible to incorporate regional and organizational differences; and technological 

innovations;” 

• that it “consider the use of voluntary uniform standards for certain classes of mass-produced 

electric appliances and equipment for homes and businesses that enable customers, at their 

election and consistent with applicable State and Federal laws, and are manufactured with the 

ability to respond to electric grid emergencies and demand response signals;” and that “such 

voluntary standards should incorporate appropriate manufacturer lead time.” 

 

26 U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Recovery Act Financial 

Assistance Funding Opportunity Announcement, Smart Grid Investment Grant Program, DE-FOA-0000058, June 

25, 2009. 

27 U.S. Department of Energy, Smart Grid System Report, July 2009. 

28 Quotes in the bulleted list are from the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [Public Law No: 110-140] 

Title XIII, Sec. 1305. 

Page 24 
2.2 Importance to National Energy Policy Goals 

The Smart Grid is a vital component of President Obama’s comprehensive energy plan, which 

aims to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, to create jobs, and to help U.S. industry compete 

successfully in global markets for clean energy technology. The President has set ambitious 

short- and long-term goals, necessitating quick action and sustained progress in implementing 

the components, systems, and networks that will make up the Smart Grid. For example, the 

President’s energy policies are intended to double renewable energy generating capacity to 10 

percent by 201229—an increase in capacity that is enough to power 6 million American homes. 

By 2025, renewable energy sources are expected to account for 25 percent of the nation’s electric 

power consumption. 

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) of 2009 included $11 billion for smart 

grid technologies, transmission system expansion and upgrades, and other investments to 

modernize and enhance the electric transmission infrastructure to improve energy efficiency and 

reliability.30 These investments and associated actions to modernize the nation’s electricity grid 

ultimately will result, for example, in more than 3,000 miles of new or modernized transmission 

lines and 40 million “smart meters” in American homes, 31as well as almost 700 automated 

substations and more than 850 sensors (phasor measurement units) that will cover 100 percent of 

the electric grid, which will enable operators to detect minor disturbances and prevent them from 

cascading into local or regional power outages or blackouts32. In addition, progress toward 

realization of the Smart Grid will contribute to accomplishing the President's goal of putting one 

million plug-in hybrid vehicles on the road by 2015.33 A DOE study found that the idle capacity 

of today’s electric power grid could supply 70 percent of the energy needs of today’s cars and 

light trucks without adding to generation or transmission capacity—if the vehicles charged 

during off-peak times.34

 

29 Vice-President Biden, Memorandum for the President, “Progress Report: The Transformation to a Clean Energy 

Economy,” December 15, 2009. See http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/vice-presidentbiden/reports/progress-report-transformation-clean-energy-economy. 

30 The White House, “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: Moving America Toward a Clean Energy Future.” 

Feb. 17, 2009. See: http://www.whitehouse.gov/assets/documents/Recovery_Act_Energy_2-17.pdf. 

 

31 Ibid. 

32 The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “President Obama Announces $3.4 Billion Investment to Spur 

Transition to Smart Energy Grid,” Oct. 27, 2009. See: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obamaannounces-34-billion-investment-spur-transition-smart-energy-grid. 

33 The White House, Office of the Press Secretary, “President Obama Announces $2.4 Billion in Funding to Support 

Next Generation Electric Vehicles.” March 19, 2009. 

34 M. Kintner-Meyer, K. Schneider, and R. Pratt, “Impacts Assessment of Plug-in Hybrid Vehicles on Electric 

Utilities and Regional U.S. Power Grids.” Part 1: Technical Analysis. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, U.S. 

Department of Energy, 2006. 

Page 25 
Over the long term, the 

integration of the power grid 

with the nation’s transportation 

system has the potential to yield 

huge energy savings and other 

important benefits. Estimates of 

associated potential benefits35

include: 

• Displacement of about half of 

our nation’s net oil imports; 

• Reduction in U.S. carbon 

dioxide emissions by about 

25 percent; and 

• Reductions in emissions of 

urban air pollutants of 40 

percent to 90 percent. 

While the transition to the Smart 

Grid may unfold over many 

years, incremental progress along 

the way can yield significant 

benefits (see box on left). In the 

United States, electric-power 

generation accounts for about 40 

percent of human-caused 

emissions of carbon dioxide, the 

primary greenhouse gas.36 The 

Electric Power Research Institute 

has estimated that, by 2030, 

Smart Grid-enabled (or 

facilitated) applications—from distribution voltage control to broader integration of intermittent 

renewable resources to electric transportation vehicles—could reduce the nation’s carbondioxide emissions (60 to 211) million metric tons annually.37 The opportunities are many and the 

returns can be sizable. If the current power grid were just 5 percent more efficient, the resultant 

energy savings would be equivalent to permanently eliminating the fuel consumption and 

greenhouse gas emissions from 53 million cars.38 

Anticipated Smart Grid Benefits 

• Improves power reliability and quality 

• Optimizes facility utilization and averts construction of 

back-up (peak load) power plants 

• Enhances capacity and efficiency of existing electric 

power networks 

• Improves resilience to disruption 

• Enables predictive maintenance and “self-healing”

responses to system disturbances 

• Facilitates expanded deployment of renewable 

energy sources 

• Accommodates distributed power sources 

• Automates maintenance and operation 

• Reduces greenhouse gas emissions by enabling 

electric vehicles and new power sources 

• Reduces oil consumption by reducing the need for 

inefficient generation during peak usage periods 

• Presents opportunities to improve grid security 

• Enables transition to plug-in electric vehicles and new 

energy storage options 

• Increases consumer choice 

E bl d t i d k t

 

35 Ibid. 

36 Energy Information Administration, U.S. Department of Energy, “U.S. Carbon Dioxide Emissions from Energy

Sources, 2008 Flash Estimate.” May 2009. 

37 Electric Power Research Institute, The Green Grid: Energy Savings and Carbon Emissions Reductions Enabled

by a Smart Grid, 1016905 Technical Update, June 2008.

38 U.S. Department of Energy, The Smart Grid: an Introduction, 2008. See 

http://www.oe.energy.gov/SmartGridIntroduction.htm . 

Page 26 
In its National Assessment of Demand Response Potential, FERC estimated the potential for 

peak electricity demand reductions to be equivalent to up to 20 percent of national peak 

demand—enough to eliminate the need to operate hundreds of backup power plants.39

Category $ Million

Integrated/Crosscutting 2,150

AMI 818

Distribution 254

Transmission 148

Customer Systems 32

Manufacturing 26

Total 3,429

Geographic Coverage of Selected Projects

18 million  smart meters

1.2 million in‐home display units

206,000    smart transformers

177,000    load control devices

170,000    smart thermostats

877           networked phasor measurement units

671           automated substations

100           PEV charging stations

Figure 2.1 Department of Energy Grants Smart Grid Investment Grants, 2009

Figure 2-1 Department of Energy Smart Grid Investment Grants, 2009. 40

President Obama has called for a national effort to reduce, by 2020, the nation’s greenhouse gas 

emissions to 14 percent below the 2005 level and to about 83 percent below the 2005 level by 

2050.41 Reaching these targets will require an ever more capable Smart Grid with end-to-end 

interoperability. 

The transition to the Smart Grid already is under way, and it is gaining momentum, spurred by 

ARRA investments. In late October, President Obama announced 100 awards under the Smart 

Grid Investment Grant Program.42 Totaling $3.4 billion and attracting an additional $4.7 billion 

in matching funding, the grants support manufacturing, purchasing, and installation of existing 

Smart Grid technologies that can be deployed on a commercial scale (Figure 2-1). The DOE 

required project plans to include descriptions of technical approaches to “addressing 

interoperability,” including a “summary of how the project will support compatibility with 

 

39 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, A National Assessment Of Demand Response Potential. Staff report 

prepared by the Brattle Group; Freeman, Sullivan & Co; and Global Energy Partners, LLC, June 2009. 

40 http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8216.htm. 

41 Office of Management and Budget, A New Era of Responsibility, Renewing America’s Promise. U.S. Government 

Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 2009. 

42 The White House, “President Obama Announces $3.4 Billion Investment to Spur Transition to Smart Energy 

Grid,” Oct, 27, 2009. 

Page 27 
NIST’s emerging Smart Grid framework for standards and protocols.”43

Other significant federal investments include $60 million in ARRA funding, awarded by DOE on 

December 18, 2009, to “support transmission planning for the country’s three interconnection 

transmission networks.”44 The six awards will support a “collaborative long-term analysis and 

planning for the Eastern, Western, and Texas electricity interconnections, which will help states, 

utilities, grid operators, and others prepare for future growth in energy demand, renewable 

energy sources, and Smart Grid technologies.”45 

2.3 Key Attributes 

The Smart Grid effort is unprecedented in its scope and breadth, and thus it will demand 

significant levels of cooperation to achieve the ultimate vision. Efforts directed toward enabling 

interoperability among the many diverse components of the evolving Smart Grid must address 

the following issues and considerations.

2.3.1 Defined Architectures 

An architecture models the structure of a system and describes the entities and interactions 

within the system. A defined architecture helps enable technical and management governance 

and can be used to direct ongoing development work as well as to guide decision making on how 

to achieve a functional fit within a system (in this case, the modernized electric power 

infrastructure). An architecture is also a tool used to help developers and users understand a 

system. 

For the Smart Grid, which like the Internet is a loosely coupled system of systems, a single, allencompassing architecture is not practical. Rather, the Smart Grid architecture will be a 

composite of many system and subsystem architectures developed independently or in concert 

with other systems. This will allow for maximum flexibility during implementation and will 

simplify interfacing with other systems. 

Thus, it is not the intent of this framework to prescribe an architecture with the intent of 

constraining how the Smart Grid is implemented, but to describe what is being done to help 

stakeholders understand Smart Grid interoperability needs. The framework describes a 

conceptual reference model for discussing the characteristics, uses, behavior, and other elements 

of Smart Grid domains and the relationships among these elements. The model is a tool for 

identifying the standards and protocols needed to ensure interoperability and cyber security, and 

defining and developing architectures for systems and subsystems within the Smart Grid. 

Ultimately, these architectures must be well-defined, well-documented and robust. Desired 

attributes of architectures for the Smart Grid include: 

 

43 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Recovery Act Financial 

Assistance Funding Announcement (DE-FOA-0000058), June 25, 2009. 

44 U.S. Department of Energy, “Secretary Chu Announces Efforts to Strengthen U.S. Electric Transmission 

Networks,”Dec. 18, 2009. See: http://www.energy.gov/news2009/8408.htm . 

45 Ibid. 

Page 28 
• Support a broad range of technology options— both legacy and new. (Architectures should 

be flexible enough to incorporate evolving technologies. They also must support interfacing 

with legacy applications and devices in a standard way, avoiding as much additional capital 

investment and/or customization as possible.) 

• Employ well-defined interfaces that are useful across industries and include appropriate 

security. 

• Are developed with modern system-modeling tools and techniques that are used to manage 

the documentation and complexity of the Smart Grid. 

• Architectural elements are appropriate for the applications that reside within the architecture. 

(The architectures must support development of massively scaled, well-managed, and secure 

networks with life spans appropriate for the type of associated network, which range from 5 

years to 30 years depending on the type of network.) 

• Support third-party products that are interoperable and can be integrated into the 

management and cyber security infrastructures. 

• Achieve appropriate balance between top-down and bottom-up approaches to system design. 

(In other words, the goals and requirements defined in the top organizational layers of the 

GWAC stack shown in Figure 2-2 need to be implemented using the building blocks 

available today—or in the near future—as defined in the bottom technical levels of the 

stack.) 

• Are based on proven enterprise architecture, software, and systems design methodologies. 

2.3.2 Different Layers of Interoperability 

Large, integrated, complex systems require different layers of interoperability, from a plug or 

wireless connection to compatible processes and procedures for participating in distributed 

business transactions. In developing the conceptual model described in the next chapter, the 

high-level categorization approach developed by GWAC was considered.46 

 

46 GridWise Architecture Council, GridWise Interoperability Context-Setting Framework. March 2008. 

Page 29 
 Driver Layer Description

Figure 2-2 The GridWise Architecture Council’s eight-layer stack provides a context 

for determining Smart Grid interoperability requirements and defining exchanges of 

information.

Referred to as the “GWAC stack,” the eight layers comprise a vertical cross-section of the 

degrees of interoperation necessary to enable various interactions and transactions on the Smart 

Grid. Very simple functionality—such as the physical equipment layer and software for 

encoding and transmitting data—might be confined to the lowest layers. Communication 

protocols and applications reside on higher levels with the top levels reserved for business 

functionality. As functions and capabilities increase in complexity and sophistication, more 

layers of the GWAC stack are required to interoperate to achieve the desired results. Each layer 

typically depends upon—and is enabled by—the layers below it. 

The most important feature of the GWAC stack is that the layers define well-known interfaces: 

establishing interoperability at one layer can enable flexibility at other layers. The most obvious 

example of this is seen in the Internet: with a common Network Interoperability layer, the Basic 

Connectivity Layer can vary from Ethernet to WiFi to optical and microwave links, but the 

different networks can exchange information in the same common way. 

As shown in Figure 2-2, the eight layers are divided among three “drivers,” each requiring a 

different level of interoperability: 

• Informational: Emphasizes the semantic aspects of interoperation, focusing on what 

information is exchanged and its meaning. 

Page 30 
• Informational: Emphasizes the semantic aspects of interoperation, focusing on what 

information is exchanged and its meaning. 

• Organizational: Emphasizes the pragmatic (business and policy) aspects of interoperation, 

especially those pertaining to the management of electricity. 

2.3.3 Standards and Conformance 

Standards are critical to enabling interoperable systems and components. Mature, robust 

standards are the foundation of mass markets for the millions of components that will have a role 

in the future Smart Grid. Standards enable innovation where components may be constructed by 

thousands of companies. They also enable consistency in systems management and maintenance 

over the life cycles of components. Criteria for Smart Grid interoperability standards are 

discussed further in Chapter 4. 

The evidence of the essential role of standards is growing. A recent Congressional Research 

Service report, for example, cited the ongoing deployment of smart meters as an area in need of 

widely accepted standards. The U.S. investment in smart meters is predicted to be at least $40 

billion to $50 billion over the next several years.47 Globally, 100 million new smart meters are 

predicted to be installed over the next five years.48 

Sound interoperability standards are needed to ensure that sizable public and private sector 

technology investments are not stranded. Such standards enable diverse systems and their 

components to work together and to securely exchange meaningful, actionable information. 

Clearly, there is a need for concerted action and accelerated efforts to speed the development of 

high-priority standards. But the standards process must be systematic, not ad hoc. 

Moreover, while standards are necessary for achieving interoperability, they are not sufficient. A 

conformance testing and certification regime is essential. NIST, in consultation with industry, 

government, and other stakeholders, has started work to develop an overall framework for 

conformance testing and certification and plans to initiate steps toward implementation in 2010. 

 

47 S. M. Kaplan, Electric Power Transmission: Background and Policy Issues. Congressional Research Service, 

April 14, 2009. 

48 ON World, “100 Million New Smart Meters within the Next Five Years,” June 17, 2009. See 

http://www.onworld.com/html/newssmartmeter.htm. 

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3 Conceptual Reference Model 

3.1 Overview 

The conceptual model presented in this chapter supports planning and organization of the 

diverse, expanding collection of interconnected networks that will compose the Smart Grid. For 

this purpose, NIST adopted the approach of dividing the Smart Grid into seven domains, as 

described in Table 3-1 and shown graphically in Figure 3-1. 

Each domain—and its sub-domains—encompass Smart Grid actors and applications. Actors 

include devices, systems, or programs that make decisions and exchange information necessary 

for performing applications: smart meters, solar generators, and control systems represent 

examples of devices and systems. Applications, on the other hand, are tasks performed by one or 

more actors within a domain. For example, corresponding applications may be home automation, 

solar energy generation and energy storage, and energy management. The appendix describes the 

seven Smart Grid domains in more detail. It contains domain-specific diagrams intended to 

illustrate the type and scope of interactions within and across domains. Figure 3.2 is a composite 

‘box” diagram that combines attributes of the seven domain-specific diagrams.

Table 3-1. Domains and Actors in the Smart Grid Conceptual Model 

Domain Actors in the Domain 

Customers The end users of electricity. May also generate, store, and manage the use 

of energy. Traditionally, three customer types are discussed, each with its 

own domain: residential, commercial, and industrial. 

Markets The operators and participants in electricity markets. 

Service 

Providers 

The organizations providing services to electrical customers and utilities. 

Operations The managers of the movement of electricity. 

Bulk 

Generation 

The generators of electricity in bulk quantities. May also store energy for 

later distribution. 

Transmission The carriers of bulk electricity over long distances. May also store and 

generate electricity. 

Distribution The distributors of electricity to and from customers. May also store and 

generate electricity. 

In general, actors in the same domain have similar objectives. To enable Smart Grid 

functionality, the actors in a particular domain often interact with actors in other domains, as 

shown in Figure 3.1. However, communications within the same domain may not necessarily 

have similar characteristics and requirements. Moreover, particular domains also may contain 

components of other domains. For instance, the ten Independent System Operators and Regional 

Transmission Organizations (ISOs/RTOs) in North America have actors in both the Markets and 

Operations domains. Similarly, a distribution utility is not entirely contained within the 

Page 32 
Distribution domain—it is likely to contain actors in the Operations domain, such as a 

distribution management system, and in the Customer domain, such as meters. 

Underlying the conceptual model is a legal and regulatory framework that includes policies and 

requirements that apply to various actors and applications and to their interactions. Regulations, 

adopted by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission at the federal level and by public utility 

commissions at the state and local levels, govern many aspects of the Smart Grid. 

Such regulations are intended to ensure that electric rates are fair and reasonable and that 

security, reliability, safety, privacy, and other public policy requirements are met.49 The 

transition to the Smart Grid introduces new regulatory considerations, which may transcend 

jurisdictional boundaries and require increased coordination among federal, state, and local 

lawmakers and regulators. The conceptual model must be consistent with the legal and 

regulatory framework and support its evolution over time. The standards and protocols identified 

in the framework also must align with existing and emerging regulatory objectives and 

responsibilities. The conceptual model is intended to be a useful tool for regulators at all levels to 

assess how best to achieve public policy goals that, along with business objectives, motivate 

investments in modernizing the nation’s electric power infrastructure and building a clean energy 

economy. 

 

 

Figure 3-1 Interaction of actors in different Smart Grid Domains through Secure Communication Flows 

and Electrical Flows. 

49 See, for example, the mission statements of NARUC (http://www.naruc.org/about.cfm) and FERC 

(http://www.ferc.gov/about/about.asp). 

Page 33 
3.2 Description of Conceptual Model 

The conceptual model described here provides a high-level, overarching perspective. It is not 

only a tool for identifying actors and possible communications paths in the Smart Grid, but also a 

useful way for identifying potential intra- and inter-domain interactions and potential 

applications and capabilities enabled by these interactions. The conceptual model represented in 

Figure 3-1 and Figure 3-2 is intended to aid in analysis; it is not a design diagram that defines a 

solution and its implementation. In other words, the conceptual model is descriptive and not 

prescriptive. It is meant to foster understanding of Smart Grid operational intricacies but not 

prescribe how the Smart Grid will be implemented. 

 

Page 34 
Figure 3-2. Conceptual Reference Diagram for Smart Grid Information Networks.

Domain: Each of the seven Smart Grid domains (Table 3-1) is a high-level grouping of 

organizations, buildings, individuals, systems, devices or other actors that have similar 

objectives and that rely on—or participate in—similar types of applications. Communications 

among actors in the same domain may have similar characteristics and requirements. Domains 

may contain sub-domains. Moreover, domains have much overlapping functionality, as in the 

case of the transmission and distribution domains. Transmission and distribution often share 

networks and, therefore, are represented as overlapping domains. 

Actor: An actor is a device, computer system, software program, or the individual or 

organization that participates in the Smart Grid. Actors have the capability to make decisions and 

to exchange information with other actors. Organizations may have actors in more than one 

domain. The actors illustrated here are representative examples but are by no means all of the 

actors in the Smart Grid. Each actor may exist in several different varieties and may actually 

contain other actors within them. 

Page 35 
Gateway Actor: An actor in one domain that interfaces with actors in other domains or in other 

networks. Gateway actors may use a variety of communication protocols; therefore, it is possible 

that one gateway actor may use a different communication protocol than another actor in the 

same domain, or use multiple protocols simultaneously.

Information Network: An information network is a collection, or aggregation, of 

interconnected computers, communication devices, and other information and communication 

technologies. Technologies in a network exchange information and share resources. The Smart 

Grid consists of many different types of networks, not all of which are shown in the diagram. 

The networks include: the Enterprise Bus that connects control center applications to markets, 

generators, and with each other; Wide Area Networks that connect geographically distant sites; 

Field Area Networks that connect devices, such as Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) that 

control circuit breakers and transformers; and Premises Networks that include customer 

networks as well as utility networks within the customer domain. These networks may be 

implemented using public (e.g., the Internet) and nonpublic networks in combination. Both 

public and nonpublic networks will require implementation and maintenance of appropriate 

security and access control to support the Smart Grid. Examples of where communications may 

go through the public networks include: customer to third-party providers, bulk generators to 

grid operators, markets to grid operators, and third-party providers to utilities. 

Comms (Communications) Path: Shows the logical exchange of data between actors or 

between actors and networks. Secure communications are not explicitly shown in the figure and 

are addressed in more detail in Chapter 6. 

3.3 Models for Smart Grid Information Networks 

Figure 3-2 shows many comunication paths between and within domains. Currently, various 

functions are supported by independent and, often, dedicated networks. Examples range from 

enterprise data and business networks, typically built on the IP family of network layer protocols, 

to supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) systems utilizing specialized protocols. 

However, to fully realize the Smart Grid goals of vastly improving the control and management 

of power generation, distribution, and consumption, the current state of information network 

interconnectivity must be improved so that information can flow securely between the various 

actors in the Smart Grid. The following sections discuss some of the key outstanding issues that 

need to be addressed in order to support this vision of network interconnectivity across the Smart 

Grid. 

Given that the Smart Grid will not only be a system of systems, but also a network of 

information networks, a thorough analysis of network and communications requirements for 

each subnetwork is needed. This analysis should differentiate among the requirements pertinent 

to different Smart Grid applications, actors, and domains. One component of this analysis is to 

identify the security constraints and issues associated with each network interface and the impact 

level (low, moderate, or high) of a security compromise of confidentiality, integrity, and 

availability. This information is being used by the Smart Grid Cyber Security Coordination Task 

Group (CSCTG) in the selection and tailoring of security requirements. (See Chapter 6.) 

Page 36 
3.3.1 Information Networks 

The Smart Grid is a network of many systems and subsystems, as well as a network of networks. 

That is, many systems with various ownership and management boundaries are interconnected to 

provide end-to-end services between and among stakeholders as well as between and among 

intelligent devices. 

Figure 3-3 is a high-level vision for the information network for the Smart Grid. The clouds 

represent the networks handling two-way communications between the network end points of 

seven different domains (Table 3-1), as represented by rectangular boxes in Figure 3-3. As 

shown in the innermost clouds in Figure 3-3, each domain is a unique distributed computing 

environment and may have its own sub-network to meet the special communication requirements 

for the domain. Within each network, a hierarchical structure consisting of network technologies, 

such as Home Area Networks, Personal Area Networks, Wireless Access Networks, Local Area 

Networks, and Wide Area Networks, may be implemented. On the basis of Smart Grid 

functional requirements, the network should provide the capability to enable an application in a 

particular domain to communicate with an application in any other domain over the information 

network, with proper management control as to who and where applications can be 

interconnected. Security is required to ensure that the confidentiality, integrity, and availability 

of Smart Grid information, control systems, and related information systems are properly 

protected. 

Nationwide 

Network

Network A Network B

Generation

Transmission

Distribution

Customer

Generation

Transmission

Customer

Distribution

... ... ... ... Generation 

Plant

Transmission

Lines

Distribution

Substation

Customer

Premise

... ... ... ...

Operations Markets Service

Provider Operations Markets Service

Provider

Generation 

Plant

Customer

Premise

Transmission

Lines

Distribution

Substation

Figure 3-3. Smart Grid Networks for Information Exchange.

Because the Smart Grid will include networks from the diverse information technology, 

telecommunications, and energy sectors, security is required to ensure that a compromise in one 

network does not compromise security in other, interconnected systems. A security compromise 

could impact the availability and reliability of the entire electric grid. In addition, information 

within each specific system also needs to be protected. Security includes the confidentiality, 

Page 37 
integrity, and availability on all related systems. The CSCTG is currently identifying and 

assessing the Smart Grid logical interfaces to determine the impact of a loss of confidentiality, 

integrity, or availability. The objective is to select security requirements to mitigate the risk of 

cascading security breaches. 

Devices and applications in each domain are network end points. Examples of applications and 

devices in the Customer domain include smart meters, appliances, thermostats, energy storage, 

electric vehicles, and distributed generation. Applications and devices in the Transmission or 

Distribution domain include phasor measurement units (PMUs) in a transmission line substation, 

substation controllers, distributed generation, and energy storage. Applications and devices in the 

Operations domain include SCADA systems and computers or display systems at the operation 

center. Applications in the Operations, Market, and Service Provider domains are similar to those 

in Web and business information processing. Thus, their networking function may not be 

distinguishable from normal information processing networks; therefore, no unique clouds are 

illustrated. 

This information network may consist of multiple interconnected networks, represented by two 

backbone networks, A and B, in Figure 3-3. Each of these represents the network in the service 

region of a power utility or service. The physical or logical links within and between these 

networks, and the links to network end points could utilize any appropriate communication 

technology currently available or those to be developed and standardized in the future. Note that 

Figure 3-3 represents a vision for networks supporting Smart Grid control and information 

exchange. 

Additional information network requirements include: 

• network management functionality, network activities, and network devices, including status 

monitoring, fault detection, isolation, and recovery; 

• ability to uniquely identify and address elements in the network and devices attached to it; 

• routing capability to all network end points; and 

• quality-of-service support for a wide range of applications with different bandwidths and 

different latency and loss requirements. 

3.3.2 Security for Smart Grid Information Systems and Control Systems Networks 

Because Smart Grid information and controls flow through many networks with various owners, 

it is critical to properly secure the information and controls, along with the respective networks. 

This means reducing the risk of intrusion while, at the same time, allowing access for the 

relevant stakeholders. 

Security for the Smart Grid information and control networks must include requirements for: 

• security policies, procedures, and protocols to protect Smart Grid information and commands 

in transit or residing in devices and systems; 

• authentication policies, procedures, and protocols; and 

• security policies, procedures, protocols, and controls to protect infrastructure components 

and the interconnected networks. 

An overview of the Smart Grid cyber security strategy is included in Chapter 6. 

Page 38 
3.3.3 IP-Based Networks 

Among Smart Grid stakeholders, there is a wide expectation that Internet Protocol (IP) -based 

networks will serve as a key element for the Smart Grid information networks. While IP may not 

address all Smart Grid communications requirements, there are a number of aspects that make it 

an important Smart Grid technology. Benefits of using IP-based networks include the maturity of 

a large number of IP standards, the availability of tools and applications that can be applied to 

Smart Grid environments, and the widespread use of IP technologies in both private and public 

networks. In addition, IP technologies serve as a bridge between applications and the underlying 

communication medium. They allow applications to be developed independent of both the 

communication infrastructure and the various communication technologies to be used, be they 

wired or wireless. 

Furthermore, IP-based networks enable bandwidth sharing among applications and increased 

reliability with dynamic routing capabilities. For Smart Grid applications that have specific 

quality-of-service requirements (such as minimum access delay, maximum packet loss or 

minimum bandwidth constraints), other technologies, such as Multi Protocol Label Switching 

(MPLS), can be used for the provisioning of dedicated resources. 

IP-based network by design is easily scalable; any new Smart Grid devices, such as smart 

meters, smart home appliances, and data concentrators in neighborhoods, could be added to the 

network. 

As the scale of IP-based network for Smart Grid expands, the numbers of devices connected to 

the network will increase substantially, as will the number of addresses needed in the IP network 

to uniquely identify these devices. The fact that the available pool of IPv4 addresses will be 

exhausted soon should be considered carefully. Even though an alternative addressing scheme in 

conjunction with translation/mapping into IP addresses might work, we encourage the use of 

IPv6 for new systems to be developed and deployed. IPv6 was specifically developed to solve 

the address space issue and to provide enhancements for the IP network. 

For each set of Smart Grid requirements, an analysis is necessary to determine whether IP is 

appropriate and whether cyber security and desired performance characteristics can be assured. 

For the correct operation of IP networks in Smart Grid environments, a suite of protocols must 

be identified and developed on the basis of standards defined by the Internet Engineering Task 

Force (IETF), commonly referred to as Request for Comments (RFCs). The definition of the 

necessary suite of RFCs will be dictated by the networking requirements yet to be fully 

determined for Smart Grid applications. Given the heterogeneity and the large number of devices 

and systems that will be interconnected within the Smart Grid, multiple IP protocol suites may be 

needed to satisfy a wide range of network requirements. In addition, protocols and guidelines 

must be developed for the initiation of Smart Grid applications and the establishment and 

management of Smart Grid connections, in addition to the packetization of Smart Grid 

application-specific data traffic over IP. 

3.3.4 Smart Grid and the Public Internet – Security Concerns 

One of the advantages of the Smart Grid is the ability to better manage energy loads and the 

consumption of energy within many domains. Many of the Smart Grid use cases describe how 

utilities can work with customers to control and manage home energy consumption. To enable 

Page 39 
this functionality, information may flow back and forth between the utility and the customer. 

The presence of both Smart Grid networks and public Internet connections at the customer site 

(e.g., within the home) may introduce security concerns that must be addressed. With the 

customer potentially having access to utility-managed information or information from a third 

party, safeguards are required to prevent access to the utility control systems that manage power 

grid operations. These security risks are being assessed by the CSCTG as described in Chapter 6.

3.3.5 Technologies for Standards for Smart Grid Communication Infrastructure 

There are a number of mature technologies available to support Smart Grid information 

networks. Network requirements determined in support of Smart Grid applications will guide the 

choice of the communication technologies to be used. Standards relevant to physical network 

infrastructure are too numerous to list and include standards endorsed by the Alliance for 

Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS), GSM Association (GSMA), the Institute of 

Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA), the Telecommunication 

Industry Association (TIA), the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP), the Third 

Generation Project 2 (3GPP2), and the IETF. 

3.4 Use Case Overview 

The conceptual reference model provides a useful tool for constructing use cases. A use case 

describes the interaction between a Smart Grid actor and a system when the actor is using the 

system to accomplish a specified goal. Use cases can be classified as “black box” or “white box.” 

The black box variety describes the user/system interaction and the functional requirements to 

achieve the goal, but it leaves the details of the inner workings of the system to the implementer. 

In contrast, white box use cases also describe the internal details of the system, in addition to the 

interaction and associated requirements, and are therefore prescriptive because they do not allow 

the implementer to change the internal system design. 

For this interoperability standards framework and roadmap, the focus is on the black box use 

cases that describe how systems within the Smart Grid interact. Because white box use cases 

describing the details of a particular solution are prescriptive, they are not covered by the 

framework and are left to the stakeholders to create. The focus on black box use cases will allow 

maximum innovation in Smart Grid applications while ensuring their ready deployment and 

interoperability within the Smart Grid as it evolves. 

Individually and collectively, these use cases are helpful when scoping out interoperability 

requirements for specific areas of functionality—such as on-premises energy management or 

predictive maintenance for grid equipment. When viewed from a variety of stakeholder 

perspectives and application domains, combining the actors and interactions from multiple use 

cases permits the Smart Grid to be rendered as a collection of transactional relationships, within 

and across domains, as illustrated in Figure 3-2. 

Many Smart Grid intra- and inter-domain use cases already have been developed, and the 

number will grow substantially. The scope of the body of existing use cases also cover crosscutting requirements, including cyber security, network management, data management, and 

Page 40 
application integration, as described in the GridWise Architecture Council Interoperability 

Context-Setting Framework.50 

Developing black box use cases and interface requirements was a major activity at the second 

NIST Smart Grid interoperability standards public workshop (May 19-20, 2009), which was 

attended by more than 600 people. This activity was focused on six Smart Grid functionalities: 

wide-area situational awareness, demand response, energy storage, electric transportation, 

advanced metering infrastructure, and distribution grid management. The cross-cutting cyber 

security task group utilized use cases in the priority areas, in addition to those it is developing to 

supplement the priority area use cases. 

The detailed use cases can be found on the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Web site.51

3.5 Smart Grid Interface to the Customer Domain 

The interface between the Smart Grid and the customer domain is of special importance. It will 

be the most visible part of the Smart Grid to the consumer. The conceptual reference model (see 

Figure 3-2) depicts two distinct elements that, together, provide the interface to the Customer 

Domain: the Meter and the Energy Services Interface (ESI), which serves as the gateway to the 

Customer Premises Network. It is through these interfaces that electricity usage is measured, 

recorded, and communicated; service provisioning and maintenance functions are performed 

(such as remote connection and disconnection of service); and pricing and demand response 

signaling occurs. New and innovative energy-related services, which we may not even imagine 

today, will be developed and may require additional data streams between the Smart Grid and the 

customer domain. Extensibility and flexibility are important considerations. The interface must 

be interoperable with a wide variety of energy-using devices and controllers, such as thermostats, 

water heaters, appliances, consumer electronics, and energy management systems. The diversity 

of communications technologies and standards used by devices in the customer domain presents 

a significant challenge to achieving interoperability. In addition, ensuring cyber security is a 

critical consideration. 

3.5.1 Distinction between the Meter and the Energy Services Interface 

The meter and the ESI have very different characteristics and functions. The logical separation of 

the meter and the ESI is a very important forward-looking aspect of the reference model. The 

meter’s essential functions are to measure, record, and communicate energy usage; communicate 

information for outage management; and enable automated provisioning and maintenance 

functions, such as connection or disconnection of service. Meters also measure the flow of power 

into the grid from distributed generation or storage resources located at the customer’s premises. 

Meters have historically been designed with a service life measured in decades, and the cost 

recovery period set by regulators is at least a decade. Thus, once a meter is installed, it remains 

there for a very long time as the interface to the electric utility. The meter is owned by the utility 

and is at the interface between the distribution and customer domains. In the conceptual 

reference model, it is shown in the customer domain because that is where it physically resides. 

 

50 http://www.gridwiseac.org/pdfs/interopframework_v1_1.pdf . 

51 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/IKBUseCases 

Page 41 
The ESI serves as the information management gateway through which the customer domain 

interacts with energy service providers. The service provider may be an electric utility, but that is 

not necessarily the case. In some states, such as Texas, the market has been restructured so that 

the service provider is a company entirely separate from the electric utility. Customers have a 

choice of competing service providers. There also may be third-party service providers that offer 

demand response aggregation, energy management services, and other such offerings. A 

telephone company, cable company, or other nontraditional provider might wish to offer their 

customers energy management services. The standards associated with the ESI need to be 

flexible and extensible to allow for innovation in market structures and services. Basic functions 

of the ESI include demand response signaling (for example, communicating price information or 

critical peak period signals) as well as provision of customer energy usage information to 

residential energy management systems or in-home displays. However, the possibilities for more 

advanced services are virtually limitless, so standards associated with the ESI must facilitate 

rather than impede innovation. The ESI interfaces with the service provider, which, as discussed 

above, may or may not be the same company as the electric utility. 

While the ESI and meter are logically viewed as separate devices, this does not preclude the 

possibility for manufacturers to implement the meter and ESI in one physical device, provided 

that the flexibility and extensibility to support the Smart Grid vision can be achieved. Most smart 

meters currently integrate the ESI and meter functionality in one device due to cost 

considerations. Looking forward, logical separation of the two functions, even if physically 

integrated, is essential to avoid having the meter become an impediment to innovation in energy 

services enabled by the Smart Grid. 

3.5.2 The ESI and the Home Area Network 

One of the differences between residential environments and commercial/industrial 

environments is the level of sophistication and customer participation that can be assumed in 

configuring premises networks to achieve interoperability and security in Smart Grid 

communications. 

Many homes already have one or more data networks that interconnect computers or consumer 

electronic devices. However, this is not universally the case. Furthermore, even in homes that 

have data networks, consumers who lack the expertise may not wish to spend time or money 

configuring an appliance like a clothes dryer to communicate over their home network. It should 

be possible for consumers to obtain the energy saving benefits of Smart Grid-enabled appliances 

without requiring that they have a home area network or expertise in configuring data networks. 

Ideally, a consumer would purchase, for example, a Smart Grid-enabled clothes dryer, plug it in, 

and register it with their service provider through a Web portal or toll-free phone call. That is all 

that should be necessary to enable a “smart” appliance to operate on the basis of electricity price 

information and other demand response signals received from the Smart Grid. To avoid undue 

expense and complexity for the consumer, the ESI should be able to communicate with Smart 

Grid-enabled appliances either with or without a separate data network in the home, and such 

communication should be “plug and play” and “auto-configuring,” requiring no technical 

expertise. 

Another issue that must be addressed is the need for manufacturers of appliances and consumer 

electronics goods to cost-effectively mass-produce products that will be interoperable with the 

Page 42 
Smart Grid anywhere in the country. EISA provides guidance on this issue. Section 1305 of the 

law advises that the Smart Grid interoperability framework be designed to “consider the use of 

voluntary uniform standards for certain classes of mass-produced electric appliances and 

equipment for homes and businesses that enable customers, at their election and consistent with 

applicable State and Federal laws, and are manufactured with the ability to respond to electric 

grid emergencies and demand response signals.” EISA also advises that “such voluntary 

standards incorporate appropriate manufacturer lead time.” 

There are a large number of physical data communication interfaces—wireless and wired—

available for use in the home environment, and there will be more in the future. Mass-produced 

appliances and consumer electronics devices can only support a limited number of interfaces on 

each device. To minimize costs while maximizing flexibility, the ESI should support, at 

minimum, a defined subset of widely used standard data communication standards chosen from 

among those discussed in Section 3.3.5 and listed in Tables 4-1 and 4-2 in Chapter 4. Appliance 

manufacturers can select from this minimum subset and be assured of interoperability in most 

environments without the need for separate adapters. Additional interfaces that are less widely 

used can be supported through adapters. 

Many consumers and businesses are located in multiunit buildings. Any data communication 

interface supported by the ESI should be capable of coexisting with other data communications 

technologies that may be used in the customer premises without interfering with each other. The 

use of IP as a network layer protocol for the ESI may provide a cost-effective solution to achieve 

interoperability between the ESI and appliances and other energy-using devices in the home. 

Further definition of a minimum set of interfaces to be supported by the ESI will be addressed by 

the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel in a new Priority Action Plan in early 2010 in order to 

enable the appliance industry and other industries to offer Smart Grid-compatible products in late 

2011, as planned by several manufacturers. 

Page 43 
4 Standards Identified for Implementation 

4.1 Guiding Principles Used for Identifying Interoperability Standards 

The EISA assigns NIST the responsibility to coordinate development of an interoperability 

framework including model standards and protocols. The identification of the standards and 

protocol documents that support interoperability of the Smart Grid is therefore a key element of 

the framework. 

There are two lists presented in this chapter. The first, Table 4-1 in Section 4.2, is a list of 

identified Smart Grid standards and specifications for which NIST believes stakeholder 

consensus exists. Requirements documents and guidelines are also included in this table. The 

confidence that there is stakeholder consensus on applicability for Smart Grid for the items in 

Table 4-1 is based on the outcomes of several workshops, individual stakeholder inputs, NIST 

Domain Expert Working Group (DEWG) discussions and work products, and public comments 

solicited on both the standards and this framework document. The second list, Table 4-2 in 

Section 4.3, contains documents that have or are likely to have applicability to the Smart Grid, 

subject to further review and consensus development being carried out through plans identified 

in this roadmap. Again, this conclusion is based upon the comments received from the 

workshops, stakeholder inputs, and public review. With the establishment of the SGIP and its 

Governing Board and Architectural Committee, additional mechanisms will be explored to 

document and where possible increase the level of support for standards and specifications 

deemed necessary to support the Smart Grid.

There are several guiding principles that led to the two lists of documents presented in this 

chapter. The major principles that NIST used to select the documents were: 1) they support 

interoperability of the Smart Grid as it evolves from the existing grid with new utility 

deployments, Smart Grid programs, and consumer investments in Smart Grid equipment and 

appliances; and 2) they have a demonstrably high level of consensus support. Since the Smart 

Grid is evolving from the existing power grid, NIST also included standards that support widely 

deployed legacy systems. The intent is for Priority Action Plans (PAPs) to be established with 

the goal of resolving interoperability issues between the standards for legacy equipment and 

those others identified for the Smart Grid. For example, PAP12 seeks to harmonize the 

Distribution Network Protocol, DNP3.0, with the IEC 61850 standard (see Section 5.12 and the 

PAP12 Website, PAP12: DNP3 Mapping to IEC 61850 Objects ). 

 In addition to the major principles, additional nonexclusive guiding principles used in the 

selection of standards for the framework are given in the inset frames in this section, entitled 

“Guiding Principles for Identifying Standards for Implementation.” NIST used the criteria listed 

in these inset frames to evaluate standards, specifications, requirements, and guidelines for 

inclusion in the current version of the NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid 

Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0, and will use them for subsequent versions. This set of 

criteria is extensive, and the complete list does not apply to each standard, specification, or 

guideline listed in Tables 4-1 and 4-2. Judgments as to whether each item merits inclusion is 

made on the basis of combinations of relevant criteria. 

Page 44 
The items included in Table 4-1, are in most cases, voluntary consensus standards developed and 

maintained by accredited Standards Development Organizations (SDOs). The phrases 

Standards/Specification-Setting Organizations (SSOs) and Standards-Developing Organizations 

(SDOs) are used loosely and interchangeably within the documentary standards-related 

literature. However, for the purpose of this document, NIST is using the phrase SSOs to define 

the broader universe of organizations and groups – formal or informal – that develop standards, 

specifications, user requirements, guidelines, etc. The term SDOs is used to define standardsdeveloping organizations that develop standards in processes marked by openness, balance, 

transparency, and characterized by due processes to address negative comments. NIST is using 

these two terms to address the wide variations in types of organizations that are developing 

standards, specifications, user guidelines, and other input that is being identified and considered 

for use in the Smart Grid framework. 

Also, in this document, NIST uses the definition of voluntary consensus standards given in OMB 

Circular A-119, on Federal Participation in the Development and Use of Voluntary Consensus 

Standards and in Conformity Assessment Activities,52 where such standards are defined as 

developed and adopted by voluntary consensus standards bodies. In these standards, there are 

provisions that require that the relevant intellectual property owners have agreed to make that 

intellectual property available on a nondiscriminatory, royalty-free, or reasonable royalty basis to 

all interested parties. Voluntary consensus standards bodies are “domestic or international 

organizations which plan, develop, establish, or coordinate voluntary consensus standards using 

agreed-upon procedures,”53 and have the following attributes: 1) openness, 2) balance of interest, 

3) due process, 4) a process for appeals, and 5) consensus. Consensus is defined as general 

agreement, but not necessarily unanimity, and includes a process for attempting to resolve 

objections by interested parties including the following attributes: all comments are fairly 

considered, each objector is advised of the disposition of his or her objection(s) and the reasons 

why, and the consensus body members are given an opportunity to change their votes after 

reviewing the comments. 

As a general rule, however, NIST believes that Smart Grid interoperability standards should be 

open; that is, developed and maintained through a collaborative, consensus-driven process that 

is open to participation by all relevant and materially affected parties and not dominated or 

under the control of a single organization or group of organizations, and readily and reasonably 

available to all for Smart Grid applications.

54 In addition, Smart Grid interoperability standards 

should be developed and implemented internationally, wherever practical. 

Because of the massive investment and accelerated timeline for deployment of Smart Grid 

devices and systems along with the consequent accelerated timetable for standards development 

and harmonization, NIST did not limit the lists of both identified and candidate standards to 

 

52 OMB Circular A-119, Federal Participation in the Development and Use of Voluntary Consensus Standards and 

in Conformity Assessment Activities, February 10, 1998, 

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/rewrite/circulars/a119/a119.html#5. 

53 Ibid. 

54 ANSI Essential Requirements: Due process requirements for American National Standards, Edition: January, 

2009, http://www.ansi.org/essentialrequirements/ .

Page 45 
SDO-developed voluntary consensus standards. Rather, Tables 4-1 and 4-2 include 

specifications, requirements, and guidelines developed by other Standards-Setting Organizations 

(SSOs). This was done to ensure that the interoperability framework would be established as 

quickly as possible to support current and imminent deployments of Smart Grid equipment. 

These SSO documents were developed by user groups, industry alliances, consortia, and other 

organizations, but ultimately it is envisioned that these specifications and other documents will 

be used for development of SDO standards. 

In making the selections of SSO documents listed in this section, NIST attempted to ensure that 

documents were consistent with the guiding principles, including that they be open and 

accessible. This does not mean that all of the standards and specifications are available for free, 

or that access can be gained to them without joining an organization (including those 

organizations requiring a fee). It does mean that they will be made available on fair, reasonable, 

and nondiscriminatory terms and conditions, which may include monetary compensation. To 

facilitate the development of the Smart Grid and the interoperability framework, NIST is 

working with SSOs to find ways to make the interoperability documents more accessible so that 

cost and other factors that may be a barrier to some stakeholders are made less burdensome. 

Page 46 
Guiding Principles for Identifying Standards for Implementation 

For Release 1.0, a standard, specification, or guideline was evaluated on whether it: 

• Is well-established and widely acknowledged as important to the Smart Grid. 

• Is an open, stable and mature industry-level standards developed in consensus processes 

from a standards development organization (SDO). 

• Enables the transition of the legacy power grid to the Smart Grid. 

• Has, or is expected to have, significant implementations, adoption, and use. 

• Is supported by an SDO or Users Group to ensure that it is regularly revised and improved 

to meet changing requirements and that there is strategy for continued relevance. 

• Is developed and adopted internationally, wherever practical. 

• Is integrated and harmonized, or there is a plan to integrate and harmonize it with 

complementing standards across the utility enterprise through the use of an industry 

architecture that documents key points of interoperability and interfaces. 

• Enables one or more of the framework characteristics as defined by EISA* or enables one 

or more of the six chief characteristics of the envisioned Smart Grid†

 

• Addresses, or is likely to address, anticipated Smart Grid requirements identified through 

the NIST workshops and other stakeholder engagement. 

• Is applicable to one of the priority areas identified by FERC‡

 and NIST: 

o Demand Response and Consumer Energy Efficiency, 

o Wide Area Situational Awareness, 

o Electric Storage, 

o Electric Transportation, 

o Advanced Metering Infrastructure, 

o Distribution Grid Management. 

o Cyber Security 

o Network Communications 

*

Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 [Public Law No: 110-140] Title XIII, Sec. 1305.

† U.S. Department of Energy, Smart Grid System Report, July 2009. 

‡ Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Smart Grid Policy, 128 FERC ¶ 61,060 [Docket No. PL09-4-000] July 

16, 2009.

Page 47 
Guiding Principles for Identifying Standards for Implementation (cont’d) 

• Focuses on the semantic understanding layer of GWAC stack, which has been identified as 

most critical to Smart Grid interoperability. 

• Is openly available under fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory terms. 

• Has associated conformance tests or a strategy for achieving them. 

• Accommodates legacy implementations. 

• Allows for additional functionality and innovation through: 

o Symmetry – facilitates bi-directional flows of energy and information. 

o Transparency – supports a transparent and auditable chain of transactions. 

o Composition – facilitates building of complex interfaces from simpler ones. 

o Extensibility – enables adding new functions or modifying existing ones. 

o Loose coupling – helps to create a flexible platform that can support valid bilateral 

and multilateral transactions without elaborate pre-arrangement.*

o Layered systems – separates functions, with each layer providing services to the 

layer above and receiving services from the layer below. 

o Shallow integration – does not require detailed mutual information to interact with 

other managed or configured components. 

* While loose coupling is desirable for general applications, tight coupling often will be required for critical 

infrastructure controls. 

4.2 Overview of the Standards Identification Process 

The process used to establish the lists presented in Tables 4-1 and 4-2 is described in the next 

section. During the first phase of the NIST three-phase plan for Smart Grid interoperability, 

NIST’s approach to accelerating the development of standards was to 1) identify existing 

standards that could be immediately applied to meet Smart Grid needs, or are expected to be 

available in the near future, and 2) identify gaps and establish priorities and action plans to 

develop additional needed standards to fill these gaps. 

Of the three public workshops that NIST convened in 2009, two were devoted, in part, to 

identifying existing standards—or those under development—that stakeholders suggested as 

relevant and potentially important to current and future development of the Smart Grid. 

Following the first of these workshops, held on April 28-29, 2009, NIST published a list of 16 

existing standards and other specifications that it felt were appropriate for inclusion in its initial 

release of Smart Grid interoperability standards. 

The list of 16 specifications was published for public review and comment. In a notice published 

in the Federal Register,

55 NIST advised that the list was neither complete, nor exclusionary. 

 

55 74 FR 27288 (June 9, 2009).

Page 48 
Page 49 

 

Other existing standards, it said, “have not been eliminated from consideration, [and] standards 

that currently appear on the list ultimately may not be included.” 56 In all, NIST received 

comments from 97 individuals and organizations on the 16 standards and specifications. The 

majority of the comments were positive, and several additional standards were recommended for 

inclusion on the initial list. 

NIST reviewed all comments submitted in response to its notice in the Federal Register as well 

as other inputs received during its many interactions with stakeholders. After reviewing and 

evaluating all the inputs received, the list was expanded from the initial 16 to include an 

additional 15 standards. A second list of standards for further consideration was also added to 

indicate which standards were being considered for future additions to the first list. These lists 

were both included in a draft version of this document that was posted for a 30-day public 

comment period during which extensive comments from over 90 individuals and organizations 

were received.57 

4.3 Revised List of Standards Identified by NIST 

Table 4-1 lists the standards identified by NIST at the conclusion of the process defined above. 

The list includes the initial 16 specifications, plus 9 standards that NIST added after reviewing 

and evaluating the inputs it received. Based upon the inputs received and further evaluation of 

the 15 standards initially added to the list, it was deemed necessary to move some of the 

standards on the extended list to the second list because they require further evaluation. The list 

of standards in Table 4-1 was also reordered to better group the documents into families, such as 

the IETF standards, and the standards were further identified as standards and specifications, 

requirements, and guidelines. Cyber security standards are also grouped together in each of 

Tables 4-1 and 4-2. 

56 74 FR 27288 (June 9, 2009).

57 Ibid. p. 27288. 
Table 4-1. Standards Identified by NIST. 

Standard Application Comments 

Standards and Specifications

1 ANSI/ASHRAE 135-

2008/ISO 16484-5 BACnet - A Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks http://resourcecenter.ashrae.org/store/ashrae/newstore.cgi?itemid=30853&view=item&page=1&loginid=39839941&priority=none&words=135-2008&method=and&

BACnet defines an information model and messages for building system communications at a customer’s site. BACnet incorporates a range of networking technologies to provide scalability from very small systems to multi-building operations that span wide geographic areas using IP protocols. 

Open, mature standard with conformdeveloped and maintained by an SDadopted internationally as EN ISO 1used in more than 30 countries. This standard serves as a customer scommunication protocol at the facili

and is relevant to the Price, DR/DERUsage PAPs 

(see Sec. 5.5 - http://collaborate.nist.gov/tw

sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP03PriceProhttp://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP09DRDERhttp://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP10EnergyU

2 ANSI C12 Suite : 

ANSI C12.1 httpp://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=ANSI+C12.1-2008

ANSI C12.18/IEEE P1701/MC1218 

http://webstore.ansi.org/FindStandards.aspx?SearchString=c12.18&SearchOption=0

Performance and safety type tests for revenue meters. Protocol and optical interface for measurement devices. 

Open, mostly mature standards. It is recognized that ANSI C12.19 is flexible revenue metering model thaa wide range of options that requests actionable information from a meterusage in kilowatt hours, requires comprogramming to secure this informaC12.19 2008 has a mechanism by wchoices can be described, termed ExLanguage (EDL), that can be used to utilized information into a well-knowPriority Action Plan (PAP) has been establish common data tables for meinformation that will greatly reduce 

Page 50 
&PageNum=0&SearchTerm

sArray=null|c12.18|nullANSI C12.19/MC1219 http://webstore.ansi.org/RecordDetail.aspx?sku=ANSI+C12.19-2008ANSI C12.20 http://webstore.ansi.org/FindStandards.aspx?SearchString=c12.20&SearchOption=0&PageNum=0&SearchTermsArray=null|c12.20|nullANSI C12.21/IEEE P1702/MC1221 http://webstore.ansi.org/FindStandards.aspx?SearchString=c12.21&SearchOption=0&PageNum=0&SearchTermsArray=null|c12.21|null

Revenue metering End Device Tables. Revenue metering accuracy specification and type tests. Transport of measurement device data over telephone networks. 

utilities and others requiring meter dimplement Smart Grid functions, suresponse and real-time usage inform

Sec.5.2, http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP05MeterPro

It is recognized that C12.22 is an imstandard relevant to the transport of and many comments on the draft fradocument recommending it were recHowever, it is not included here, buTable 4.2 for further review because that sufficient consensus exists for itissues were raised in other commentincluding concerns about layering, sthe need for better alignment with InProtocol and harmonization with the 62056(Device Language Message S(DLMS)/Companion Specification fMetering (COSEM )) standard (see 4.2). This further review may requirestablished by the SGIP. 

Page 51 
3 ANSI/CEA 709 and 

CEA 852.1 LON Protocol Suite: ANSI/CEA 709.1-B2002 Control Network Protocol Specification http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_2543.aspANSI/CEA 709.2-A R2006 Control Network Power Line (PL) Channel Specification http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_2545.aspANSI/CEA 709.3 R2004 Free-Topology Twisted-Pair Channel Specification http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_2544.aspANSI/CEA-709.4:1999 Fiber-Optic Channel 

This is a general purpose local area networking protocol in use for various applications including electric meters, street lighting, home automation and building automation. This is a specific physical layer protocol designed for use with ANSI/CEA 709.1-B-2002. This is a specific physical layer protocol designed for use with ANSI/CEA 709.1-B-2002. This is a specific physical layer protocol designed for use with ANSI/CEA 709.1-B-2002. This protocol provides a way to tunnel local operating network messages through an IP network using the User Datagram Protocol (UDP), thus providing a way to create larger internetworks 

Widely used, mature standards, suppLonMark International users group. Proposed for international adoption ISO/IEC 14908, Parts 1, 2, 3, and 4. These standards serve on the customfacility interface and are relevant to DR/DER, and Energy Usage PAPs; 

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP03PricePro

- http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP09DRDER

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP10EnergyU

Page 52 
Specification 

http//www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_2759.aspCEA-852.1:2009 Enhanced Tunneling Device Area Network Protocols Over Internet Protocol Channels http://www.ce.org/Standards/browseByCommittee_6483.asp

4 DNP3 

http://www.dnp.org/About/Default.aspx

This standard is used for substation and feeder device automation as well as for communications between control centers and substations. 

An open, mature, widely implementspecification developed and supportof vendors, utilities and other users. recommends the use of this protocolunderway to have it adopted as an IE

A Priority Action Plan (PAP12) was support transport of Smart Grid data management functions over existing networks. This PAP is intended to coordinate adevelopment of mapping between 6DNP3 objects that will allow presencommunicated SCADA information new ways, while also providing the create new applications using the exinfrastructure (see Sec. 5.12 and PAP12: DNP3 Mapping to IEC 618

5 IEC 60870-6 / TASE.2 

http://webstore.iec.ch/webstore/webstore.nsf/artnum/034

This standard defines the messages sent between control 

Open, mature standard that is widely with compliance testing. This is part 

Page 53 
806 centers of different utilities. 60870 Suite included in PAP14 (Sec 

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP14TDMode

6 IEC 61850 Suite 

http://webstore.iec.ch/webstore/webstore.nsf/artnum/033549!opendocument

This standard defines communications within transmission and distribution. substations for automation and protection. It is being extended to cover communications beyond the substation to integration of distributed resources and between substations. 

Open standard that is starting to be aNorth America. Developed for field communications within substations, standards is now being extended to communications between substationincluding DER. Several PAPs are defurther develop information models transportation Integrate 61850 with DNP3 (Sec 5.1DNP3 Mapping to IEC 61850 Objec

C37.118 (Sec.5.13 PAP13: HarmoIEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 and Time Synchronizatation) Harmonization with CIM and Multi5.10, http://collaborate.nist.gov/twik

sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP08Dpeak)). 

7 IEC 61968/61970 

Suites http://webstore.iec.ch/webstore/webstore.nsf/artnum/031109!opendocument

http://webstore.iec.ch/webst

ore/webstore.nsf/artnum/035316!opendocument

These families of standards define information exchanged among control center systems using common information models. They define application-level energy management system interfaces and messaging for distribution grid management in the utility space. 

Open standards that are starting to bwidely implemented, developed and by an SDO with support from a userare part of PAPs relating to integrati

61850 and Multispeak (Sec. 5.10, http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP08D

peak). 

Page 54 
8 IEEE C37.118 

https://sbwsweb.ieee.org/ecustomercme_enu/start.swe?SWECmd=GotoView&SWEView=Catalog+View+(eSales)_Standards_IEEE&mem_type=Customer&SWEHo=sbwsweb.ieee.org&SWETS=1192713657

This standard defines phasor measurement unit (PMU) performance specifications and communications. 

Open standards, widely implementeand maintained by an SDO. Standarsome requirements for communicatimeasurement and is currently being IEEE Power System Relaying CommRelaying Communications SubcommWorking Group H11. Some items not covered in C37.118 communication service modes, remoconfiguration, dynamic measuremenand security. The protocol will not large systems that include more than hundred PMU devices. They are part of PAP13 relating to iwith IEC 61850 and C37.118 (Sec. 5Harmonization of IEEE C37.118 wiand Precision Time Synchronizatatio

9 IEEE 1547 Suite 

https://sbwsweb.ieee.org/ecustomercme_enu/start.swe?SWECmd=GotoView&SWEView=Catalog+View+(eSales)_Standards_IEEE&mem_type=Customer&SWEHo=sbwsweb.ieee.org&SWETS=1192713657

This family of standards defines physical and electrical interconnections between utility and distributed generation (DG) and storage. 

Open standards, with significant impfor the parts covering physical/electrconnections. The parts of this suite othat describe messages are not as wi

as the parts that specify the physical interconnections. Many utilities and require their use in systems. Revisinextending the IEEE 1547 family is a PAP covering energy storage interco(Sec. 5.14, http://collaborate.nist.govsggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP07S

10 IEEE 1588 

http://ieee1588.nist.gov/

Standard for time management and clock synchronization across the Smart Grid for equipment 

Open standard. Version 2 is not widimplemented for power applicationsand maintained by an SDO. 

Page 55 
needing consistent time 

management. 

 IEEE PSRC Subcommittee Workindeveloping PC37.238 (IEEE Standathe Application of IEEE 1588 (Ver. Applications in Power. Version 2 of the standard is part of twhich covers precision time synchroharmonization of IEEE and IEC stancommunications of phasor data (SecPAP13: Harmonization of IEEE C37IEC 61850 and Precision Time Synchronizatation). 

11 Internet Protocol Suite 

including, but not limited to :IETF RFC 2460 (IPv6) http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2460.txtIETF RFC 791 (IPv4) http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc791.txtCore Protocol in the Internet Suite, draftbaker-ietf-core-04 http://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-baker-ietf-core-04

The foundation protocol for delivery of packets in the Internet network,.IPv6 is new version of the Internet Protocol that provides enhancements to IPv4 and allows a larger address space. Core Protocols in the Internet Suite applicable for Smart Grid. 

A set of open, mature standards prodfor Internet technologies. As part of PAP01for IP (Sec 5.7), IETF is to prlisting of IETF standards applicable Grid.: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP01In

12 Multispeak 

http://www.multispeak.org/About/specifications.htm

A specification for application software integration within the utility operations domain; a candidate for use in an Enterprise Service Bus. 

An open, mature specification develmaintained by a consortium of elect

industry vendors, with an interoperaprogram. It is part of PAP08 for harCIM and Multispeack (Sec. 5.10, 

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP08DistrObj

Page 56 
13 OpenADR 

http://openadr.lbl.gov/pdf/cec-500-2009-063.pdf

The specification defines messages exchanged between utilities and commercial/industrial customers for price-responsive and direct load control. 

Developed by Lawrence Berkeley NLaboratory, used primarily in Califo

of PAP09 to develop standard demasignals (Sec. 5.4, http://collaborate.nist.go

sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP09DRDER

14 OPC-UA Industrial 

http://www.opcfoundation.org/Downloads.aspx?CM=1&CN=KEY&CI=283

A platform-independent specification for a secure, reliable, high-speed data exchange based on a publish/subscribe mechanism. Modern SOA designed to expose complex data and metadata defined by other information model specifications (e.g. IEC 61850, BACnet, OpenADR). Works with existing binary and XML schema defined data. 

Widely supported open standard, witesting program. 

15 Open Geospatial 

Consortium Geography Markup Language (GML) http://www.opengeospatial.org/standards/gml

A standard for exchange of location-based information addressing geographic data requirements for many Smart Grid applications. 

An open standard, GML encoding is compliance with ISO 19118 for the storage of geographic information maccording to the conceptual modelinused in the ISO 19100 series of InteStandards and is in wide use with susource software. Also used in EmergManagement, building, facility, and location information bases (http://www.iso.org/iso/iso_catalogue/catale_detail.htm?csnumber=32554). 

16 ZigBee/HomePlug 

Smart Energy Profile 2.0 http://www.zigbee.org/Products/TechnicalDocumentsDo

Home Area Network (HAN) Device Communications and Information Model. 

A profile under development, but antechnology-independent and useful fSmart Grid applications. 

Page 57 
wnload/tabid/237/Default.as

px

Requirements and Guidelines

17 OpenHAN 

http://osgug.ucaiug.org/utilityami/openhan/HAN%20Requirements/Forms/AllItems.aspx

A specification for home area network (HAN) to connect to the utility advanced metering system including device communication, measurement, and control. 

A specification developed by a userUCAIug, that contains a “checklist” requirements that enables utilities to 

many available HANs. 

18 AEIC Guidelines v2.0 A guideline comprising a - 

framework and testing criteria for vendors and utilities who desire to implement standards-based AMI (StandardAMI) as the choice for Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) solutions. 

The guidelines in this document werorder to assist utilities in specifying implementations of ANSI C12.19 tyand AMI devices. Intended to constpossible options chosen when impleANSI C12 standards and therefore iinteroperability. 

Cyber Security

19 Security Profile for 

Advanced Metering Infrastructure, v 1.0, Advanced Security Acceleration Project – Smart Grid, December 10, 2009 http://osgug.ucaiug.org/utilisec/amisec/Shared%20Documents/AMI%20Security%20Profile%20(ASAPSG)/AMI%20Security%20P

This document provides guidance and security controls to organizations developing or implementing AMI solutions. This includes the meter data management system (MDMS) up to and including the HAN interface of the smart meter. 

 The Advanced Metering Infrastruct(AMI-SEC) Task Force was establisUtility Communications ArchitecturInternational Users Group (UCAIugconsistent security guidelines for AM

Page 58 
rofile%20-%20v1_0.pdf. 

20 Department of 

Homeland Security, National Cyber Security Division. 2009, September. Catalog of Control Systems Security: Recommendations for Standards Developers. http://www.uscert.gov/control_systems/pdf/FINALCatalog_of_Recommendations_Rev4_101309.pdf

The catalog presents a compilation of practices that various industry bodies have recommended to increase the security of control systems from both physical and cyber attacks. 

This is a source document for the DInteragency Report NISTIR 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements 

(http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/nistnistir-7628.pdf ). 

21 DHS Cyber Security 

Procurement Language for Control Systems http://www.uscert.gov/control_systems/pdf/FINALProcurement_Language_Rev4_100809.pdf

The National Cyber Security Division of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) developed this document to provide guidance to procuring cyber security technologies for control systems products and services - it is not intended as policy or standard. Because it speaks to control systems, its methodology can be used with those aspects of Smart Grid systems. 

This is a source document for the DInteragency Report NISTIR 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/nist

nistir-7628.pdf). 

22 IEC 62351 Parts 1-8 

http://webstore.iec.ch/webstore/webstore.nsf/artnum/037996!opendocument

This family of standards defines information security for power system control operations. 

Open standard, developed and mainSDO, but not widely used yet. 

Page 59 
Page 60 

23 IEEE 1686-2007 

https://sbwsweb.ieee.org/ecustomercme_enu/start.swe?SWECmd=GotoView&SWEView=Catalog+View+(eSales)_Standards_IEEE&mem_type=Customer&SWEHo=sbwsweb.ieee.org&SWETS=1192713657

The IEEE 1686-2007 is a standard that defines the functions and features to be provided in substation intelligent electronic devices (IEDs) to accommodate critical infrastructure protection programs. The standard covers IED security capabilities including the access, operation, configuration, firmware revision, and data retrieval. 

Open standard, developed and mainSDO, not widely implemented yet. 

24 NERC CIP 002-009 

http://www.nerc.com/page.php?cid=2|20

These standards cover physical and cyber security standards for the bulk power system. 

Mandatory for the bulk electric systbeing revised by NERC. 

25 NIST Special 

Publication (SP) 800-53, NIST SP 800-82 http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/800-82/draft_sp800-82-fpd.pdf; 

http://csrc.nist.gov/publicati

ons/nistpubs/800-53-Rev3/sp800-53-rev3-finalerrata.pdf. 

These standards cover cyber security standards and guidelines for federal information systems, including those for the bulk power system. 

Open standards developed by NISTdefines security measured required fgovernment computers. SP800-82 is form. It defines security specifically control systems, including the powe
While there is strong stakeholder consensus on the relevance of the standards listed in Table 4-1, 

many of the specifications require enhancements or other changes necessary to fully address 

Smart Grid requirements. Many of the necessary modifications to these standards and related 

specifications will be driven by the PAPs described in the next chapter. In addition, the Cyber 

Security Coordination Task Group, whose ongoing efforts are summarized in Chapter 6, is also 

addressing some of these needed modifications. 

4.4 Additional Standards Identified by NIST Subject to Further Review 

NIST and its contractor, the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), convened a second 

workshop held on May 19-20, 2009, where more than 600 participants engaged in sessions 

focused on analyzing and enhancing use cases, locating key interfaces, determining Smart Grid 

interoperability requirements, and identifying additional standards for consideration. Many of the 

use cases discussed during this workshop referenced standards in addition to those in Table 4-1. 

Altogether, the use cases, which concentrated on the six priority areas, yielded more than 70 

candidate standards and emerging specifications, which were compiled in the EPRI’s Report to 

NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap.58 The additional candidate 

standards that are not covered by those in Table 4-1 are presented in Table 4-2. 

Four “non-exclusive criteria” were used in the May 19-20, 2009 workshop for identification of 

standards to be included in the list: 

• Standard is supported by a Standards-Development Organization (SDO) or via an 

emergent SDO process. 

• Standard is supported by a users’ community. 

• Standard is directly relevant to the use cases analyzed for the Smart Grid. 

• Consideration was given to those standards with a viable installed base and vendor 

community. 

EPRI’s Report to NIST on the Smart Grid also was submitted for public review and comment. 

However, the standards listed were only a portion of a lengthy report. NIST used the public 

review process for this document as an opportunity to solicit further public comments and 

recommendations on existing standards or emerging specifications for standards listed in 

the document. The list of standards in Table 4-2 was revised based on the public comments 

obtained through the Federal Register notice. 

 

58 Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap (Contract No. SB1341-09-CN-0031—

Deliverable 7) Prepared by the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), June 17, 2009. 

Page 61 
Table 4-2. Additional Standards, Specifications, Profiles, Requirements, Guidelines, and Reports for Furt

Standards, Specifications, Requirements, Guidelines, Reports 

Application Comments 

1

ANSI C12.22-2008/IEEE P1703/MC1222 http://webstore.ansi.org/FindStandards.aspx?SearchString=c12.22&SearchOption=0&PageNum=0&SearchTermsArray=null|c12.22|nullANSI C12.23ANSI C12.24 

End Device Tables communications over any network. Compliance Testing for Standard Protocols (C12.18, C12.19, C12.21 and C12.22) A catalog of calculation algorithms for VAR/VA that is in draft form. It may ultimately become a report instead of a standard. 

It is recognized that C12.22 is an imstandard relevant to the transport of tables and many comments on the dframework document recommendinreceived. However, it is identified freview because it is not clear that suconsensus exists for it. Several issuin other comments received, includabout layering, security, and the nealignment with Internet Protocol anharmonization with the IEC 62056(Language Message Specification (DLMS)/Companion Specification Metering (COSEM )) standard (see list). This further review may requibe established by the SGIP. Draft standard for compliance testin

C12 communication standards VAR and VA have multiple formulused and depending on the waveforgive the same result. This documenof the present algorithms used to imformulas in order for all parties to k

Page 62 
algorithm the meter has implement

document should be considered onccompleted. 

2

CableLabs PacketCable Security Monitoring and Automation Architecture Technical Report http://www.cablelabs.com/specifications/PKT-TRSMA-ARCH-V01-081121.pdf

A technical report describing a broad range of services that could be provided over television cable, including remote energy management. 

This report contains a security, monautomation architecture for home nshould be re-evaluated by the SGIP

3 Global Positioning System (GPS) Standard 

Positioning Service (SPS) Signal Specification http://pnt.gov/public/docs/1995/signalspec1995.pdf

Standard for using GPS to establish accurate geospatial location and time. 

This specification defines the publiservice provided by GPS and specifranging signal characteristics and Sperformance. See also Open GeospConsortium listing in this chapter. 

4 HomePlug AV Entertainment networking content distribution for consumer 

electronic equipment. 

This specification uses Power Line Communications, harmonization anwith other PLC standards is being aPAP15 (Sec. 5.9, http://collaborate.nissggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP15PLCFor

5 HomePlug C&C Control and management of residential equipment for wholehouse control products: energy 

management, lighting, appliances, 

This specification uses Power Line Communications, harmonization anwith other PLC standards is being aPAP15 for PLC (Sec. 5.9, 

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climate control, security, and other 

devices. 

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP15PLCFor

6

IEEE 61400-25 http://www.iec.ch/cgibin/procgi.pl/www/iecwww.p?wwwlang=E&wwwprog=sea22.p&search=iecnumber&header=IEC&pubno=61400&part=&se= 

Communication and control of wind power plants. 

This set of standards is being consiaddition to the “61850 Suite” becau61850 modeling principles to addrepower applications. However, it gorecommend multiple protocol mappwhich cannot transport all of the baof 61850. 

7

ITU Recommandation G.9960 (G.hn) http://www.itu.int/ITUT/aap/AAPRecDetails.aspx?AAPSeqNo=1853

In-home networking over power lines, phone lines, and coaxial cables. 

This harmonization and coexistencstandard with other PLCs is being aPAP15 for PLC (Sec. 5.9, http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP15P

itRates). 

8

IEEE P1901 Broadband communications over 

Powerline medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols. 

This harmonization and coexistencstandard with other PLCs is being aPAP15 for PLC (Sec. 5.9, http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP15PLCFor

9

ISO/IEC 8824 ASN.1 (Abstract Syntax Notation) 

Used for formal syntax specification of data; used in (e.g.) X.400. 

Any SDO may decide to use ASN.when defining the syntax of data st

10

ISO/IEC 12139-1 High speed power line 

communications medium access control (MAC) and physical layer (PHY) protocols. 

This harmonization and coexistencstandard with other PLC standards addressed by PAP15 for PLC (Sec. http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP15PLCFor

11 IEEE 802 Family This includes standards developed by the IEEE 802 Local Area and 

Metropolitan Area Network 

A set of open, mature standards for wireless LLC/MAC/PHY protocols by IEEE 802. Other related specifi

Page 64 
Standards Committee. include those developed by Industr

WiFi Alliance, WiMAX Forum, anAlliance to promote the use of thesand to provide implementation testicertification. PAP02 for wireless wguidelines and attributes for wirele

(http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP02Wireles

12

TIA TR-45/3GPP2 Family of Standards 

Standards for cdma2000® Spread Spectrum and High Rate Packet Data Systems. 

A set of open standards for cellular networks. PAP02 for wireless will guidelines and attributes for wireleprotocols.(http://collaborate.nist.gov/twisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP02Wireles

13 3GPP Family of Standards - Including 

2G (CSD, HSCSD, GPRS, EDGE, EDGE Evolution), 3G (UMTS/FOMA, WCDMA EUTRAN, HSPA, HSPA+, 4G (LTE Advanced) 

2G, 3G, and 4G cellular network protocols for packet delivery. 

A set of open international standardphone networks. PAP02 for wireleproduce guidelines and attributes foprotocols. (http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP02Wireles

14

ETSI GMR-1 3G Family of standards 

GMR-1 3G is a satellite-based packet service equivalent to 3GPP standards. 

ETSI and TIA Geo-Mobile Radio Astandards for mobile satellite radio evolved from the GSM terrestrial cstandard. 

15

ISA SP100 Wireless communication standards 

intended to provide reliable and secure operation for non-critical monitoring, alerting, and control applications specifically focused to 

Standards developed by ISA-SP100 Committee, Wireless Systems for A

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meet the needs of industrial users. 

16 Network Management Standards - including 

Internet based standards such as DMTF, CIM, WBEM, ANSI INCITS 438-2008, SNMP v3, netconf, STD 62, and OSI-based standards including CMIP/CMIS)

Protocols used for management of network components and devices attached to the network. 

A future PAP may be needed to proguidelines on which protocol to use specific network technology. 

17

NIST SP 500-267 A profile for IPv6 in the U.S. 

Government. 

A version of IPv6 profile for Smart produced. 

18

Z-wave http://www.zwave.com/modules/ZwaveStart/

A wireless mesh networking protocol for home area networks. 

Technology developed by the Z-W

19

IEEE P2030 Draft Guide for Smart Grid 

Interoperability of Energy Technology and Information Technology Operation with Electric Power System (EPS) and End-Use Applications and Loads. 

Standards, guidelines to be developP2030 Smart Grid Interoperability. 

20

IEC 60929 ACsupplied electronic ballasts for tabular fluorescent lamps –performance requirements 

Standard specifies communications of information to and from lighting ballasts for Energy Management Systems. 

Appendix E of this standard defineAddressable Lighting Interface (DAa protocol for the control of lighting 

21

IEC 62056 Device Language Message Specification 

Energy metering communications. This suite of standards contains spe

the application layers of the DLMS metering. It is supported by a user g

Page 66 
(DLMS)/Companion 

Specification for Energy Metering (COSEM )) Electricity metering - Data exchange for meter reading, tariff and load control 

DLMS User Association. 

22

IEC PAS 62559 http://webstore.iec.ch/preview/info_iecpas62559%7Bed1.0%7Den.pdf

Requirements development method covers all applications. 

This specification describes the EPIntelligridSM methodology for requidevelopment. It is a pre-standard thacceptance by early Smart Grid and implementing organizations and hathe NIST May workshop and is usePAP tasks. 

23

IEEE C37.2-2008 IEEE Standard Electric Power System Device Function Numbers 

Protective circuit device modeling numbering scheme for various switchgear. 

Open standard. The latest revision ccross-references between C37.2 nuIEC 61850-7-4 logical nodes. 

24

IEEE C37.111-1999 IEEE Standard Common Format for Transient Data Exchange (COMTRADE) for Power Systems (COMTRADE) 

Applications using transient data from power system monitoring, including power system relays, power quality monitoring field and workstation equipment. 

Open standard to facilitate monitorinstabilities in the power grid. 

25

IEEE C37.232 Recommended Practice for Naming Time Sequence Data Files 

Naming time sequence data files for substation equipment requiring time sequence data. 

Recommended practice that resolvereporting, saving, exchanging, archretrieving large numbers of substatiThe recommended practice has bee

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utilities and manufacturers and is re

by the North American Energy RelCorporation (NERC) and the NorthCoordinating Council. 

26

IEEE 1159.3 Recommended Practice for the Transfer of Power Quality Data 

Applications using of power quality data. 

It is a recommended practice for a fsuitable for exchanging power qualmeasurement and simulation data in independent manner. 

27

IEEE 1379-2000 Substation Automation - 

Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) and remote terminal units (RTUs) in electric utility substations. 

Recommends the use of DNP3 or Ifor substation IED communications

28 ISO/IEC 15045, "A Residential gateway 

model for Home Electronic System." http://www.iso.org/iso/catalogue_detail.htm?csnumber=26313

Specification for a residential gateway (RG) that connects home network domains to network domains outside the house. This standard will be evaluated in the discussions of Home Area Networks.

This should be considered as standaresidential networks are established present and future PAPs. 

29

ISO/IEC 15067-3 "Model of an energy management system for the Home Electronic System.” http://webstore.iec.ch/preview/info_isoiec15067-3%7Bed1.0%7Den.pdf

A model for energy management that accommodates a range of load control strategies. 

This should be reconsidered as stanresidential networks are established present and future PAPs. 

30 ISO/IEC 18012, "Guidelines for Product 

Interoperability." 

Specifies requirements for product interoperability in the home and building automation systems. 

This should be reconsidered as stanresidential networks are established present and future PAPs. 

Page 68 
http://www.iso.org/iso/catal

ogue_detail.htm?csnumber=30797

http://www.iso.org/iso/catal

ogue_detail.htm?csnumber=46317

31

North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB)  Open Access SameTime Information Systems (OASIS) 

Utility business practices for transmission service. 

Practices are mandated by FERC, imethods and information that must between market participants and mOperators for transactions in wholepower industry. 

32 NAESB WEQ 015 Business Practices for 

Wholesale Electricity Demand Response Programs 

Utility business practices for demand response. 

Current standardized business practDR/DER communications. It is pardevelop standard demand response 5.4, http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP09DRDER

33

NEMA Smart Grid Standards Publication SG-AMI 1-2009 – Requirements for Smart Meter Upgradeability http://www.nema.org

This standard will be used by smart meter suppliers, utility customers, and key constituents, such as regulators, to guide both development and decision making as related to smart meter upgradeability.

This standard serves as a key set of for smart meter upgradeability. Therequirements should be used by Smsuppliers, utility customers, and key such as regulators, to guide both deand decision making as related to supgradeability. The Purpose of this document is to requirements for smart meter firmwupgradeability in the context of an for industry stakeholders such as reutilities, and vendors. 

34 OASIS EMIX (Energy Market Information 

eXchange) 

Exchange of price, characteristics, time, and related information for markets, including market makers, 

This common price and product defcommunication standard is under dpart of the common price communi

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market participants, quote streams, 

premises automation, and devices 

03 (see Sec. 5.5, http://collaborate.nist.sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP03PricePr

35 Fix Protocol, Ltd. FIXML Financial 

Information eXchange Markup Language http://www.fixprotocol.org/specifications/fix4.4fixml

FIXML is a Web services implementation of FIX (Financial Information Exchange). FIX is the most widely used protocol for financial trading today. 

This standard serves as a reference OASIS EMIX (see above) in the PA(see Sec. 5.5, http://collaborate.nist.gov

sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP03PricePr

36

OASIS oBIX General Web service specification 

for communicating with control systems. 

This open specification is an integrto and between control systems and extent, between enterprises and bui

37

OASIS WS-Calendar 

XML serialization of IETF iCalendar for use in calendars, buildings, pricing, markets, and other environments. A communication specification used to specify schedule and interval between domains. 

This standard is the primary delivercommon schedules PAP04 (see Sechttp://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP04Schedu

be incorporated into EMIX and oth

38

SAE J1772 Electrical Connector between PEV and EVSE 

Electrical connector between Plugin Electric Vehicles (PEVs) and Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment (EVSE). 

This will be considered when it is fwith other relevant plug standards. 

39

SAE J2836/1-3 Use Cases for PEV Interactions 

J2836/1: Use Cases for Communication between Plug-in Vehicles and the Utility Grid. J2836/2: Use Cases for Communication between Plug-in Vehicles and the Supply Equipment (EVSE). J2836/3: Use Cases for Communication between 

This will be considered when it is uon PAP11 task 1. 

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Plug-in Vehicles and the Utility 

Grid for Reverse Power Flow. 

40

SAE J2847/1-3 Communications for PEV Interactions 

J2847/1 Communication between Plug-in Vehicles and the Utility Grid. J2847/2 Communication between Plug-in Vehicles and the Supply Equipment (EVSE). J2847/3 Communication between Plug-in Vehicles and the Utility Grid for Reverse Power Flow. 

This will be considered when it is f

41 W3C Simple Object Access Protocol 

(SOAP) 

XML protocol for information exchange. 

SOAP is a published standard for sservices communication. As such iconsidered for use in the smart grid when such functionality is required

42

W3C WSDL Web Service Definition Language 

Definition for Web services interactions. 

WSDL is a standard for defining Winteractions. As such it should be cuse in the smart grid domain when functionality is required. 

43

W3C XML eXtensible Markup Language 

Self-describing language for expressing and exchanging information. 

XML is a core standard for structursuch it should be considered for use Grid domain when such functionali

44 W3C XSD (XML Definition) Description of XML artifacts, which used in WSDL (q.v.) and 

Web Services as well as other XML applications. 

XSD is a standard for defining XMinstances. As such it should be conuse in the Smart Grid domain when functionality is required. 

45

W3C EXI Efficient XML interchange. EXI is an alternate binary encoding 

As such it should be considered for smart grid domain when such functrequired. 

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46 US Department of Transportation’s 

Federal Highway Administration’s Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Standard NTCIP 1213, “Electrical Lighting and Management Systems (ELMS) http://www.ntcip.org/library/documents/pdf/1213v0219d.pdf

Addresses open protocol remote monitoring and control of street, roadway and highway based electrical assets including lighting, revenue grade metering, power quality, and safety equipment including remote communicating ground fault and arc fault interrupters. 

Development began development in NEMA 3-TS Transportation ManagSystems and Associated Control Detransferred initial work from an ad committee of the Illuminating EngiSociety of North America (IESNA) formed the ELMS Working Group develop the control objects based o

Cyber Security 

47

ISA SP99 http://www.isa.org/MSTemplate.cfm?MicrositeID=988&CommitteeID=6821

Cyber security mitigation for industrial and bulk power generation stations. International Society of Automation (ISA) Special Publication (SP) 99 is a standard that explains the process for establishing an industrial automation and control systems security program through risk analysis, establishing awareness and countermeasures, and monitoring and improving an organization’s cyber security management system. Smart Grid contains many control systems that require cyber security management. 

This will be used in the developmeDRAFT NIST Interagency Report NSmart Grid Cyber Security Strategy 

Requirements: (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/nisnistir-7628.pdf). 

Page 72 
Page 73 

48

ISO27000 http://www.27000.org/

The ISO 27000 series of standards have been specifically reserved by ISO for information security matters. 

This will be used in the developmeDRAFT NIST Interagency Report NSmart Grid Cyber Security Strategy 

Requirements (http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/drafts/nisnistir-7628.pdf ). 

49

NIST FIPS 140-2 http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/fips/fips140-2/fips1402.pdf

U.S. government computer security standard used to accredit cryptographic modules. 

Required for the federal governmenshould be considered for use in the domain when such functionality is 

50 OASIS WS-Security and OASIS suite of 

security standards 

Toolkit for building secure, distributed applications, applying a wide range of security technologies. The toolkit includes profiles for use of tokens applying SAML, Kerberos, X.509, Rights Expression Language, User Name, SOAP profiles for security, and others. 

Broadly used in eCommerce and eBapplications. Fine-grained security. is -part of an extended suite using SXACML, and other fine-grained sestandards. As such it should be conuse in the Smart Grid domain when functionality is required. 
 

4.5 Process for Future Smart Grid Standards Identification 

In all, it is anticipated that hundreds of standards will be required to build a safe and secure 

Smart Grid that is interoperable, end to end. Identification and selection of standards will be 

aided by useful, widely accepted criteria or guidelines. Clearly, any set of guidelines for 

evaluating candidate standards will have to evolve as the Smart Grid is developed, new needs 

and priorities are identified, and new technologies emerge. For example, NIST concentrated on 

six priority areas for the first phase of its standards-coordination effort. As this effort proceeds, 

new priorities will be established and standards applicable to these priorities will be emphasized. 

In evaluating standards for inclusion, NIST also recommends considering principles put forward 

by the World Trade Organization’s Committee on Technical Barriers to Trade “Decision of the 

Committee - Principles for the Development of International Standards, Guides and 

Recommendations (Annex 4).” These are summarized below: 

1. Transparency in the standards development process; 

2. Openness of the standardizing body to all interested parties; 

3. Impartiality and consensus in the standards development process; 

4. Relevance and effectiveness in responding to regulatory and market needs, as well as 

scientific and technological developments; 

5. Coherence, such that standards minimize duplication and overlap with other existing 

international standards; and 

6. Developmental dimensions have been adequately addressed by the standards-developing 

body. 

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5 Priority Action Plans 

5.1 Overview 

NIST has identified an initial set of priorities for developing and improving standards necessary 

to build an interoperable Smart Grid. Among the criteria for inclusion on this initial list were 1) 

immediacy of need, 2) relevance to high-priority Smart Grid functionalities,59 3) availability of 

existing standards to respond to the need, and 4) the extent and stage of the deployment of 

affected technologies. In assembling this list, NIST considered stakeholder input received at 

three public workshops and other public interactions, as well as reviews of research reports and 

other relevant literature. 

The August 3-4, 2009, NIST Smart Grid workshop engaged more than 20 standards-setting 

organizations (SSOs) as well as user groups to address these priorities through the establishment 

of priority action plans (PAPs). At the workshop, SSOs and other Smart Grid stakeholders 

agreed on many individual and collaborative responsibilities for addressing standards issues and 

gaps. They also defined tasks and set aggressive timelines for accomplishing many of them. The 

ongoing PAP prioritization, resource identification and oversight, and timelines for addressing 

remaining gaps and overlaps, as well as other standardization needs that will inevitably emerge, 

will be determined in consultation with the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) that has 

been established to provide an open process for stakeholders to participate in providing input and 

cooperating with NIST in the ongoing coordination, acceleration and harmonization of standards 

development for the Smart Grid.. 

In addition to parallel efforts on cyber security (described in the next chapter), the creation and 

development of PAPs is proceeding rapidly, but these plans will continue to be improved and 

refined in order to incorporate new developments and to reflect the current status of plan 

implementation. Complete and updated versions of the PAPs, which are summarized below, can 

be found on-line on the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Site.60 

Please note that while the PAPs are individually numbered (PAP 01, PAP 02, ...) to help 

organize and reference these efforts, the PAP summaries in this section are grouped together by 

subject area and are not presented in numerical PAP order. The organization of the PAP 

summaries below is as follows: 

• PAPs supporting metering: Meter Upgradeability Standard (PAP 00); Standard Meter Data 

Profiles (PAP 05); 

 

59 NIST is focusing initial standardization efforts on six Smart Grid functionalities: wide-area situational awareness; 

demand response; electric storage; electric transportation; advanced metering infrastructure; and distribution grid 

management; in addition to cyber security and network communications. See Chapter 1 for a discussion of these 

priorities. 

60 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/WebHome. 

Page 75 
 

• PAPs supporting enhanced customer interactions with the Smart Grid: Standards for Energy 

Usage Information (PAP 10); Standard Demand Response Signals (PAP 09); Develop 

Common Specification for Price and Product Definition (PAP 03); and Develop Common 

Scheduling Communication for Energy Transactions (PAP 04); 

• PAPs supporting smart grid communications: Guidelines for the Use of IP Protocol Suite in 

the Smart Grid (PAP 01); Guidelines for the Use of Wireless Communications (PAP 02); and 

Harmonize Power Line Carrier Standards for Appliance Communications in the Home (PAP 

15) 

• PAPs supporting distribution and transmission: Develop Common Information Model (CIM) 

for Distribution Grid Management (PAP 08); Transmission and Distribution Power Systems 

Model Mapping (PAP 14); IEC 61850 Objects/DNP3 Mapping (PAP 12); and 

Harmonization of IEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 and Precision Time Synchronization 

(PAP13); and 

• PAPs supporting new smart grid technologies: Energy Storage Interconnection Guidelines 

(PAP 07); Interoperability Standards to Support Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PAP 11). 

The initial PAPs reflect just the beginning of an accelerated development and sustained 

standardization effort that will span a number of years. New PAPs will be developed over time 

as existing PAPs are completed to encompass the larger scope of standardization efforts that will 

be required as the nation pursues the vision of a fully interoperable Smart Grid. In collaboration 

with NIST, the SGIP also will be responsible for creating new PAPs to address gaps that are 

identified in the future. To facilitate this process, NIST has directed EnerNex, which is assisting 

NIST under an ARRA-funded contract, to develop a formalized template for categorizing, 

defining, and assigning new action plans. 

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Meter Upgradeability Standard—A Completed Priority Action Plan (PAP 00) 

To support the development and deployment of a Smart Grid, many electric utilities are 

looking to make their Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) and smart meter investments 

now as a precursor or enabler to additional Smart Grid, energy management, and consumer 

participation initiatives. 

One of the critical issues facing these electric utilities and their regulators is the need to 

ensure that technologies or solutions that are selected by utilities will be interoperable and 

comply with the yet-to-be-established national standards. Further, many utilities want to 

ensure that the system they select will allow for evolution and growth as Smart Grid 

standards evolve. To manage change in a dynamically growing Smart Grid, it is essential to 

be able to upgrade firmware, such as meters, in the field without replacing the equipment or 

“rolling a truck” to manually upgrade the meter firmware. Remote image download 

capability, common practice today in many embedded computing devices, will permit certain 

characteristics of the meter to be substantially altered on an as needed basis. 

For investment in and deployment of smart metering to continue at an aggressive pace, 

industry requires standards to accommodate upgradeability requirements. These standards 

are needed to allow utilities to mitigate risks associated with “predicting the future” and to 

install systems that are flexible and upgradeable to comply with emerging requirements for 

the Smart Grid. 

NIST identified this need for a meter upgradeability standard as a high priority requiring 

immediate attention. The objective was to define requirements for smart meter firmware 

upgradeability in the context of an AMI system for industry stakeholders, such as regulators, 

utilities, and vendors. The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) accepted 

the challenge to lead this effort to develop a standard set of requirements for smart meter 

upgradeability on an exceptionally rapid schedule. The standard was completed in less than 

90 days with the help of a team of meter manufacturers and electric utilities. The standard 

has been approved by NEMA’s Codes & Standards Committee, and is titled NEMA Smart 

Grid Standards Publication SG-AMI 1-2009 – Requirements for Smart Meter 

Upgradeability. This standard will be used by smart meter suppliers, utility customers, and 

key constituents, such as regulators, to guide both development and decision making as 

related to smart meter upgradeability. The final standard is available from NEMA’s Web site 

(www.nema.org) at no cost. In total, the standard was produced in roughly 90 days from start 

to final NEMA approval, which is a truly accelerated standards development. 

Page 77 
 

5.2 Standard Meter Data Profiles (PAP 05) 

What 

This action plan will define meter data in standard profiles. The common profiles will benefit not 

only the utility company, but also customers and the devices they use to manage their energy 

consumption, such as thermostats and building automation systems. Other potential clients exist 

inside and outside of the customer premises. 

Action plan tasks include completion of AEIC Guidelines v2.0, mapping utility requirements 

expressed via AEIC Guidelines v2.0 to ANSI C12.19 device classes by March 2010, and 

expressing AEIC Guidelines v2.0 in terms of one or more additional ANSI C12.19 device classes 

by May 2010. Other tasks include socializing the existence of additional tables within ANSI 

C12.21-2006 and C12.22-2008 and socializing the existence and application of existing default 

sets, and the definition of new default sets, device classes, and profiles via Web conferences, all 

by fourth quarter 2010. 

Why 

Consumers will be better able to reduce energy consumption when they have easy access to 

usage data. Different meter vendors report meter data in tables that are not uniform across all 

vendors. The reason for this is that ANSI C12.19, the relevant standard for this purpose, is a 

flexible revenue metering data structure. In effect, it allows such a wide range of options that a 

request for actionable information from a meter, such as usage in kilowatt hours, requires 

complex programming to secure this information. Exchange Data Language (EDL) from the 

ANSI C12.19 2008 standard offers a mechanism by which table choices can be constrained into 

a well-known form for oft-utilized information. 

Meter information that can be made available in common data tables will greatly reduce the time 

for utilities and others requiring meter data to implement Smart Grid functions, such as demand 

response and real-time usage information. It was decided to wait until completion of this priority 

action plan before proceeding with tasks for PAP 06 “Translate ANSI C12.19 to the Common 

Semantic Model of CIM.” This translation will facilitate use of meter information to support 

back office functions and grid operations. Once the common data tables created under PAP 05 

are completed, they can then be expressed in terms of IEC 61968 (CIM) as part of PAP 06, and 

appropriate tasks will be defined at that time. PAP 06 is not included in this document, but the 

description can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP06Meter. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Define common meter Device Classes by building upon the work performed by the AEIC for 

defining the common meter data tables that are required to enable Smart Grid applications. 

• Deliver these meter Device Classes to ANSI C12 SC17 for inclusion in ANSI C12.19-2008. 

• Revise ANSI C12.19 and publish by July 2010. 

Page 78 
 

• Publish these meter Device Classes in ANSI C12.19 and make these meter Device Classes 

readily available for use by all vendors and software implementers. 

Project Team

NIST lead: Tom Nelson 

Collaborators: 

Association of Edison Illuminating Companies (AEIC) 

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) C12 SC12.1; C12 SC17 

ANSI C12 SC17 WG1; C12 SC17 WG2; C12 SC17 WG3; C12 SC17 WG4 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC13; TC57 Smart Grid TF 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) SCC31; SCC31 End Devices SC 

MultiSpeak 

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 

UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) AMI-NET TF 

Measurement Canada 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP05MeterProfiles.

5.3 Standards for Energy Usage Information (PAP 10) 

Customers will benefit from energy usage information that enables them to make better decisions 

and take other actions consistent with the goals of Sections 1301 and 1305 of EISA. An 

understanding of energy usage informs better decisions about energy use and conservation, and 

is the basis for performance feedback on the operation of customer-owned energy management 

systems and understanding device energy usage and management. 

Some states have already mandated customer access to meter-based usage information. As part 

of this action plan, a limited set of requirements are driving a specification which is expected in 

February 2010. 

Subsequent work in the first half of 2010 will drive a standardized information model for broader 

exchange of usage information. This model for cross-domain interaction needs the characteristics 

of integration models as described elsewhere in this document. 

What 

This action plan will lead to data standards to exchange fine-grained and timely information 

about energy usage. The first goal is agreement on a core information set to enable integration of 

usage information throughout facility decision processes. Customers and customer-authorized 

third-party service providers will use these standards to access energy usage information from 

the Smart Grid and meter, enabling them to make better decisions about energy use and 

conservation. Consumers and premises-based systems will use these standards to provide realPage 79 
 

time feedback on present and projected performance. Using the Smart Grid infrastructure, this 

information will be shared with the facility: a home, building, or industrial installation. Two-way 

flows of usage information will improve collaboration and thereby energy efficiency. 

The data standards will enable immediate and widespread benefit. They will support access to 

monthly usage information, which may already be available, as well as near-real-time 

information as smart meters and other devices are deployed. The standards will enable 

innovation by third-party service and software providers in providing novel ways to help 

consumers and operations manage their energy usage. In the absence of these standards, software 

developers and utilities would have to negotiate pair-wise interfaces, an impractical situation. 

The standards will also promote more responsive facilities. Devices that deliver and understand 

common usage information can be deployed more quickly. 

These standards must be developed on an aggressive timetable. States such as California and 

Texas have mandated that consumers have electronic access to such data in 2010. This action 

plan will result in both an initial specification of narrower information to satisfy regulatory 

mandates by February 2010 and a requirements-based definition for standard energy usage 

within the facility as well as to and from the Smart Grid by mid-2010.

Why 

Attempts to encourage consumers of electricity to conserve energy are enhanced when 

consumers have the means to track their actual energy use. Real-time, or near real-time, 

information supports energy management decisions and actions far more effectively than afterthe-fact billing. Today, limited access to information already collected hinders customer-focused 

energy management. Making understandable, actionable energy usage information readily 

available to consumers requires widely adopted data standards. Such standards will support 

innovation in automated energy management services and products, help to build national and 

global markets for these technologies, and help to conserve energy. 

The on-premises meter can provide information about energy consumption. This information can 

also be made available through energy delivery systems (such as those operated by utilities or 

aggregating service providers) and through consumer devices. In larger facilities, customerowned sub-meters are common, but accurate meter information at the boundary of the facility is 

still critical information. Anticipated initial users of this information model will be utilities and 

other service providers, which will provide energy usage information to customers via the World 

Wide Web, or public Internet. The model also will support development of on-premises devices 

that can access meters and provide usage information directly to the occupant. 

Device and facility usage is the other target—sharing of usage and load and demand historical 

and projected information inside a facility makes that facility more valuable to the Smart Grid, as 

aggregated projections can be passed on to the Smart Grid operations domain, making 

forecasting and management better. Inside the facility, the energy efficiency goals of EISA and 

Department of Energy initiatives are better served by consistent usage information exchange. 

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This effort will support information standards for load curtailment, load shaping, and energy 

market operations. The initial focus, however, is on immediate steps to define and standardize 

energy usage information up through the existing Smart Grid infrastructure and to make it more 

readily available. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Develop a summary of initial information needs for various means of customer access to 

metering and billing information. These initial requirements and use cases have been 

developed (October 2009). 

• Vet these requirements among standards organizations (including IEC, NEMA, OASIS, and 

ZigBee) and identify potential harmonization opportunities. UCAIug has committed to 

developing a statement of support for extending their process to include additional 

stakeholders. This work is in progress. 

• Carry out an initial effort to meet upcoming state public utility commission mandates 

(including California’s) to provide the customer electronic access to energy usage data (from 

both smart meters and legacy meters). This effort must plan for a transition to the broader 

energy usage effort, so applications designed to use the initial release will function properly 

in the presence of data from later, more extensive releases. The goal is to have useable 

definitions in place by February 2010 to meet Public Utilities Commissions’ (PUC) 

mandates. 

• Define a framework for sharing energy usage information with and within the premise with 

minimal changes to existing Smart Grid or legacy meters, during the first half of 2010. 

• Develop an information model that can be easily transformed and transported via standards 

and specifications including but not limited to those from IETF, W3C, OASIS, 

IEC61970/61968, IEC61850, ANSI C12.19/22, ASHRAE 135, and ZigBee Smart Energy 

Profile (SEP). 

• Implement a plan to expedite harmonized standards development and adoption within the 

associated standards bodies. 

Project Team: 

NIST lead: David Wollman

Lead organization: UCAIug – OpenSG 

Coordinating organizations: 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) (61850; 61970/61968) 

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) (ANSI C12 Secretariat) 

Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) 

Open DeviceNet Vendors Association (ODVA) 

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 

EIS Alliance 
 

LonMark International 

International Society of Automation (ISA) 

ZigBee 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP10EnergyUsagetoEMS. 

5.4 Standard Demand Response Signals (PAP 09) 

Demand Response (DR) communications cover interactions between wholesale markets and 

retail utilities and aggregators, as well as between these entities and the end-load customers who 

reduce demand in response to grid reliability or price signals. Given the rapid deployment of 

smart meters, DR standards are widely acknowledged as a top priority, with a draft DR 

specification expected by January 2010. 

What 

While the value of DR is generally well understood, the interaction patterns, semantics, and 

information conveyed vary. Price (often with the time that the price is effective), grid integrity 

signals (e.g., event levels of low, medium, high), and possibly environmental signals (e.g., air 

quality) are components of DR communications. Defining consistent signal semantics for DR 

will make the information conveyed more consistent across Smart Grid domains. 

The swift deployment of smart meters and the integration of distributed energy resources (DER) 

into the grid require DR standards. As represented in this plan, the focus of the DR standards 

effort is to integrate the standards work in OpenADR, OpenSG, IEC TC57, and NAESB efforts, 

along with the input of other stakeholders to deliver a draft DR specification in January 2010. 

The initial emphasis is on meeting utility DR requirements, while developing an extensible 

signaling framework that allows continued development of DER semantics. 

Why 

DR has evolved over the years. Previous mechanisms included calling or paging plant managers 

to advise them to curtail energy use at their facilities; current mechanisms support varying levels 

of automation. Technologies such as Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) have 

demonstrated rapid, automated curtailment based on price or grid integrity signals, so that 

aggregators have a clearer understanding of what loads customer facilities can shed at what 

times. Unfortunately, lack of widely accepted signals across the entire DR signaling and 

validation chain hinders widespread deployment of these technologies. Consistent signals will 

allow further automation and improve DR capabilities across the grid. 

Integration of renewable and other intermittent resources increases the need for balancing 

reserve, spinning reserve, and other techniques to take advantage of lower operating costs for 

renewable resources. However, the responsiveness of the entire power generation and delivery 

system needs to improve in correlation with the extent and degree of intermittency. DER 

integration raises interoperation issues related to distribution automation, signals and information 

exchanges, and profiles; some of these (e.g. storage) are being addressed specifically in other 

action plans. Although all domains are affected to some extent, markets, operations, distribution, 

distribution-related capital costs, and the customer domains are primarily affected. 

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 Major Plan Objectives 

• Collect, analyze, and consolidate use cases and gather stakeholder user requirements. 

• Define a framework and common terminology (message semantics) for: price 

communication (including schedules, import from other PAPs); grid safety or integrity 

signals; DER support; and other signals and/or extensibility mechanism. 

• Address safety of interconnection and resale issues. 

• Address common vocabulary across existing DR specifications. 

Project Team

NIST Lead: David Holmberg 

Collaborators: 

Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) 

American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 

Independent System Operator-Regional Transmission Organization (ISO-RTO) Council (IRC) 

California ISO (CAISO) 

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) (appliances) 

GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG14 International Organization for 

Standardization (ISO)/IEC JTC 1 WG15 

Independent System Operator-Regional Transmission Organization (ISO-RTO) Council (IRC) 

Lawrence Berkeley National Labs (LBNL) Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) 

LONMark International 

MultiSpeak Initiative 

North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) 

Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) 

Utility Communications Architecture International Users Group (UCAIug) Advanced Metering 

Infrastructure Enterprise Task Force (AMI-ENT TF) and Smart Grid Sub-Committee 

ZigBee/ HomePlug Smart Energy Profile 2.0 (SEP2) 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP09DRDER. 

5.5 Develop Common Specification for Price and Product Definition (PAP 03) 

A common specification for price is critical for applications used across the Smart Grid. The 

price and product specification development is proceeding on a rapid time scale. A draft 

specification will be ready in April 2010. This definitive effort is drawing on input from a wide 

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group of stakeholders as well as existing work. It focuses on meeting the immediate needs of 

utilities and demand response program mandates while building an extensible foundation for a 

market-based Smart Grid.

What 

Actions under this plan will result in a common specification for price and product definition. 

This specification will be used in demand response applications, market transactions, distributed 

energy resource integration, meter communications, and many other inter-domain 

communications. Businesses, homes, electric vehicles, and the power grid will benefit from 

automated and timely communication of energy prices, characteristics, quantities, and related 

information. 

Price is a number associated with product characteristics, including delivery schedule, quality 

(reliability, power quality, source, etc.), and environmental and regulatory characteristics. Price 

also is a common abstraction for abundance, scarcity, and other market conditions. A common 

price model will define how to exchange data on energy characteristics, availability, and 

schedules to support efficient communication of information in any market. 

Why 

Coordination of energy supply and demand requires a common understanding of supply and 

demand. A simple quotation of price, quantity, and characteristics in a consistent way across 

markets enables new markets and integration of distributed energy resources. Price and product 

definition are key to transparent market accounting. 

A consistent information model will reduce implementation costs. A consistent model for market 

information exchange simplifies communication flow and improves the quality and efficiency of 

actions taken by energy providers, distributors, and consumers. 

Better communication of actionable energy prices facilitates effective dynamic pricing and is 

necessary for net-zero-energy buildings, supply-demand integration, and other efficiency and 

sustainability initiatives. Common, up-to-the-moment pricing information is also an enabler of 

local generation and storage of energy, such as electric-charging and thermal-storage 

technologies for homes and buildings. 

Major Plan Objectives

• Develop a summary of power reliability and quality characteristics that affect price and 

availability (supply side) and desirability (demand side). 

• Survey existing price communications and develop harmonized specification (draft 

specification by April 2010). 

• Engage the broad group of stakeholders into the effort. 

• Build on existing work in financial energy markets and existing demand response programs. 

• Integrate with schedule and interval specifications under development. 

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Project Team 

NIST Lead: David Holmberg 

Collaborators: 

Association of Home Appliance Manufacturers (AHAM) 

American Society of Heating Refrigeration and Air-conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 

BAE Systems 

Cazalet Group 

Financial Information Exchange (FIX) Protocol, Ltd. (FPL) 

GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 

Independent System Operator-Regional Transmission Organization (ISO-RTO) Council (IRC) 

JP Morgan 

Lawrence Berkeley National Labs 

LONMark International 

Multispeak 

North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) 

New England ISO 

Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP03PriceProduct. 

5. 6 Develop Common Scheduling Communication for Energy Transactions 

(PAP 04) 

The coordination of supply and demand is already of critical importance on the Smart Grid. With 

an expected future increase of distributed energy resources, including both distributed energy 

generation and demand response, this coordination becomes more critical. 

What 

Already important, coordination of supply and demand in the grid will be critical as distributed 

energy resources increase and as renewable energy resources account for a growing share of 

electric power. Beyond electromechanical devices and equipment, it is necessary to coordinate 

enterprise activities, home operations and family schedules, and market operations. Thus, a 
 

common schedule specification is required for the Smart Grid and the many sectors that interact 

with the grid. 

Under this plan, NIST and collaborators are surveying existing calendaring specifications. They 

will develop a standard for how schedule and event information is passed between and within 

services. The output will be a micro-specification that can then be incorporated into price, 

demand-response, and other specifications. Easy integration of the specification will facilitate a 

common scheduling operation across different domains and diverse contracts. 

A draft is scheduled for completion by the end of April 2010 so that it can be included in the 

Common Specification for Price and Product Definition plan. 

Why 

Services operate—and are negotiated—on the basis of schedules. Some services may stem from 

almost instantaneous transactions while others may require significant lead times and 

coordination with other services, processes, or actors. Central coordination of such services 

reduces interoperability, as it requires the coordinating agent to know the lead time of each 

service. The Smart Grid relies on coordinating processes in homes, offices, and industry with 

projected and actual power availability, including different prices at different times. In addition, 

regularly updated weather observations and forecasts are increasingly important to projecting 

energy availability. Energy use in buildings can be reduced if building-system operations are 

coordinated with the schedules of the occupants. A common standard for transmitting 

calendaring information will enable the coordination necessary to improve energy efficiency and 

overall performance. 

In the evolving transactive power grid, market communications will involve energy consumers, 

producers, and transmission and distribution systems. Coordinated scheduling will enable 

aggregation for both consumption and curtailment resources. With information in consistent 

formats, building and facility agents can make decisions about energy production, sale, purchase, 

and use that fit the goals and requirements of their home, business, or industrial facility. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• The Calendar Consortium will complete its current work on XML serialization of ICalendar 

into a Web-service component (WS-Calendar) by early 2010. 

• ISO20022 will comment on and coordinate with the Calendar Consortium on schedule 

semantics across enterprise, energy, and financial information. 

• Ongoing work in price and product definition standards development and in grid end node 

interactions (OASIS Energy Interoperability) will incorporate a schedule component pending 

completion of this work. 

Project Team 

NIST Lead: David Holmberg 

Collaborators: CalConnect Financial Information Exchange (FIX) Protocol, Ltd. (FPL) 

International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 

North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) 

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Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) 

Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE) 

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) 

Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA) 

Utility Communications Architecture International Users Group (UCAIug) 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP04Schedules. 

5.7 Guidelines for the Use of IP Protocol Suite in the Smart Grid (PAP 01) 

What 

Given that Internet technologies play an important role in support of the Smart Grid information 

networks, it is critical to identify the appropriate Internet standards or Internet Engineering Task 

Force “requests for comments” (RFCs) that are suitable for use in the context of the Smart Grid. 

This action plan presents steps for developing guidelines for the use of the IP protocol suite by 

working with key SDO committees to determine the characteristics of Smart Grid application 

areas and domain types and the applicable IP protocols that are suitable for use by these 

applications and domains. The networking standards identified under this action plan will define 

a significant portion of the interfaces to Smart Grid equipment and systems for both intra-domain 

and inter-domain applications. 

NIST expects the initial guidelines, based on the existing Smart Grid requirements, to be 

completed by mid-year 2010. 

Why 

The Smart Grid will use a variety of different networking environments across Smart Grid 

domains and sub-domains as identified in the Smart Grid applications and conceptual models. 

The suitability of the proposed protocol suites or profiles in specific application contexts should 

be analyzed against the requirements emerging for Smart Grid applications and the proposed 

scale and scope of Smart Grid networks. The analysis should identify which IP-based protocols 

are clearly applicable in specific application contexts and protocols for network control, 

management, and security, in addition to identifying any existing gaps. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Review Smart Grid use cases and application domains and devise a taxonomy for 

applications with similar network requirements. 

• Define a core suite of IP-based protocols required for Smart Grid networks. 

• Identify additional protocols or protocol enhancements beyond the core suite required by 

specific classes of applications and develop guidelines for IP-based Smart Grid deployment. 

• Identify key networking issues, including issues related to addressing, management, security, 

and those surrounding IPv4 vs. IPv6. 

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• Determine appropriate Smart Grid network architectures and technologies appropriate for 

basic transport and security requirements (e.g., shared IP networks, virtual private networks, 

MPLS switching, traffic engineering, and resource control mechanisms). 

• Determine which transport layer security protocol(s) (e.g., TLS, DTLS, SCTP, and IPsec) are 

most appropriate for securing Smart Grid applications. Identify higher-layer security 

mechanisms (e.g., XML, S/MIME) to secure transactions. 

• Identify new protocol or protocol enhancement standardization activities required to fully 

support Smart Grid in the future. 

• Develop an action plan for development of necessary usage guides, profiles, and remaining 

work.

Project Team 

NIST Lead: David Su 

Lead SSO: Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 

Collaborators: 

Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 

Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) 

UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP01InternetProfile.

5.8 Guidelines for the Use of Wireless Communications (PAP 02) 

What 

Wireless technologies can be used in field environments across the Smart Grid, including 

generation plants, transmission systems, substations, distribution systems, and customer premises 

communications. The choice of wireless, type of wireless, or non-wireless must be made with 

full knowledge of the appropriate use of the technology. 

This plan will investigate the use of wireless communications for different Smart Grid 

applications by assessing the strengths, weaknesses, capabilities, and constraints of existing and 

emerging standards-based technologies for wireless communications. The approach is to work 

with key SDO committees to determine the characteristics of each technology for Smart Grid 

application areas and types. Results will be used in evaluations of the appropriateness of wireless 

communications technologies for Smart Grid applications. 

NIST expects the initial guidelines, based on the existing Smart Grid requirements, to be 

completed by mid-year 2010.
 

Why 

Wireless technologies are candidates for meeting Smart Grid requirements, especially those for 

which alternative media are too costly or not workable. However, different types of wireless 

technologies also have different availability, time sensitivity, and security characteristics that 

may limit their suitability for certain applications. Therefore, the capabilities and weaknesses of 

specific wireless technologies must be assessed in all possible conditions of Smart Grid 

operations. This work includes reviewing existing documentation and ongoing work to assess 

wireless technologies operating in both licensed and unlicensed bands. This review is necessary 

before developing guidelines for safe, effective use of wireless technologies in different Smart 

Grid applications. 

 Specific tasks include: 

1) Segmenting the Smart Grid domains into wireless environments/groups with similar sets of 

requirements. 

2) Developing a common set of terminologies and definitions for use by the wireless and Smart 

Grid communities. 

3) Compiling and communicating Smart Grid requirements and use cases in a standardized 

format mapped into categories identified in Task 1. 

4) Creating an attribute list and performance metrics for wireless standards. 

5) Creating an inventory of wireless technologies and standards that are identified by each SDO 

in accordance with the metrics developed in Task 4. 

6) Performing the mapping and conducting an evaluation of the wireless technologies based on 

the criteria and metrics developed in Task 4 and identify gaps where appropriate.

Major Plan Objectives 

• Identify key issues to be addressed in wireless assessments and development for the Smart 

Grid.

• Identify requirements for use of wireless technologies for different Smart Grid applications. 

• Identify approaches to define the strengths and weaknesses of candidate wireless 

technologies to assist Smart Grid design decisions. 

• Analyze both intentional and unintentional interference issues and develop coexistence 

guidelines for deployment and operation. 

• Identify guidelines for effectively, safely, and securely employing wireless technologies for 

different Smart Grid applications.

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Project Team 

NIST Lead: David Su 

Collaborators: 

Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions (ATIS) 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 802; P2030 

Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) 

International Society of Automation (ISA) SP100

Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) 

WiFi Alliance 

UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) 

Utility Telecom Council (UTC) 

ZigBee Alliance 

WiMAX Forum 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP02Wireless.

5.9 Harmonize Power Line Carrier Standards for Appliance Communications 

in the Home (PAP 15) 

What 

Several power line-based communications technologies are being considered for appliances, 

meters, and PEV communications in and across the customer premises. Relevant standards 

include ITU G.Hn (HomeGrid), IEEE P1901 (HomePlugTM), and ANSI/CEA 709.2 

(LonworksTM). However, these technologies are currently not interoperable and may not coexist 

successfully, and their operation in proximity may cause harmful mutual interference. Given the 

cost, complexity, and physical constraints of the medium, it is imperative that coexistence and 

some interoperability be achieved. The purpose of this PAP is to achieve that resolution. 

Why 

Smart home appliances represent a major part of the Smart Grid vision aimed at increasing 

energy efficiency; to achieve that goal, home appliances need to communicate with entities and 

players in other Smart Grid domains via home networks. The implementation of such home 

networks must enable plug-n-play of appliances from the same or different vendors, requiring no 

manual configurations by homeowners. 

Power line communications (PLCs) are potential technologies that could be used in home 

networks; however, the lack of international standard specifications impedes the effective use of 
 

this technology. There are multiple standards being developed by SDOs, but none are currently 

interoperable. 

Thus, a PLC PAP was formed to facilitate the harmonization of different standard specifications 

currently developed by different SDOs including IEEE and ITU-T. The goal of this PAP is to 

enable the development of an interoperable profile containing common features for low bit rate 

applications where the resulting implementation of this profile leads to interoperable products. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Determine range of potential acceptable outcomes – coexistence or selection or convergence. 

• Agree on an acceptable outcome for achieving coexistence among multiple PLC protocols. 

• Formulate a PAP for moving forward. 

Project Team 

NIST Lead: David Su 

SSOs: 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) P1901 and P2030 

International Telecommunication Union ITU-T Study Group 15 

Collaborators: 

Association of Home Appliance Manufactures 

Consumer Electronics Powerline Communication Alliance 

HD-PLC Alliance 

HomeGrid Forum 

HomePlug Powerline Alliance 

Universal Powerline Association 

U-SNAP Alliance

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP15PLCForLowBitRates. 

5.10 Develop Common Information Model (CIM) for Distribution Grid 

Management (PAP 08) 

Standards are urgently needed to enable the rapid integration of wind, solar, and other renewable 

resources, and to achieve greater reliability and immunity to grid instabilities resulting from 

wide-scale deployment. A CIM will also create a more reliable and efficient grid. The 

accelerated timeline calls for creation of an interoperability test team; development of integrated 

models for Multispeak, a standard that is widely used by rural cooperative electric utilities; and 

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development of requirements and common models for data and information used in distribution 

systems and back-office equipment by the end of 2010. 

What 

This action plan intends to ensure that new Smart Grid equipment for distribution grid 

operations, currently deploying in many different grid environments, can readily communicate 

with new and legacy equipment and act on the information exchanged. To ensure the 

interoperability of new equipment, the strategy calls for defining the key distribution applications 

that will enable Smart Grid functions for substation automation, integration of distributed energy 

resources, equipment condition monitoring, and geospatial location; evaluating existing 

standards; and coordinating the necessary standards development work. This work will enable 

the integration of data and information from equipment in the distribution grid with information 

used for enterprise back-office systems. 

Efforts are focusing on three standards used in North American distribution systems. The 

standards differ in the type of data models they use. Their integration will enable many new 

Smart Grid applications and will lower technical barriers to the implementation of these 

applications. Currently, none of these standards has a complete data model for distributed energy 

resources, equipment condition monitoring data, geospatial location, and other information that 

will underpin Smart Grid technologies and applications. It is critical to act quickly on the initial 

tasks defined in this action plan since deployments, particularly those funded by the Department 

of Energy Smart Grid grants and demonstration projects, are under way. 

Why 

This work is developing an approach for integrating application-level communications from 

three standards. IEC 61968, which is beginning to be used in the North American grid, and 

Multispeak, which is widely used by rural cooperative utilities, provide the structure and 

semantics for integrating a variety of back-office applications. In addition, IEC 61850 defines 

semantics for communications with substation equipment, including exchanging data on realtime operations as well as nonoperational data, such as for condition monitoring. Integrating 

these standards provides a basis for powerful integration for both real-time operations for status 

monitoring and control of substation equipment (circuit breakers, relays, transformers) that will 

lead to fewer, shorter, or completely prevented outages as well as support for a variety of backoffice applications for more efficient and powerful management of equipment assets, validation 

and analysis of metering data, billing, forecasting, distribution planning and operations that 

realize the full potential of Smart Grid capabilities. 

 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Develop strategies to integrate and expand IEC 61970-301, IEC 61968, Multispeak, and IEC 

61850 for Smart Grid applications. 

• Create a scalable strategy to integrate other identified standards. 

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• Evaluate the contents of each standard for a “best fit” to meet the requirements of key 

applications that span the environments of these standards. Agree on an approach to integrate 

domain knowledge represented in each standard. 

Project Team 

NIST Lead: Jerry FitzPatrick 

SSO Leads: International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG14, WG17; 

MultiSpeak 

Collaborators: 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG10; TC57 WG13; TC57 WG15; 

TC57 WG19 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Power Systems Relay Communications 

Committee 

IEEE Power and Energy Society Distribution Automation Working Group 

North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) 

OpenGeospatial Consortium (OGC) 

Transmission & Distribution Domain Expert Working Group 

Utility Communication Architecture International users’ group (UCAIug) 

Utilities Standards Board (USB)

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP08DistrObjMultispeak. 

5.11 Transmission and Distribution Power Systems Model Mapping (PAP 14) 

Advanced protection, automation, and control applications that will improve the reliability, 

robustness, and resilience of the power grid are all goals of the Smart Grid. For envisioned 

applications to meet these goals, information requirements must be identified and standardized to 

the level necessary to achieve interoperability. Transmission and distribution power system 

information models defined in existing standards must be modified as needed to meet these 

requirements. These modifications are expected to be completed by the end of 2010. 

What 

This plan will define strategies for integrating standards across different utility environments to 

support various real-time grid operations (relay, circuit breaker, transformer operations) and 

back-office applications for customer services, meter data and billing, and other business 

operations. The work must be completed on an aggressive schedule to enable ready 

interoperability of ongoing Smart Grid deployments funded by federal and industry investments. 

Modeling of the electric power system, multifunctional Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs), 
 

and definition of standard methods for reporting events and exchanging relay settings will enable 

improving the efficiency of many protection, control, engineering, commissioning, and analysis 

tasks. Tasks include identifying issues that stand in the way of harmonizing potentially 

conflicting standards and identifying information requirements for relay settings in the Smart 

Grid. Some of the tasks identified for this action plan overlap with those in PAP 08 “Develop 

Common Information Model (CIM) for Distribution Grid Management,” and are covered by it as 

noted in the objectives given below. 

Why 

Advanced protection, automation, and control applications will benefit from a utility-wide 

communication infrastructure. Many of today’s applications require manual conversion between 

different proprietary formats. A standards-based approach for system models, protection settings, 

and event-reporting data exchange will improve the efficiency of many Smart Grid-related tasks. 

This integration can enable many new applications. 

The information requirements of Smart Grid protection, automation, and control applications 

must be identified and, then, standardized to the level required to achieve interoperability. Use 

cases describing the applications will be developed, and information needs will be mapped to 

existing transmission and distribution power system models, which will be extended as required. 

This work develops an approach for integrating the application-level communications from 

several standards. The IEC 61850 standard provides a basis for field equipment communications, 

including semantics, and encompasses real-time operations as well as nonoperational data, such 

as condition monitoring. The IEC 61968 and IEC 61970 standards provide the structure and 

semantics for integrating a variety of back-office applications. Models of the transmission and 

distribution power system are available in IEC 61970 and IEC 61968-11. Some of the 

information to be added may be retrieved from devices supporting IEC 61850. An extension of 

the IEC 61850 models may be required as well. 

Automated verification of the different settings of the components of a power system will be 

essential to preventing system failures due to misconfiguration. To enable these applications 

across the power system, standardization of protection-setting information is required. Beyond 

the settings of individual devices, applications also may require more information about the 

power network, such as line characteristics or topology. The IEEE Power and Energy Society 

(PES) Power Systems Relaying Committee (PSRC) Working Group H5 is in the process of 

completing the protection settings object models and defining a common data format for 

exchange between applications. 

Other standards to be considered are IEEE PC37.239, which defines a Standard Common Format 

for Event Data Exchange (COMFEDE) for Power Systems, and IEEE PC37.237, which defines a 

Recommended Practice for Time Tagging of Power System Protection Events. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Develop strategies to expand and integrate MultiSpeak, IEC 61850, IEC 61968, IEC 61970, 

IEEE PC37.237 (Time Tagging), IEEE PC37.239 (COMFEDE), and the future IEEE 

Common Settings File Format for Smart Grid Applications. 

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• Develop a summary of information required from the power system for various Smart Grid 

applications. (Covered by the PAP tasks described in Section 5.10.) 

• Map that information with the already-defined models from MultiSpeak, IEC 61970, IEC 

61968-11, and IEC 61850 (June 2010). (Covered by the PAP tasks described in Section 

5.10.) 

• Coordinate with the SDOs to extend the existing models. (Covered by the PAP tasks 

described in Section 5.10.) 

• Identify power equipment setting information that is required for performing an automatic 

verification of the power system configuration to prevent failures due to misconfigurations. 

This information shall include both settings in the devices as well as parameters of the power 

network that need to be available for verification. 

• Coordinate with SDOs to extend the existing standards to include the necessary setting 

information (year-end 2010). 

Project Team 

NIST Lead: Jerry FitzPatrick 

Lead SSO: International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57, WG10 

Collaborators: 

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) PSRC H7; PSRC H5; PSRC H16; 

PSRC Communications Subcommittee 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG13; TC 57 WG14 

UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP14TDModels. 

5.12 DNP3 Mapping to IEC 61850 Objects (PAP 12) 

DNP3 (the Distributed Network Protocol 3) is the de facto communication protocol used at the 

distribution and transmission level in the North American power grid. However, DNP3 is not 

fully capable of enabling all foreseen Smart Grid functions. Nevertheless, the Smart Grid must 

accommodate and build upon the legacy systems of today’s power grid including DNP3 and IEC 

61850. Mapping documents, including guidelines for achieving interoperable integration of 

equipment using DNP3 with equipment using IEC 61850 Smart Grid standards will be 

completed in 2010.
 

What 

There is an urgent need for distribution and transmission communication networks currently 

using the legacy DNP3 protocol to support the exchanges of larger volumes of data (with low 

latency/time delays) necessary to achieve new Smart Grid capabilities. This action plan focuses 

on developing the means to enable transport of select Smart Grid data and related services over 

legacy DNP3 networks. This will be accomplished, in part, by defining a method to map the 

exchange of certain data types and services between DNP3 and the newer IEC 61850 Standard 

for Communication Networks and Systems in Substations. IEC 61850 is considered to be a 

standard better suited to support Smart Grid functions. IEC 61850 is a comprehensive standard 

for substation automation that supports monitoring and control of grid equipment (relays, circuit 

breakers, transformers) as well as renewable energy resources. Many of the new Smart Grid 

deployments, including those funded under Department of Energy Smart Grid grants programs, 

will require rapid, high-bandwidth communications that are better supported by IEC 61850. The 

tasks of this action plan include performing a gap analysis to identify the extent to which DNP3 

meets Smart Grid requirements. Guidelines for achieving interoperable integration of DNP3 with 

IEC 61850 and other Smart Grid standards will be produced in 2010. 

Why 

Data acquisition consists of three types of data: binary (digital) inputs, analog inputs, and 

counters. Supervisory control consists of commands for both digital and analog equipment. 

DNP3 was designed for low-bandwidth supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) 

operations that control grid equipment. Although this protocol allows any DNP data to be 

transported between two points, the semantic content of the messages depends upon lists of 

tables, which are not machine-readable. In addition, mapping of objects in each direction 

presents difficult challenges. The goal is to ensure that select data are seamlessly transported 

between devices and readily used by them, even when there are communication constraints 

imposed by the DNP3 protocol. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Agree upon a consistent definition and/or algorithm to map a selected subset of IEC 61850 

information objects to corresponding DNP3 data objects (May 2010). 

• Provide a method to map between DNP3 data objects and IEC 61850 information objects. 

Because DNP3 uses less specific semantics than IEC 61850, this is only an approximate 

mapping. The DNP3 specification (Volume 8 clause 8.4 and its Appendix 1 clause 2) 

presents the approach recommended by the DNP3 Technical Committee, which uses XML to 

perform this mapping. This DNP mapping approach is referenced in Annex E of IEC 61400-

25-4 (June 2010). 

• Define a proposed migration path forward from current DNP only systems to hybrid 

implementations and ultimately to IEC 61850-only systems. 

Project Team 

NIST Leads: Jerry FitzPatrick, Tom Nelson 

SSO Leads: 

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Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) Technical Committee 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG10 

UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) Technical Committee 

Collaborators:

Distributed Network Protocol (DNP) User Group 

EnerNex Corporation 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG03 

UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) Testing Committee 

Utility Representatives 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP12DNP361850.

 

5.13 Harmonization of IEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 and Precision Time 

Synchronization (PAP 13) 

Synchrophasor measurements are key information needed by system operators to assess the 

status of the power grid. Using data from Phasor Measurement Units (PMUs), received by 

phasor data concentrators (PDCs), grid operators will be able to have better visibility of power 

grid operations and respond to grid disturbances earlier to prevent major blackouts. The current 

primary standard for the communications of PMU and PDC data and information is the IEEE 

Standard C37.118, which was published in 2005. This standard also includes requirements for 

the measurement and determination of phasor values. IEC 61850 is seen as a key standard for all 

substation and field equipment operating under both real-time and non-real-time applications. 

The use of IEC 61850 for wide-area communication is discussed in IEC 61850-90-1 (draft 

technical report) in the context of communication between substations. It appears possible to use 

a similar approach for the transmission of PMU and PDC data but the capability needs to be 

formally defined in IEC 61850. This action plan seeks to assist and accelerate the integration of 

standards that can impact phasor measurement and applications depending on PMU- and PDCbased data and information. 

Common time synchronization is the key to many Smart Grid applications for real-time 

operation necessary to make the Smart Grid highly robust and resilient to disturbances (“selfhealing”), either from natural events such as earthquakes or large variations in wind or solar 

power availability, or from potential terrorist actions. Guidelines on how to achieve that 

synchronization and addressing different issues related to that synchronization are required. A 

standard (IEEE 1588) is available to achieve highly accurate synchronization over a 

communication network; however, an implementation profile for power system applications is 

required. 

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What 

For the integration of PMU and PDC data based on IEEE C37.118 into IEC 61850, a new work 

item has already been issued as a joint work item for IEEE and IEC. The work has been 

circulated within IEC TC57. Within the IEC, a task force as part of working group 10 may be 

created to support that work from the IEC side. In IEEE, the Power System Relaying Committee 

(PSRC) H11 Working Group (WG) is responsible for C37.118. These will be the key SDOs for 

that part of the work. From a procedural viewpoint, the integration of PMU and PDC data into 

IEC 61850 cannot be considered as an independent standard. Integration will affect several parts 

of the existing IEC 61850 standard. Therefore, NIST recommends the development of a 

technical report (similar to IEC 61850-90-1) that addresses all the issues related to the problem. 

While the final responsibility of the work will be in the joint IEEE/IEC task force, the PAP 

collaborators will provide technical input to the SDO, will interact with the stakeholders like 

NASPI, and support demonstration activities. 

For time synchronization, this action plan focuses on ensuring that Smart Grid deployments use a 

common format and have common meaning for time data so that the applications are readily 

interoperable. The approach will determine detailed requirements for Smart Grid applications 

and in particular, for synchrophasor measurements used to monitor conditions in the 

transmission grid. Additionally, the plan tasks cover harmonizing the differences in time data 

formats used by Smart Grid standards, promoting rapid prototype development and 

interoperability testing, and developing guidelines on how to achieve uniform time stamping 

throughout the Smart Grid. Since the IEEE PSRC WG H7 work on developing a profile for 

accurate time synchronization for power system applications is supported by IEC TC57 WG10, 

no harmonization is required here. The current activities in the WG are driven on one side by the 

requirements of PMUs and on the other side by the requirements for accurate synchronization of 

instrument transformers in a substation that are transmitting sampled values as a stream of data 

for protection and control applications. The PAP13 WG will interact with the IEEE working 

group by developing the requirements for the different applications of Smart Grid, by 

contributing technical work and by supporting demonstration activities. In addition, several other 

aspects need to be considered like loss of synchronization, dealing with synchronization islands 

and resynchronization. Calendar models are required. Also, other mechanisms for time 

synchronization using the global positioning system (GPS) or inter-range instrumentation group 

(IRIG-B) approaches need to be discussed.

Why 

Two standards are related to communications of PMU and PDC data and information. IEEE 

C37.118 was published in 2005 for PMUs. IEC 61850 has been substantially developed for 

substations but is seen as a key standard for all field equipment operating under both real-time 

and non-real-time applications. Integrating IEEE C37.118 with IEC 61850 will help to remove 

overlaps between the standards, which may impede development of interoperable equipment and 

systems. 

There are significant differences in scope and content of the two standards. IEEE C37.118 

includes communication as well as measurement requirements and is also intended to support 

applications such as protection. IEC 61850 is suitable for system-wide applications that require 

higher publishing rates. The use of IEC 61850 for wide-area communication is already discussed 

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in IEC 61850-90-1 (draft technical report) in the context of communication between substations. 

It appears possible to use a similar approach for the transmission of PMU and PDC data. The 

approach, including possible models for PMU data, needs to be defined in IEC 61850. 

With IEEE 1588, a standard is available to achieve highly accurate synchronization over 

communication networks. Several applications related to Smart Grid require time 

synchronization, and many aspects, such as loss of synchronization, dealing with synchronization 

“islands,” and resynchronization after loss, must be considered. Calendar models are required 

and other mechanisms for time synchronization such as GPS or IRIG-B are considered. A 

standards-based approach for time synchronization that addresses the requirements from all 

applications will support interoperability and facilitate implementation of new Smart Grid 

applications. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Develop contributing technical work to integrate IEEE C37.118 and IEC 61850 under a Dual 

IEEE/IEC Logo Standard (January 2010). 

• Participate with SDO working groups to work out technical issues related to the standard 

integration (ongoing). 

• Support prototyping activities (ongoing). 

• Facilitate interoperability demonstrations of prototypes (at the next Plugfest). 

• Validate detailed requirements from Smart Grid applications using common time 

synchronization and time management. 

• Develop, in cooperation with SDO working groups, guidelines for application and role-based 

time synchronization. 

• Develop contributing technical work to prepare standard profiles for IEEE 1588 (January 

2010). 

• Ensure NASPI-NET and NERC timing requirements are encompassed by work of this group. 

• Resolve differences between time stamp format and time semantic of C37.118 and 61850 

(perhaps add a second timestamp to message). 

Project Team 

NIST Lead: Jerry FitzPatrick 

Lead SSOs: 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC 57 WG 10 6185090 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Power Systems Relaying Committee 

(PSRC) H1; PSRC H7Collaborators: 

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 
 

EnerNex Corporation 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG19; TC57 WG15; TC38 WG37

Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) Power Systems Relaying Committee 

(PSRC) H11; PSRC H7; PSRC H3; PSRC Communications Subcommittee, PSRC H4 C37.11 

COMTRADE 

North American Synchrophasor Initiative (NASPI) 

NASPI, Performance and Standards Committee 

North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) CSSWG 

PJM 

Utility Communication Architecture International users’ group (UCAIug) 

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP1361850C27118HarmSynch. 

5.14 Energy Storage Interconnection Guidelines (PAP 07) 

Although still in their infancy, energy storage (ES) technologies will play an increasingly 

important role in the evolution of the power grid, particularly in providing a solution that will 

enable large penetration of intermittent renewable energy sources while also enhancing the 

stability of the grid. Indeed, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission has identified energy 

storage as a key Smart Grid functionality61. Initial specifications, standards and guidelines for 

interconnection of ES and ES combined with renewables are planned to be completed by the 

middle of 2010.

What 

Energy storage is required to accommodate the increasing penetration of intermittent renewable 

energy resources and to improve Electric Power System (EPS) performance. Consistent, 

uniformly applied interconnection and information model standards, supported by 

implementation guidelines, are required for energy storage devices (ES), power electronics 

interconnection of distributed energy resources (DER), hybrid generation-storage systems (ESDER), and plug-in electric vehicles (PEV) used as storage. A broad set of stakeholders and 

SDOs have been enlisted to address this need. 

Significant progress has been made in meeting the objectives of the Energy Storage PAP. The 

first draft of a Scoping Document defining interconnection requirements across a broad range of 

anticipated ES-DER scenarios (including islanding62) has been completed and posted on the 

 

61 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Smart Grid Policy, 128 FERC ¶ 61,060 [Docket No. PL09-4-000] July 

16, 2009. 

62 Islanding in a DER system can be intentional, such as when a customer disconnects his building from the grid and 

draws power from his own distributed generator, or unintentional/forced, caused by an outage on the grid. In the 

latter case, rather than supplying energy to the grid, the distributed generator is isolated from the grid and supplies 

electricity to power the building. 

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NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Site. The Scoping Document describes EPS applications of 

dispatchable ES-DER, multifunctional operational interface capabilities of mechanical 

generators (rotating machines) and electronic generators (power electronics-based inverters), 

business and regulatory issues influencing the deployment of ES-DER devices, and emerging 

storage and power electronics technologies that will influence the timeline for introduction of 

ES-DER devices. A process has also been initiated to identify and develop ES-DER use cases 

(UCs), and to prioritize and roadmap the standards development required to meet urgent nearterm deployments while ensuring consistency of standards for the broad spectrum of future ESDER applications. 

The Scoping Document and the prioritized timeline for ES-DER applications will expedite the 

formation of new standards projects for Smart Grid dispatchable ES-DER extensions of the IEEE 

1547 series of standards, which define the physical and electrical interconnection of DERs with 

the grid. The Scoping Document and UCs will also be used by a similar fast-tracking effort 

focused on defining ES-DER object models in the IEC 61850-7-420 standards to accommodate 

Smart Grid requirements. Collaborations with UL, SAE, NEC-NFPA70, and CSA also have 

been initiated to focus on specifications for safe and reliable implementation. 

Why 

Due to the initial limited applications of the use of power electronics for grid interconnection of 

ES and DER, there are few standards that exist to capture how it could or should be utilized as a 

grid-integrated operational asset on the legacy grid and Smart Grid. For example, no standards 

address grid-specific aspects of aggregating large or small mobile energy storage units, such as 

Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PEVs). ES-DER is treated as a distributed energy resource in some 

standards, but there may be distinctions between energy storage and connected generation. In 

particular, storage systems such as PEVs may function as a load more than half of the time. 

Interoperability standards must reckon with the diversity in functionality of ES-DER systems. 

At the same time, we are moving toward large penetration of renewables into the grid. While 

desirable, this trend poses grid operational difficulties and stability concerns. First, because of 

their intermittent nature, renewables are generally unsuitable as a dispatchable resource under the 

control of the utility. Second, the present interconnection regulations and standards themselves 

require the DER devices to trip off in response to minor variations in grid voltage or frequency, 

which may actually increase the underlying disturbance leading to an instability (for large 

penetration of renewables) as other DER devices trip off in a cascading manner. 

ES-DER is being considered as a preferred means of shifting the time that electricity is delivered 

to better follow the demand, and to eliminate congestion on transmission systems. ES-DER 

systems based on photovoltaic, wind, and other intermittent/variable renewable energy sources 

are also exploring the use of storage to help smooth their intermittency, to augment their ability 

to respond to distribution power grid management requirements, and to compensate for the 

variability of these resources due, for example, to diurnal cycles of wind and solar energy. 

Appropriate interconnection standards, Smart Grid communication, and storage are all key 

elements of the solution that will enable large penetration of renewables while also enhancing 

rather than diminishing the stability of the grid. 

An assortment of ES-DER systems are emerging. They vary in abilities to respond to power grid 

management requests, and they use different technologies and system parameters for forecasting 

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their available power generation reserve. Furthermore, the EPS needs for storage (power, energy, 

duty cycle, and functionality) also depend on the grid domain where the storage is used (e.g., 

transmission, distribution, and consumer). These considerations need to be included in the 

storage and hybrid generation-storage interconnection and information model standards. 

Major Plan Objectives

• A broad set of stakeholders has been convened to address ES-DER electrical interconnection 

issues, including utilities from different regions, the international community, groups 

addressing similar issues (such as wind turbine interconnection), vendors, and researchers. 

• A Scoping Document defining interconnection requirements across a broad range of 

anticipated ES-DER scenarios has been completed and posted on the NIST Smart Grid 

Collaboration Site. The Scoping Document includes ES-DER interconnection and 

operational interface requirements for the full spectrum of application issues, including high 

penetration of ES-DER, ride-through of power system anomalies, plug-in electric vehicles, 

and all sizes of ES-DER systems, including those at customer sites, within distribution 

systems, and at transmission level. 

• UCs are being identified and developed to prioritize interconnection and object modeling 

requirements for ES-DER before electrical interconnection standards are developed. Initial 

UCs have been identified and posted on the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Site, and a 

process has been described to develop further UCs and to prioritize and roadmap the 

standards development required to meet urgent near-term deployments while ensuring 

consistency of standards for the broad spectrum of future ES-DER applications. Both NEMA 

and IEEE IGCC (Intelligent Grid Coordinating Committee) have agreed to lead the collection 

and development of additional ES-DER UCs. 

• Update or augment the IEEE 1547 distribution-level standards series, as appropriate, to 

accommodate the wide range of ES-DER system requirements, including new IEEE SCC21 

projects to be initiated in Spring 2010. 

• Augment the IEC 61850-7-420 object models for ES-DER based on the project descriptions 

for IEEE 1547 extensions (to be completed within a few months following the corresponding 

project descriptions). 

• Initiate development of transmission-level standards for ES-DER. These should build on the 

FERC wind plant interconnect (LGIP) guidelines and European practice (e.g., e-on, ESB). 

• Harmonize the distribution and transmission-level standards, where possible.

Project Team 

NIST Lead: Al Hefner 

SSO Leads: 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) SCC21 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) TC57 WG17 

Collaborators: 
 

A123Systems 

ABB 

American Electric Power (AEP) 

Altairnano 

BuildingSmart 

CSA-Standards 

DTE Energy 

Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) 

Florida Solar Energy Center (FSEC) 

GMATC 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 

National Electrical Code (NEC) - National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) 

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 

Novus Energy 

National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) 

Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) 

Open Standards Consortium for Real Estate (OSCRE) 

SAE International 

Satcon 

Sandia National Laboratory 

S&C 

Underwriters Laboratory (UL)

The full description of PAP 7 can be found at the following link: 

http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP07Storage. 

5.15 Interoperability Standards to Support Plug-in Electric Vehicles (PAP 11) 

Interoperability standards that will define data standards to enable the charging of plug-in 

electric vehicles (PEVs) will support the adoption of PEVs and related benefits. Standards are 

anticipated to be available by the end of 2010. 

Page 103 
 

What 

This action plan will define data standards to enable the charging of plug-in electric vehicles 

(PEVs). The specifications will cover charging at home or away from home using a special rate 

schedule, discharging of PEV energy storage for demand response purposes, and administration 

and monitoring. The standards will allow the charging flexibility necessary for PEVs to meet 

customer needs. They also will encourage the adoption of electric vehicles for general-purpose 

transportation. This anticipated trend would favorably affect the nation’s energy portfolio. The 

standards developed under this action plan will benefit electric utilities by supporting charging 

during off-peak, low-demand periods and enabling energy stored in PEVs to be returned to the 

grid during high-demand periods. The objectives described below are expected to be completed 

by December 2010. 

These standards must be developed on an aggressive timetable. One of the cornerstones of the 

current administration’s energy policy is to encourage PEV manufacturing and use to reduce the 

nation’s dependence on foreign oil. Goals include 1 million plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles 

on U.S. roads by 2015.63 Achieving this goal requires implementing the charging infrastructure 

prior to this date. Additionally, auto manufacturers must have some confidence that the 

necessary charging infrastructure will be established before they can justify developing and 

producing these vehicles on a large scale. 

Why 

Hybrid and electric vehicle owners will need to charge their vehicles, both at home and at sites 

along their local and extended travels. These travels might take them to work, to the grocery 

store, or on a cross-country trip. PEVs have the potential to significantly burden utilities. They 

also have the ability to be used as strategically important energy storage assets that can smooth 

out power demand. By providing intelligent charging capabilities and giving customers the 

control and the price incentives to charge during off-peak hours and to return stored power 

during periods of high demand, the nation can better leverage existing resources to support this 

new source of load and distributed storage. 

Major Plan Objectives 

• Gather and normalize all the existing use cases and derive requirements so that each element 

of prospective standards meets a particular stakeholder need, by early 2010. 

• Draft common high-level information models in Unified Modeling Language (UML) to be 

used as a basis for specific models needed for different SDO projects (to be completed by 

February 2010). 

• Facilitate productive collaboration among the many different SDOs involved in the PEV 

infrastructure. These SDOs represent a variety of domains and, traditionally, most have not 

 

63 http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/President-Obama-Announces-24-Billion-in-Funding-to-SupportNext-Generation-Electric-Vehicles

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worked together. Currently, there are few—or no—mechanisms for the different standards 

groups to work together. 

• Once the common high-level model is developed in the objective in the second bullet above, 

specific implementation models must be developed for each standard. The common UML 

model will be used to create this standards-specific view of the model for IEC 61968/61850. 

These standards-specific implementation models will form the basis for the standards 

documents (to be completed by December 2010). 

• Identify regulatory impediments to achieving the goals defined in the PEV use cases. 

Review the current regulatory/use case conflicts to determine areas where changes are 

needed; advise regulatory bodies of the identified obstacles and develop options for solutions 

(to be completed by April 2010). 

• Ensure that other standards involving safety, interconnection, and certification support the 

PEV use cases (to be completed by April 2010). 

Project Team 

NIST lead: Eric Simmon 

Lead SSO: SAE International 

Collaborators: 

American National Standards Institute (ANSI) 

International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 61850; 61970/61968) 

Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) 

National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) 

ZigBee

The full plan can be found at: http://collaborate.nist.gov/twikisggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/PAP11PEV.

 
 

6 Cyber Security Strategy64 

With the implementation of the Smart Grid, the information technology (IT) and 

telecommunications infrastructures have become more important to ensure the reliability and 

security of the electric sector. Therefore, the security of systems and information in the IT and 

telecommunications infrastructures must also be addressed by an increasingly diverse electric 

sector. Security must be included at the design phase to ensure adequate protection. 

Cyber security must address not only deliberate attacks, such as from disgruntled employees, 

industrial espionage, and terrorists, but also inadvertent compromises of the information 

infrastructure due to user errors, equipment failures, and natural disasters. Vulnerabilities might 

allow an attacker to penetrate a network, gain access to control software, and alter load 

conditions to destabilize the grid in unpredictable ways. The need to address potential 

vulnerabilities has been acknowledged across the federal government, including NIST65, the 

Department of Homeland Security (DHS),66 DOE,67 and FERC.68 

Additional risks to the grid include: 

• Increasing the complexity of the grid could introduce vulnerabilities and increase exposure to 

potential attackers and unintentional errors; 

• Interconnected networks can introduce common vulnerabilities; 

• Increasing vulnerabilities to communication disruptions and introduction of malicious 

software could result in denial of service or compromise the integrity of software and 

systems; 

• Increased number of entry points and paths for potential adversaries to exploit; and 

• Potential for compromise of data confidentiality, including the breach of customer privacy. 

 

64 This section is extracted from NISTIR 7628, Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements. NISTIR 

7628 provides all the supporting material used in selecting and tailoring the cyber security requirements for the 

Smart Grid. The NISTIR is a companion document to this framework. 

65 Testimony of Cita M. Furlani, Director, Information Technology Laboratory, NIST, before the United States 

House of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cyber security, and Science and 

Technology, March 24, 2009. 

66 Statement for the Record, Sean P.McGurk, Director, Control Systems Security Program, National Cyber Security 

Division, National Protection and Programs Directorate, Department of Homeland Security, before the U.S. House 

of Representatives Homeland Security Subcommittee on Emerging Threats, Cyber security, and Science and 

Technology, March 24, 2009. 

67 U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, Smart Grid investment Grant 

Program, Funding Opportunity: DE-FOA-0000058, Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability Research, 

Development and Analysis, June 25, 2009. 

68 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Smart Grid Policy, 128 FERC ¶ 61,060 [Docket No. PL09-4-000] July 

16, 2009. 

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With the ongoing transition to the Smart Grid, the IT and telecommunication sectors will be 

more directly involved. These sectors have existing cyber security standards to address 

vulnerabilities and assessment programs to identify known vulnerabilities in their systems. These 

same vulnerabilities need to be assessed in the context of the Smart Grid infrastructure. In 

addition, the Smart Grid will have additional vulnerabilities due to its complexity, large number 

of stakeholders, and highly time-sensitive operational requirements. 

NIST leads a Smart Grid Cyber Security Coordination Task Group (CSCTG), which now has 

more than 300 volunteer members from the public and private sectors, academia, regulatory 

organizations, and federal agencies. Cyber security is being addressed using a thorough process 

that will result in a comprehensive set of cyber security requirements. As explained more fully 

later in this chapter, the cyber security requirements are being developed using a high-level risk 

assessment process. NIST has published a preliminary report, NIST Interagency Report 

(NISTIR) 7628 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy and Requirements69 that describes the 

CSCTG’s overall cyber security strategy for the Smart Grid. The preliminary report distills use 

cases collected to date, requirements and vulnerability classes identified in other relevant cyber 

security assessments and scoping documents, and other information necessary for specifying and 

tailoring security requirements to provide adequate protection for the Smart Grid. The 

requirements included in the NIST report will form the basis for the standards and guidelines 

developed with coordination by NIST and the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP). The 

document is summarized below.

6.1 Cyber Security and the Electric Sector 

The critical role of cyber security in ensuring the effective operation of the Smart Grid is 

documented in legislation and in the Department of Energy (DOE) Energy Sector Plan. 

Section 1301 0f the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (P.L. 110-140) states that, “It 

is the policy of the United States to support the modernization of the Nation's electricity 

transmission and distribution system to maintain a reliable and secure electricity infrastructure 

that can meet future demand growth and to achieve each of the following, which together 

characterize a Smart Grid: 

1. Increased use of digital information and controls technology to improve reliability, security, 

and efficiency of the electric grid. 

2. Dynamic optimization of grid operations and resources, with full cyber-security. ...." 

Cyber security for the Smart Grid supports both the reliability of the grid and the confidentiality 

of the information that is transmitted. 

DOE’s Energy Sector-Specific Plan70 “envisions a robust, resilient energy infrastructure in 

which continuity of business and services is maintained through secure and reliable inform

sharing, effective risk management programs, coordinated response capabilities, and trusted 

ation 

 

69 The document is available at: http://csrc.nist.gov/publications/PubsDrafts.html#NIST-IR-7628

70 Department of Energy, Energy, Critical Infrastructure and Key Resources, Sector-Specific Plan as input to the 

National Infrastructure Protection Plan, May 2007 

Page 107 
 

relationships between public and private security partners at all levels of industry and 

government.” 

6.2 Scope and Definitions 

The following definition of cyber infrastructure from the National Infrastructure Protection Plan 

(NIPP) is included to ensure a common understanding. 

• Cyber Infrastructure: Includes electronic information and communications systems and 

services and the information contained in these systems and services. Information and 

communications systems and services are composed of all hardware and software that 

process, store, and communicate information, or any combination of all of these elements. 

Processing includes the creation, access, modification, and destruction of information. 

Storage includes paper, magnetic, electronic, and all other media types. Communications 

include sharing and distribution of information. For example: computer systems; control 

systems (e.g., SCADA); networks, such as the Internet; and cyber services (e.g., managed 

security services) are part of cyber infrastructure. 

A traditional IT-focused understanding of cyber security is that it is the protection required to 

ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the electronic information communication 

system. For the Smart Grid, this definition of cyber security needs to be more inclusive. Cyber 

security in the Smart Grid includes both power and cyber system technologies and processes in 

IT and power system operations and governance. These technologies and processes provide the 

protection required to ensure confidentiality, integrity, and availability of the Smart Grid cyber 

infrastructure, including, for example, control systems, sensors, and actuators. 

As described below, NISTIR 7628 provides guidance to organizations that are addressing cyber 

security for the Smart Grid, e.g., utilities, regulators, power equipment manufacturers and 

vendors, retail service providers, and electricity and financial market traders. The NIST report 

provides background information on the analysis process that was used to select and tailor a set 

of security requirements applicable to the Smart Grid. The process includes both top-down and 

bottom-up approaches in the selection and tailoring of security requirements for the Smart Grid. 

The bottom-up approach focuses on identifying vulnerability classes, for example, buffer 

overflow and protocol errors. The top-down approach focuses on defining components/domains 

of the Smart Grid system and the logical interfaces between these components/domains. To 

reduce the complexity, the logical interfaces are organized into logical interface categories. The 

inter-component/domain security requirements are specified for these logical interface categories 

based on the interactions between the components and domains. For example, for the AMI 

system, some of the security requirements are authentication of the meter to the collector, 

confidentiality for privacy protection, and integrity for firmware updates. 

Finally, the NIST report focuses on Smart Grid operations and not on enterprise operations. 

6.3 Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy 

The overall cyber security strategy for the Smart Grid examines both domain-specific and 

common requirements when developing a mitigation strategy to ensure interoperability of 

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solutions across different parts of the infrastructure. The primary goal of the cyber security 

strategy should be on prevention. However, it also requires that a response and recovery strategy 

be developed in the event of a cyber attack on the electric system. 

Implementation of a cyber security strategy requires the definition and implementation of an 

overall cyber security risk assessment process for the Smart Grid. Risk is the potential for an 

unwanted outcome resulting from an incident, event, or occurrence, as determined by its 

likelihood and the associated impacts. This type of risk is one component of organizational risk. 

Organizational risk can include many types of risk (e.g., investment risk, budgetary risk, program 

management risk, legal liability risk, safety risk, inventory risk, and the risk from information 

systems). The Smart Grid risk assessment process is based on existing risk assessment 

approaches developed by both the private and public sectors and includes identifying impact, 

vulnerability, and threat information to produce an assessment of risk to the Smart Grid and to its 

domains and sub-domains, such as homes and businesses. Because the Smart Grid includes 

systems from the IT, telecommunications, and energy sectors, the risk assessment process is 

applied to all three sectors as they interact in the Smart Grid. 

The following documents were used in developing the risk assessment for the Smart Grid: 

• National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Special Publication (SP), 800-39, 

DRAFT Managing Risk from Information Systems: An Organizational Perspective, April 

2008; 

• Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS) 200, Minimum Security Requirements for 

Federal Information and Information Systems, March 2006; 

• FIPS 199, Standards for Security Categorization of Federal Information and Information 

Systems, February 2004; 

• North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC), Security Guidelines for the 

Electricity Sector: Vulnerability and Risk Assessment, 2002; 

• The National Infrastructure Protection Plan, 2009; 

• The IT, telecommunications, and energy sectors sector-specific plans (SSPs), initially 

published in 2007 and updated annually; and 

• ANSI/ISA-99, Manufacturing and Control Systems Security, Part 1: Concepts, Models and 

Terminology, 2007 and Part 2: Establishing a Manufacturing and Control Systems Security 

Program, 2009. 

Following the risk assessment, the next step in the Smart Grid cyber security strategy is to select 

and tailor (as necessary) the security requirements. The documents used in this step are listed 

under Task 3 below. 

The security requirements and the supporting analysis that are included in the NIST report may 

be used by implementers of the Smart Grid, e.g., utilities, equipment manufacturers, regulators, 

as input to their risk assessment processes. The information serves as baseline guidance to the 

various organizations for assessing risk and selecting appropriate security requirements. In 

addition, each organization should develop its own cyber security strategy for the Smart Grid. 

Page 109 
 

The tasks within the cyber security strategy for the Smart Grid are undertaken by participants in 

the CSCTG. In addition, the CSCTG is coordinating activities with the Advanced Security 

Acceleration Project – Smart Grid (ASAP-SG). The ASAP-SG is a collaborative effort between 

EnerNex Corporation, multiple major North American utilities, the National Institute of 

Standards and Technology, and the United States Department of Energy (DOE), including 

resources from Oak Ridge National Laboratory and the Software Engineering Institute of 

Carnegie Mellon University. Following are the tasks that are being performed by the CSCTG in 

the implementation of the cyber security strategy. Also included are the deliverables for each 

task. Because of the time frame for developing the document, the tasks listed below are 

occurring in parallel, with significant interactions among the groups addressing the tasks. 

Figure 6-1 illustrates the tasks defined for the Smart Grid cyber security strategy. The tasks are 

defined after the figure. 

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Existing

Standards

(CIP, IEEE,

IEC, etc.)

Existing

Standards

(CIP, IEEE,

IEC, etc.)

1. Use Case

Analysis

1. Use Case

Analysis

Bottom up analysis

(vulnerability

classes)

Bottom up analysis

(vulnerability

classes)

Top‐down analysis

(inter‐component/

domain)

Top‐down analysis

(inter‐component/

domain)

4b. Smart Grid

Standards

Assessment

4b. Smart Grid

Standards

Assessment

4a. Security

Architecture

5. Conformity

Assessment

5.

3. High Level

Security

Requirements

3. High Level

Security

Requirements

2. Risk Assessment

 Vulnerabilities

 Threats

 Impacts

2. Risk Assessment

 Vulnerabilities

 Threats

 Impacts

Figure 6-1. Tasks in the Smart Grid Cyber Security Strategy. 

Page 111 
 

Task 1. Selection of use cases with cyber security considerations.71 

The use cases were selected from several existing sources, e.g., IntelligridSM, Electric Power 

Research Institute (EPRI), and Southern California Edison (SCE). The set of use cases provides a 

common framework for performing the risk assessment, developing the security architecture, and 

selecting and tailoring the security requirements. 

Task 2. Performance of a risk assessment 

The risk assessment, including identifying vulnerabilities, impacts, and threats, has been 

undertaken from a high-level overall functional perspective. The output will form a basis for the 

selection of security requirements and the identification of security requirements gaps. The initial 

draft list of vulnerability classes72 was developed using information from several existing 

documents and Web sites, e.g., NIST SP 800-82 and the Open Web Application Security Project 

(OWASP) vulnerabilities list. These vulnerability classes will ensure that the security controls 

address the identified vulnerabilities. The vulnerability classes may also be used by Smart Grid 

implementers, e.g., vendors and utilities, in assessing their systems. Both top-down and bottomup approaches are used in implementing the risk assessment as specified earlier. The top-down 

approach focuses on the use cases and the overall Smart Grid functionality. The bottom-up 

approach focuses on well-understood problems that need to be addressed, such as authenticating 

and authorizing users to substation IEDs, key management for meters, and intrusion detection for 

power equipment. Also, interdependencies among Smart Grid domains/systems will be 

considered when evaluating the impacts of a cyber or physical security incident. An incident in 

one infrastructure can cascade to failures in other domains/systems. 

In the top-down approach, logical interface diagrams were developed for the six functional 

priority areas that were the focus of the initial draft of NISTIR 7628: Electric Transportation, 

Electric Storage, Wide Area Situational Awareness, Demand Response, Advanced Metering 

Infrastructure, and Distribution Grid Management. In the next draft of the NIST report, a 

functional architecture for the overall Smart Grid will be included, with logical interfaces 

identified for the new areas (this will be used in the development of the security architecture). 

Because there are hundreds of interfaces, each logical interface is allocated to one of eighteen 

logical interface categories. Some examples are: control systems with high data accuracy and 

high availability, as well as media and computer constraints; B2B (Business to Business) 

connections, interfaces between sensor networks and controls systems; and interface to the 

customer site. A set of attributes, e.g., immature or proprietary protocols, insecure locations, 

integrity requirements, was defined, and the attributes are allocated to the interface categories, as 

appropriate. This logical interface category/attributes matrix is used in assessing the impact of a 

security compromise on confidentiality, integrity and availability. The level of impact is denoted 

 

71 A use case is a method of documenting applications and processes for purposes of defining requirements. 

72 A vulnerability is a weakness in an information system, system security procedures, internal controls, or 

implementation that could be exploited or triggered by a threat source. A vulnerability class is a grouping of 

common vulnerabilities. 

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as low, moderate, or high73. This assessment is performed for each logical interface category. 

The output from this process is used in the selection of security requirements (Task 3). 

Task 3. Specification of high level security requirements. 

There are many requirements documents that may be applicable to the Smart Grid. Currently, 

only the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) Critical Infrastructure 

Protection (CIP) standards are mandatory for the bulk electric system. The following documents 

have been identified by members of the CSCTG as having security requirements relevant to one 

or more aspects of the Smart Grid. 

The following standards are directly relevant to the Smart Grid: 

• NERC CIP 002, 003-009 

• IEEE 1686-2007, IEEE Standard for Substation Intelligent Electronic Devices (IEDs) Cyber 

Security Capabilities 

• Security Profile for Advanced Metering Infrastructure, v 1.0, Advanced Security 

Acceleration Project – Smart Grid, December 10, 2009 

• UtilityAMI Home Area Network System Requirements Specification, 2008 

• IEC 62351 1-8, Power System Control and Associated Communications - Data and 

Communication Security 

The following documents are applicable to control systems: 

• ANSI/ISA-99, Manufacturing and Control Systems Security, Part 1: Concepts, Models and 

Terminology and Part 2: Establishing a Manufacturing and Control Systems Security 

Program 

• NIST Special Publication (SP) 800-53, Revision 3, Recommended Security Controls for 

Federal Information Systems, August 2009 

• NIST SP 800-82, DRAFT Guide to Industrial Control Systems (ICS) Security, Sept. 2008 

• DHS Procurement Language for Control Systems 74

 

73 The definitions of low, moderate, and high impact may be found in FIPS 199. 

74 Cyber Security Procurement Language for Control Systems, Version 1.8, Department of Homeland Security, 

National Cyber Security Division, February 2008. 

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• Catalog of Control Systems Security: Recommendations for Standards Developers, 

Department of Homeland Security, 2009 

• ISA SP100, Wireless Standards 

The cyber security requirements in the documents listed above are not unique. To assist in 

assessing and selecting the requirements, a cross-reference matrix was developed. This matrix 

maps the requirements from the various documents listed above. The matrix will be used to 

select the security requirements that will be listed for each logical interface category. In 

addition, there are many security requirements that are common to all the logical interface 

categories. The majority of these requirements are for governance, risk and compliance. These 

common requirements will be listed in a separate table, rather than being assigned to each logical 

interface category. As noted above, these requirements lists are provided as guidance, and are not 

mandatory. Each organization will need to perform a risk assessment to determine the 

applicability of the recommended requirements. 

In addition, organizations may find it necessary to identify compensating security requirements. 

A compensating security requirement is implemented by an organization in lieu of a 

recommended security requirement to provide an equivalent or comparable level of protection 

for the information/control system and the information processed, stored, or transmitted by that 

system. More than one compensating requirement may be required to provide the equivalent or 

comparable protection for a particular security requirement. For example, an organization with 

significant staff limitations may compensate for the recommended separation of duty security 

requirement by strengthening the audit, accountability, and personnel security requirements 

within the information/control system. 

Finally, for decades, power system operations have been managing the reliability of the power 

grid in which power availability has been a major requirement, with information integrity as a 

secondary but increasingly critical requirement. Confidentiality of customer information is also 

important in the normal revenue billing processes. Although focused on accidental/inadvertent 

security problems, such as equipment failures, employee errors, and natural disasters, existing 

power system management technologies can be used and expanded to provide additional security 

measures. 

Task 4a. Development of a security architecture. 

As specified in Task 2 above, the first phase in this task is to assess and revise the six functional 

priority area diagrams. The additional functionality of the Smart Grid will be included in an 

overall functional architecture that includes the six functional priority areas. This functional 

architecture will be included in the second draft of NISTIR 7628. 

Using the conceptual model included in this framework document, the FERC priority area use 

case diagrams, and the additional areas of AMI and distribution grid management, the CSCTG 

developed a more granular functional architecture for the Smart Grid. This architecture 

consolidates the individual FERC priority area diagrams into a single diagram and expands upon 

the conceptual model. The functional architecture identifies logical communication interfaces 

between actors. This functional architecture will be submitted to the SGIP Architecture 

Committee for its use. 

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In the next phase of this task, the Smart Grid conceptual reference model (described in Chapter 

3) and the functional architecture will be used in developing a single Smart Grid security 

architecture. The Smart Grid security architecture will overlay the security requirements on this 

architecture. The objective is to ensure that cyber security is addressed as a critical cross-cutting 

requirement of the Smart Grid. 

Task 4b. Assessment of Smart Grid standards. 

In Task 4b, standards that have been identified as relevant to the Smart Grid by the Priority 

Action Plan (PAP) teams and the SGIP will be assessed to determine if the security requirements 

are addressed. In this process, security requirement gaps will be identified and recommendations 

will be made for addressing the gaps. Also, conflicting standards and standards with security 

requirements not consistent with the security requirements included in NISTIR 7628 will be 

identified with recommendations. 

Task 5. Conformity Assessment. 

The final task is to develop a conformity assessment program for security requirements. This 

program will be coordinated with the activities defined by the testing and certification standing 

committee of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. This task will be initiated in the spring of 

2010. 

6.4 Time Line and Deliverables 

Anticipated to be published in January 2010, a second draft of NISTIR 7628 will include an 

overall Smart Grid architecture, security requirements for all domains of the Smart Grid, and a 

Smart Grid cyber security research and development section. The second draft will also address 

the comments that were submitted in response to the first public draft. The January 2010 draft of 

NISTIR 7628 will be submitted for public review and comment for 60 days. The final draft of 

the first version of NISTIR 7628, scheduled to be published in spring of 2010, will address all 

comments submitted to date, and will include an overall security architecture and design 

consideration to assist individuals and organizations in using the document. Because the Smart 

Grid is evolving over time, the content of NISTIR 7628 will need to be reviewed and updated, 

as required. 

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7 Next Steps 

7.1 Phase II – Smart Grid Interoperability Panel 

The Release 1.0 Framework described in this document represents an important first step in 

establishing the standards needed to realize a secure and interoperable Smart Grid. However it is 

only the beginning of an ongoing process. Initiating Phase II of the Plan in November 2009, 

NIST’s contractor, Enernex, established the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Panel (SGIP) 

to provide a more permanent process with stakeholder representation in order to support the 

ongoing evolution of the Smart Grid Interoperability Framework; to identify and address 

additional gaps, reflect changes in technology and requirements in the standards; and to provide 

ongoing coordination of SSO efforts to support timely availability of new or revised Smart Grid 

standards. Comprehensive information on the stakeholder make up of the SGIP, its meetings, and 

its findings is available at the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Site.75

7.2 Smart Grid Conformity Testing 

NIST recognizes the importance of ensuring the development of a conformity assessment 

program for Smart Grid (SG) standards. In order to support interoperability of Smart Grid 

systems and products, Smart Grid products developed to conform to the interoperability 

framework should undergo a rigorous standards conformity and interoperability testing process. 

NIST has initiated a program to develop a Smart Grid Conformity Testing Framework which 

will be further refined and maintained by the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. Within NIST’s 

three-phase plan to expedite the acceleration of interoperable Smart Grid standards, Smart Grid 

Conformity Testing is designated as Phase III. In recognition of the importance of Smart Grid 

Conformity Testing and the need to couple to standards identified for the Smart Grid, Smart Grid 

Conformity Testing has been included in the work of the SGIP, including establishing a 

permanent Testing and Certification standing committee within the SGIP. 

In today’s standards environment, NIST understands the importance of eliminating duplication 

of work activities related to Smart Grid standards as well as conformity testing. Recognizing that 

some efforts exist today to test certain Smart Grid standards, and others are under way, NIST’s 

intention is to leverage existing programs wherever practical. Hence the first step in developing a 

Smart Grid Conformity Testing Framework is to perform an analysis of existing SG standards 

conformity testing programs. An in-depth study has been initiated to identify and describe 

existing conformity assessment programs for Smart Grid products and services based on 

standards and specifications identified in the NIST Framework and Roadmap Document. This 

survey will address, in particular, conformity assessment programs assuring interoperability, 

cyber security, and other relevant characteristics. Descriptions of these programs will include all 

elements of a conformity assessment system, including accreditation bodies, certification bodies, 

testing and calibration laboratories, inspection bodies, personnel certification programs, and 

 

75 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/WebHome. 

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quality registrars. The study will also identify present gaps and deficiencies in these existing 

conformity assessment programs. 

In addition, a report outlining the conformity assessment requirements of federal and state 

governments and other relevant SG stakeholders will be developed. 

The results of this study will provide an input to the SGIP’s Testing and Certification 

Committee. The SGIP Testing and Certification Committee will have continuing visibility of 

Smart Grid conformity testing and certification existing in the industry; recommend 

improvements and means to fill gaps; and work with current standards bodies and user groups to 

develop new test programs to fill voids. 

Feedback from SDOs and other relevant bodies is another important aspect of the Smart Grid 

Conformity Testing Framework. Errors, clarifications, and enhancements are typically identified 

to existing standards throughout the normal conformity testing process. In order to improve 

interoperability, an overall process is critical to ensure changes and enhancements are 

incorporated continuously. 

NIST expects that the first Conformity Assessment Framework Organizational Coordination 

Meeting will be held within the SGIP by February 22, 2010. Invited attendees will include the 

Smart Grid stakeholders but the meeting will be open and advertised to the general public. 

7.3 Other Issues to be Addressed 

This section describes other major standards-related issues and barriers impacting 

standardization efforts and progress toward a fully interoperable Smart Grid. 

7.3.1 Electromagnetic Disturbances 

Standards for the Smart Grid should consider electromagnetic disturbances, including severe 

solar (geomagnetic) storm risks and Intentional Electromagnetic Interference (IEMI) threats such 

as High-Altitude Electromagnetic Pulse (HEMP). 

Our modern high-tech society is built upon a foundation vulnerable to electromagnetic 

disturbances. The Congressional EMP Commission (CEMPC; http://www.empcommission.org/) 

has documented some of the electromagnetic-disturbance-based risks and threats to critical U.S 

national infrastructures, including the electric power grid upon which other infrastructures 

depend. These threats include IEMI such as HEMP weapons, as well as Geomagneticallyinduced currents (GIC) due to severe solar storms. The existence and potential impacts of such 

threats provide impetus to evaluate, prioritize, and protect/harden the new Smart Grid. Efforts 

within the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel should be initiated to 1) evaluate the applicability of 

existing IEC, IEEE (and other relevant bodies), and MIL EMP protection standards, and 2) 

propose revisions to help address Smart Grid-directed threats. 

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7.3.2 Electromagnetic Interference 

The burgeoning of communications technologies, both wired and wireless, used by Smart Grid 

equipment can lead to EMC interference, which represents another standards issue requiring 

study. Additionally, new options may be considered, such as the Utility Telecom Council’s 

proposal for the allocation of dedicated spectra for utility communications. Support of multiple 

standards is appropriate to meet different real-world requirements and coincides with Congress’s 

requirement that the NIST Interoperability Framework be technology-neutral to encourage 

innovation. However, some communications technologies perform better in some environments 

than others, and little guidance is available to utilities to inform their technology choices. NIST 

identified the potential for wireless interference with equipment operating in unlicensed 

frequencies as an important issue for study. NIST is working with the FCC and DOE to address 

this potential issue; further research may result in development of recommendations and 

guidance on appropriate standards and technologies for wireless smart meter communications. 

The research goals will be to clearly identify and evaluate potential interference issues, to offer 

the best technical guidance, if needed, to mitigate interference, and to fill any standards gaps 

identified. 

Regardless of the outcome of these studies, there is no intention to mandate the use of specific 

spectra (licensed or unlicensed) or the use of specific wireless technologies for Smart Grid 

equipment. Thus, all current systems, as well as all systems under development, which fully 

comply with FCC requirements, will be allowed. 

In addition to the wireless transmitters discussed above, electromagnetic interference sources 

include electrostatic discharge, fast transients, and surges, which can lead to interruptions of 

service. The ability to withstand this interference with sufficient immunity without causing 

interference to other devices or systems is generally termed electromagnetic compatibility 

(EMC). There are significant benefits, including minimizing overall costs, to incorporating EMC 

up front in system development through modeling, simulation, and testing to appropriate 

standards, including those standards discussed in Section 7.3.1. EMC standards and testing issues 

relating to the Smart Grid should be addressed within the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel. 

7.3.3 Privacy Issues in the Smart Grid 

This section summarizes the privacy section included in NISTIR 7628. The benefits anticipated 

by Smart Grid systems also come with privacy risks that must be addressed. The Smart Grid will 

be not only an energy management system, but also a multi-directional always “online” 

communication network. Since the privacy implications of the Smart Grid are still evolving, the 

Privacy Sub-group of the Cyber Security Coordination Task Group (CSCTG) conducted an 

initial Privacy Impact Assessment (PIA) for the consumer-to-utility portion of the Smart Grid, as 

well as taking a broad look at the laws, regulations, and standards relevant to the privacy of 

information related to consumers' use of electricity. The results of this analysis and the proposed 

next steps are included in NISTIR 7628. 

The PIA analysis was performed following a methodology built around a number of 

internationally accepted privacy principles including, but not limited to, the American Institute of 

Certified Public Accountants/Canadian Institute of Chartered Accountants (AICPA/CICA) 

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Generally Accepted Privacy Principles (GAPPs) and the Organization for Economic Cooperation 

and Development (OECD) Privacy Principles upon which most international, national, and local 

data protection laws are based. In addition to these important privacy guidance documents, other 

privacy aspects, as referenced within the International Organization for Standardization/ 

International Electrotechnical Commission (ISO/IEC) standards, used by various privacy 

advocacy groups, in addition to various industry standards and regulations, were taken into 

consideration.76 Under GAPP, privacy is defined as “the rights and obligations of individuals 

and organizations with respect to the collection, use, retention, and disclosure of personal 

information.”77 The categories of privacy principles used within the PIA methodology included: 

management and accountability; notice and purpose; choice and consent; collection and scope; 

use and retention; individual access; disclosure and limiting use; security and safeguards; 

accuracy and quality; and openness, monitoring, and challenging compliance. 

The PIA findings revealed that a lack of consistent and comprehensive privacy policies, 

standards, and supporting procedures throughout the states, government agencies, utility 

companies, and supporting entities that will be involved with Smart Grid management, 

information collection, and use creates a very significant privacy risk that must be addressed. 

The ability to access, analyze, and respond to a much wider range of data from all levels of the 

electric grid is a major benefit of the Smart Grid, but it is also a significant concern from a 

privacy viewpoint, particularly when the data, resulting analysis and assumptions, are associated 

with individual consumers or dwellings. Some privacy advocates have raised serious concerns78

about the type and amount of billing, usage, appliance, and other related information flowing 

throughout the various components of the Smart Grid. 

The privacy implications of frequent meter readings being fed into the Smart Grid networks 

could provide a detailed time line of activities occurring inside the home. This data may point to 

a specific individual or give away privacy sensitive data. 

The constant collection and use of smart meter data has also raised potential surveillance 

possibilities posing physical, financial, and reputational risks that must be addressed. Many more 

types of data are being collected, generated and aggregated within the Smart Grid than when the 

only data collected was through monthly meter readings by the homeowner or utility employee. 

Numerous additional entities outside of the energy industry may also be collecting, accessing, 

and using the data, such as entities that are creating applications and services specifically for 

smart appliances, smart meters and other yet-to-be-identified purposes. Additionally, privacy 

issues arise from the question of the legal ownership of the data being collected. With ownership 

comes both control and rights with regard to usage. If the consumer is not considered the owner 

of the data obtained from metering and home automation systems, the consumer may not receive 

the privacy protections provided to data owners under existing laws. 

 

76 Additional details are provided in NISTIR 7628. 

77http://infotech.aicpa.org/Resources/Privacy/Generally+Accepted+Privacy+Principles/Privacy++An+Introduction+to+Generally

+Accepted+Privacy+Principles.htm. 

78 One example of this is available at 

http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/20090906_Utilities__smart_meters_save_money__but_erode_privacy.html .

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It is important to also consider that the proliferation of a variety of smart appliances and devices 

within residences means an increase in the number of devices that must be secured to protect the 

privacy of the data collected and potentially stored within them. The privacy risks presented by 

these smart appliances and devices are expanded when they are attached to Home Area Networks 

(HANs) over power lines, effectively extending the perimeter of the HAN to outside the walls of 

the premises. 

While the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) has adopted79

the “Resolution Urging the Adoption of General Privacy Principles for State Commission Use in 

Considering the Privacy Implications of the Use of Utility Customer Information,” the CSCTG 

Privacy Group’s research indicates that: 

• There is not yet consensus among state Public Utility Commissions (PUCs) on how to 

address the specific privacy implications of the Smart Grid. 

• State PUCs may not have in all instances the appropriate authority from their respective 

legislatures to address Smart Grid privacy issues. 

Adaptation of well-established methods for protecting consumer privacy is necessary to keep up 

with the multitude of use cases of the various technologies and business processes created for the 

Smart Grid. Legal and regulatory frameworks can be further harmonized and updated as the 

Smart Grid becomes more pervasive. PIAs of data collection, data flows, and processing are also 

crucial for a deeper understanding of the evolutionary and revolutionary changes that are coming 

about with the rollout of Smart Grid implementations. 

The Smart Grid architecture should follow developments that enable fair information practices in 

a meaningful and transparent way. A potential additional measure of protection for consumers’ 

privacy would be in the design of Smart Grid applications and devices that allows consumers to 

have control of their personal information to the greatest extent possible. The CSCTG Privacy 

Subgroup will continue researching and addressing Smart Grid privacy issues and will document 

them as they relate to: 

• Information collected by all entities involved with the Smart Grid; 

• Identified privacy concerns and risks; 

• Best privacy practices; and 

• Existing laws, regulations and standards. 

7.3.4 Safety 

The safe operation of the Smart Grid is of primary importance to all stakeholders; thus it is 

critical to incorporate appropriate safety procedures, criteria, and considerations into the relevant 

Smart Grid standards. For example, without proper attention to safety in standards, utility crews 

or first responders could find themselves in situations where they are potentially exposed to live 

wires connected to such sources as energy storage units or photovoltaic solar panels. These and 

other related issues should be addressed in a comprehensive manner across the Smart Grid. The 

SGIP should take on this role by reviewing overall safety operations and integrating safety 

 

79 http://www.naruc.org/Resolutions/privacy_principles.pdf . 

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considerations as it works to facilitate development of interoperability standards and 

establishment of a conformity testing and certification framework. The scope includes not only 

transmission and distribution systems, but also other devices and systems (such as the operation 

of Smart Grid consumer products in the home). Consideration should be given to correlating 

with NFPA’s National Electric Code and IEEE’s National Electric Safety Code. Only through a 

coordinated effort that includes a demonstrated compliance to safety criteria will it be possible to 

ensure that the Smart Grid operates in a manner that does not threaten life or property. 

7.4 Conclusion 

As the SGIP progresses in its work to identify and address additional standards gaps and provide 

ongoing coordination to accelerate the development of Smart Grid standards, NIST will publish 

updated Interoperability Framework documents as needed. There are continued opportunities for 

participation by new Smart Grid community members in the overall NIST process, including 

within the SGIP and its committees and working groups. Future meetings, workshops, and public 

comment opportunities will appear on the NIST Smart Grid Collaboration Site. 80 

 

80 http://collaborate.nist.gov/twiki-sggrid/bin/view/SmartGrid/WebHome. 

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8 List of Acronyms

ACSE Association Control Service Element 

AEIC Association of Edison Illuminating Companies 

AES Advanced Encryption Standard 

AMI Advanced Metering Infrastructure 

AMR Automated Meter Reading 

ANSI American National Standards Institute 

API Application Programming Interface 

ASHRAE American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers 

ATIS Alliance for Telecommunications Industry Solutions 

BAS Building Automation System 

CA Contingency Analysis 

CEIDS Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society 

CIM Common Information Model 

CIGRE International Council on Large Electric Systems 

CIP Critical Infrastructure Protection 

CIS Customer Information System 

CM Configuration Management 

CPP Critical Peak Pricing 

CSCTG Smart Grid Cyber Security Coordination Task Group 

CSRC Computer Security Resource Center 

DA Distribution Automation 

DDNS Dynamic Domain Name System 

DER Distributed Energy Resources 

DES Data Encryption Standard 

DEWG Domain Expert Working Group 

DGM Distribution Grid Management 

DHCP Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol 

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DHS Department of Homeland Security 

DLC Direct Load Control 

DMS Distribution Management System 

DNS Domain Name System 

DOD Department of Defense 

DOE Department of Energy 

DP Dynamic Pricing 

DR Demand Response 

DWML Digital Weather Markup Language 

ECWG Electronic Commerce Working Group 

EDL Exchange Data Language 

EISA Energy Independence and Security Act 

EMCS Utility/Energy Management and Control Systems 

EMS Energy Management System 

EPRI Electric Power Research Institute 

ES Energy Storage 

ESI Energy Services Interface 

ESP Energy Service Provider 

EUMD End Use Measurement Device 

EV Electric Vehicle 

EVSE Electric Vehicle Supply Equipment 

FBI Federal Bureau of Investigation 

FCC Federal Communications Commission 

FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission 

FIPS Federal Information Processing Standards 

FTP File Transfer Protocol 

GHG Greenhouse Gases 

GID Generic Interface Definition 

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GIS Geographic Information System 

GOOSE Generic Object-Oriented Substation Event 

GSA General Services Administration 

GWAC GridWise Architecture Council 

HTTP Hyper Text Transfer Protocol 

HVAC Heating Ventilating and Air Conditioning 

IATFF Information Assurance Technical Framework Forum 

ICS Industrial Control Systems 

IEC International Electrotechnical Commission 

IECSA Integrated Energy and Communications System Architecture 

IED Intelligent Electronic Device 

IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers 

IETF Internet Engineering Task Force 

IHD In-Home Display 

IOSS Interagency OPSEC Support Staff 

IP Internet Protocol 

IRM Interface Reference Model 

ISA International Society of Automation 

ISO International Organization for Standardization, Independent Systems Operator 

IT Information Technology 

ITU International Telecommunication Union 

KPI Key Point of Interoperability 

LAN Local Area Network 

LMS Load Management System 

LTC Load Tap Changer 

MDMS Meter Data Management System 

MGI Modern Grid Initiative 

MIB Management Information Base 

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MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions 

MFR Multilevel Feeder Reconfiguration 

MMS Manufacturing Messaging Specification 

MPLS Multi Protocol Label Switching 

NAESB North American Energy Standards Board 

NARUC National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners 

NASPI North American Synchrophasor Initiative 

NEMA National Electrical Manufacturers Association 

NERC North American Electric Reliability Corporation 

NIAP National Information Assurance Partnership 

NIPP National Infrastructure Protection Plan 

NIST National Institute of Standards and Technology 

NOAA National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration 

NSA National Security Agency 

NSM Network and System Management 

OASIS Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards 

OGC Open Geospatial Consortium 

OID Object Identifier 

OMG Object Management Group 

OMS Outage Management System 

OpenSG Open Smart Grid 

OSI Open Systems Interconnection 

OWASP Open Web Application Security Project 

PEV Plug-in Electric Vehicles 

PDC Phasor Data Concentrator 

PMU Phasor Measurement Unit 

QOS Quality of Service 

RAS Remedial Automation Schemes 

Page 125 
 

RBAC Role Based Access Control 

RFC Request for Comments, Remote Feedback Controller 

RSA Rivest, Shamir, Adelman 

RTO Regional Transmission Operator 

RTP Real-Time Pricing 

RTU Remote Terminal Unit 

SCADA Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition 

SCL Substation Configuration Language 

SCP Secure Copy Protocol 

SDO Standards Development Organization 

SHA Secure Hash Algorithm 

SNMP Simple Network Management Protocol 

SNTP Simple Network Time Protocol 

SOA Service-Oriented Architecture 

SP Special Publication 

SSO Standards-Setting Organizations 

SSH Secure Shell 

SSP Sector-Specific Plan 

TIA Telecommunications Industry Association 

TCP Transport Control Protocol 

TFTP Trivial File Transfer Protocol 

TOGAF The Open Group Architecture Framework 

TOU Time-of-Use 

UCA Utility Communications Architecture 

UCAIug UCA International Users Group 

UID Universal Identifier 

UML Unified Modeling Language 

VA Volt-amperes 

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VAR Volt Amps Reactive 

VVWC Voltage, VAR, and Watt Control 

WAMS Wide-Area Measurement System 

WAN Wide Area Network 

WASA Wide Area Situational Awareness 

WG Working Group 

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9 Appendix: Specific Domain Diagrams

9.1 Introduction81

The conceptual model consists of several domains, each of which contains many applications

and actors that are connected by associations, through interfaces. 

• Actors may be devices, computer systems, or software programs and/or the organizations 

that own them. Actors have the capability to make decisions and exchange information with 

other actors through interfaces. 

• Applications are the tasks performed by the actors within the domains. Some applications 

are performed by a single actor, others by several actors working together. 

• Domains group actors to discover the commonalities that will define the interfaces. In 

general, actors in the same domain have similar objectives. Communications within the 

same domain may have similar characteristics and requirements. Domains may contain other 

domains. 

• Associations are logical connections between actors that establish bilateral relationships. 

Actors interact with associated actors through interfaces. Associations are in Figure 3-1; the 

electrical associations between domains are shown as dashed lines and the communications 

associations are shown as solid lines. 

• Interfaces represent the point of access between domains. Communications interfaces are at 

each end of the communication associations and represent the access point for information to 

enter and exit a domain (interfaces are logical).Interfaces show either electrical connections 

or communications connections. Each of these interfaces may be bi-directional. 

Communications interfaces represent an information exchange between two domains and the 

actors within; they do not represent physical connections. They represent logical connections 

in the Smart Grid information network interconnecting various domains (as shown in Figure 

3-3). 

There are seven domains represented within the Smart Grid system as shown in Table 9-1. 

These represent logical domains based on the present and near-term view of the grid. In the 

future some of the domains may combine (such as transmission and distribution), and others may 

shrink in importance (perhaps bulk generation becomes less important as micro-generators 

become more prevalent). 

Table 9-1. Domains in the Smart Grid Conceptual Model. 

Domain Description 

Customers The end users of electricity. May also generate, store, and 

manage the use of energy. Traditionally, three customer 

types are discussed, each with its own domain: home, 

commercial/building, and industrial. 

 

81 This section is based on the Report to NIST on the Smart Grid Interoperability Standards Roadmap August 10, 

2009, Section 3.2, written by EPRI. 

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Markets The operators and participants in electricity markets. 

Service Providers The organizations providing services to electrical 

customers and utilities. 

Operations The managers of the movement of electricity. 

Bulk Generation The generators of electricity in bulk quantities. May also 

store energy for later distribution. 

Transmission The carriers of bulk electricity over long distances. May 

also store and generate electricity. 

Distribution The distributors of electricity to and from customers. May 

also store and generate electricity. 

It is important to note that domains are NOT organizations. For instance, an ISO or RTO may 

have actors in both the Markets and Operations domains. Similarly, a distribution utility is not 

entirely contained within the Distribution domain – it is likely to also contain actors in the 

Operations domain, such as a Distribution Management System, and in the Customer domain, 

such as meters. 

The Smart Grid Domain Diagrams (including Figure 3-1) are presented at two levels of 

increasing detail, as shown in Figure 9-1. Users of the model are encouraged to create additional 

levels or identify particular actors at a particular level in order to discuss the interaction between 

parts of the Smart Grid. 

 

Figure 9-1. Examining the Domains in Detail. 

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The purpose of the domain diagrams is to provide a framework for discussing both the existing 

power system and the evolving Smart Grid. While Chapter 3 shows domain interactions and 

overall scope, the following sections describe the details of the specific domains. Note that the 

domain diagrams, as presented, are not intended to be comprehensive in identifying all actors 

and all paths possible in the Smart Grid. This achievement will only be possible after additional 

elaboration and consolidation of use cases is achieved by stakeholder activities that are ongoing. 

It is important to note that the domain diagram (or the conceptual model) of the Smart Grid is not 

limited to a single domain or a single application or use case. The use of “Smart Grid” in some 

circles has been applied to only distribution automation or in others to only advanced metering or 

demand response, for example. The conceptual model assumes that “Smart Grid” includes a 

wide variety of use cases and applications, especially (but not limited to) functional priorities and 

cross-cutting requirements identified by FERC. The scope also includes other cross-cutting 

requirements including data management, and application integration, as described in the 

GridWise Architecture Council Interoperability Context-Setting Framework. 

9.2 Customer Domain 

The customer is ultimately the stakeholder that the entire grid was created to support. This is the 

domain where electricity is consumed (see Figure 9-2). Actors in the Customer domain enable 

customers to manage their energy usage and generation. Some actors also provide control and 

information flow between the customer and the other domains. The boundaries of the Customer 

domain are typically considered to be the utility meter and the Energy Services Interface (ESI). 

The ESI provides a secure interface for Utility-to- Consumer interactions. The ESI in turn can act 

as a bridge to facility-based systems such as a Building Automation System (BAS) or a 

customer’s Energy Management System (EMS). 

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Figure 9-2. Customer Domain Diagram. 

The Customer domain is usually segmented into sub-domains for home, commercial/building, 

and industrial. The energy needs of these sub-domains are typically set at less than 20kW20 kW 

of demand for Home, 20-200 kW for Commercial/Building, and over 200kW200 kW for 

Industrial. Each sub-domain has multiple actors and applications, which may also be present in 

the other sub-domains. Each sub-domain has a meter actor and an ESI that may reside in the 

meter or on the EMS or in an independent gateway. 

The ESI is the primary service interface to the Customer domains. The ESI may communicate 

with other domains via the AMI infrastructure or via another means, such as the Internet. The 

ESI communicates to devices and systems within the customer premises across a Home Area 

Network or other Local Area Network. 

There may be more than one EMS— and therefore more than one communications path—per 

customer. The EMS is the entry point for such applications as remote load control, monitoring 

and control of distributed generation, in-home display of customer usage, reading of non-energy 

meters, and integration with building management systems and the enterprise. The EMS may 

provide auditing/logging for cyber security purposes. The Customer domain is electrically 

connected to the Distribution domain. It communicates with the Distribution, Operations, 

Market, and Service Provider domains. 

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Table 9-2. Typical Application Category in the Customer Domain. 

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Building or Home 

Automation 

A system that is capable of controlling various functions within a 

building such as lighting and temperature control. 

Industrial 

Automation 

A system that controls industrial processes such as manufacturing 

or warehousing. These systems have very different requirements 

compared to home and building systems.

Micro-generation Includes all types of distributed generation including; Solar, Wind, 

and Hydro generators. Generation harnesses energy for electricity at 

a customer location. May be monitored, dispatched, or controlled 

via communications. 

9.3 Markets Domain 

The markets are where grid assets are bought and sold. Actors in the Markets domain exchange 

price and balance supply and demand within the power system (see Figure 9-3). The boundaries 

of the Market domain include the edge of the Operations domain where control happens, the 

domains supplying assets (e.g., generation, transmission, etc) and the Customer domain. 

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Figure 9-3. Overview of the Markets Domain. 

Communication between the Markets domain and the domains supplying energy are critical 

because efficient matching of production with consumption is dependent on markets. Energy 

supply domains include the Bulk Generation domain and Distributed Energy Resources (DER). 

DER reside in the Transmission, Distribution, and Customer domains. NERC CIPs consider 

suppliers of more than 300 megawatts to be Bulk Generation; most DER is smaller and is 

typically served through aggregators. DERs participate in markets to some extent today, and will 

participate to a greater extent as the Smart Grid becomes more interactive. 

Communications for Markets domain interactions must be reliable. They must be traceable and 

auditable. They must support e-commerce standards for integrity and non-repudiation. As the 

percentage of energy supplied by small DER increases, the allowed latency in communications 

with these resources must be reduced. 

The high-priority challenges in the Markets domain are: extension of price and DER signals to 

each of the Customer sub-domains; simplification of market rules; expanding the capabilities of 

aggregators; interoperability across all providers and consumers of market information; 

managing the growth (and regulation) of retailing and wholesaling of energy, and evolving 

communication mechanisms for prices and energy characteristics between and throughout the 

Markets and Customer domains. 

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Table 9-3. Typical Applications in the Markets Domain. 

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Market 

Management 

Market managers include ISOs for wholesale markets or 

NYMEX/CME for forward markets in many ISO/RTO regions. 

There are transmission and services and demand response markets 

as well. Some DER Curtailment resources are treated today as 

dispatchable generation. 

Retailing Retailers sell power to end customers and may in the future 

aggregate or broker DER between customers or into the market. 

Most are connected to a trading organization to allow participation 

in the wholesale market.

DER Aggregation Aggregators combine smaller participants (as providers or 

customers or curtailment) to enable distributed resources to play in 

the larger markets. 

Trading Traders are participants in markets, which include aggregators for 

provision and consumption and curtailment, and other qualified 

entities. 

There are a number of companies whose primary business is the 

buying and selling of energy. 

Market 

Operations 

Make a particular market function smoothly. Functions include 

financial and goods sold clearing, price quotation streams, audit, 

balancing, and more. 

Ancillary 

Operations 

Provide a market to provide frequency support, voltage support, 

spinning reserve and other ancillary services as defined by FERC, 

NERC and the various ISOs. These markets function on a regional 

or ISO basis normally. 

9.4 Service Provider Domain 

Actors in the Service Provider domain perform services to support the business processes of 

power system producers, distributors and customers (see Figure 9-4). These business processes 

range from traditional utility services, such as billing and customer account management, to 

enhanced customer services, such as management of energy use and home energy generation. 

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Figure 9-4. Overview of the Service Provider Domain. 

The service provider must not compromise the cyber security, reliability, stability, integrity, or 

safety of the electrical power network when delivering existing or emerging services. 

The Service Provider domain shares interfaces with the Markets, Operations, and Customer 

domains. Communications with the Operations domain are critical for system control and 

situational awareness; communications with the Markets and Customer domains are critical for 

enabling economic growth through the development of “smart” services. For example, the 

Service Provider domain may provide the interface enabling the customer to interact with the 

market(s). 

Service providers will create new and innovative services and products to meet the new 

requirements and opportunities presented by the evolving Smart Grid. Services may be 

performed by the electric service provider, by existing third parties, or by new participants drawn 

by the new business models. Emerging services represent an area of significant new economic 

growth. 

The priority challenge in the Service Provider domain is to develop the key interfaces and 

standards that will enable a dynamic market-driven ecosystem while protecting the critical power 

infrastructure. These interfaces must be able to operate over a variety of networking technologies 

while maintaining consistent messaging semantics. Some benefits to the Service Provider 

domain from the deployment of the Smart Grid include: 

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1) The development of a growing market for third parties to provide value-added services 

and products to customers, utilities and other stakeholders at competitive costs. 

2) The decrease in cost of business services for other Smart Grid domains. 

3) A decrease in power consumption and an increase in power generation as customers 

become active participants in the power supply chain. 

Table 9-4. Typical Applications in the Service Provider Domain. 

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Customer 

Management 

Managing customer relationships by providing point-of-contact and 

resolution for customer issues and problems. 

Installation & 

Management 

Installing and maintaining premises equipment that interacts with 

the Smart Grid. 

Building 

Management 

Monitoring and controlling building energy and responding to 

Smart Grid signals while minimizing impact on building occupants.

Home 

Management 

Monitoring and controlling home energy and responding to Smart 

Grid signals while minimizing impact on home occupants. 

Billing Managing customer billing information, including sending billing 

statements and processing payments. 

Account 

Management 

Managing the supplier and customer business accounts. 

Emerging 

Services 

All of the services and innovations that have yet to be created. 

These will be instrumental in defining the Smart Grid of the future. 

9.5 Operations Domain 

Actors in the Operations domain are responsible for the smooth operation of the power system. 

Today, the majority of these functions are the responsibility of a regulated utility (see Figure 9-

5). The Smart Grid will enable more of them to be outsourced to service providers; others may 

evolve over time. No matter how the Service Provider and Markets domains evolve, there will 

still be basic functions needed for planning and operating the service delivery points of a “wires” 

company. 

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Figure 9-5. Overview of the Operations Domain. 

In transmission operations, Energy Management Systems (EMSs) are used to analyze and 

operate the transmission power system reliably and efficiently, while in distribution operations, 

similar Distribution Management Systems (DMSs) are used for analyzing and operating the 

distribution system. 

Representative applications within the Operations domain are described in Table 9-5. These 

applications are derived from the IEC 61968-1 Interface Reference Model (IRM) for this 

domain. 

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Table 9-5. Typical Applications in the Operations Domain.

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Monitoring Network Operation Monitoring actors supervise network topology, 

connectivity and loading conditions, including breaker and switch 

states, and control equipment status. They locate customer 

telephone complaints and field crews. 

Control Network control is coordinated by actors in this domain, although 

they may only supervise wide area, substation, and local automatic 

or manual control. 

Fault 

Management 

Fault Management actors enhance the speed at which faults can be 

located, identified, and sectionalized and service can be restored. 

They provide information for customers, coordinate with workforce 

dispatch and compile information for statistics. 

Analysis Operation Feedback Analysis actors compare records taken from 

real-time operation related with information on network incidents, 

connectivity and loading to optimize periodic maintenance. 

Reporting and 

Statistics 

Operational Statistics and Reporting actors archive on-line data and 

perform feedback analysis about system efficiency and reliability. 

Calculations Real-time Network Calculations actors (not shown) provide system 

operators with the ability to assess the reliability and security of the 

power system. 

Training Dispatcher Training actors provide facilities for dispatchers that 

simulate the actual system they will be using (not shown in Figure 

9-5). 

Records and 

Assets 

The Records and Asset Management actors track and report on the 

substation and network equipment inventory, provide geospatial 

data and geographic displays, maintain records on non-electrical 

assets, and perform asset investment planning. 

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Operation 

Planning 

Operational Planning and Optimization actors perform simulation 

of network operations, schedule switching actions, dispatch repair 

crews, inform affected customers, and schedule the importing of 

power. They keep the cost of imported power low through peak 

generation, switching, load shedding or demand response. 

Maintenance and 

Construction 

Maintenance and Construction actors coordinate inspection, 

cleaning and adjustment of equipment, organize construction and 

design, dispatch and schedule maintenance and construction work, 

and capture records gathered by field to view necessary information 

to perform their tasks. 

Extension 

Planning 

Network Extension planning actors develop long term plans for 

power system reliability, monitor the cost, performance and 

schedule of construction, and define projects to extend the network 

such as new lines, feeders or switchgear. 

Customer 

Support 

Customer Support actors help customers to purchase, provision, 

install and troubleshoot power system services, and relay and 

record customer trouble reports. 

9.6 Bulk Generation Domain 

Applications in the Bulk Generation domain are the first processes in the delivery of electricity 

to customers (see Figure 9-6). Electricity generation is the process of creating electricity from 

other forms of energy, which may vary from chemical combustion to nuclear fission, flowing 

water, wind, solar radiation and geothermal heat. The boundary of the Bulk Generation domain 

is typically the Transmission domain. The Bulk Generation domain is electrically connected to 

the Transmission domain and shares interfaces with the Operations, Markets and Transmission 

domains. 

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Figure 9-6. Overview of the Bulk Generation Domain. 

Communications with the Transmission domain are the most critical because without 

transmission, customers cannot be served. The Bulk Generation domain must communicate key 

performance and quality of service issues such as scarcity (especially for wind and sun) and 

generator failure. These communications may cause the routing of electricity onto the 

transmission system from other sources. A lack of sufficient supply may be addressed directly 

(via Operations) or indirectly (via Markets). 

New requirements for the Bulk Generation domain include green house gas emissions controls, 

increases in renewable energy sources, and provision of storage to manage the variability of 

renewable generation. Actors in the Bulk Generation domain may include various devices such 

as protection relays, remote terminal units, equipment monitors, fault recorders, user interfaces, 

and programmable logic controllers. 

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Table 9-6. Typical Applications in the Bulk Generation Domain. 

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Control Performed by actors that permit the Operations domain to manage 

the flow of power and reliability of the system. An example is the 

use of phase angle regulators within a substation to control power 

flow between two adjacent power systems 

Measure Performed by actors that provide visibility into the flow of power 

and the condition of the systems in the field. In the future, 

measurement might be found built into meters, transformers, 

feeders, switches and other devices in the grid. 

An example is the digital and analog measurements collected 

through the SCADA system from a remote terminal unit (RTU) and 

provide to a grid control center in the Operations domain. 

Protect Performed by Actors that react rapidly to faults and other events in 

the system that might cause power outages, brownouts, or the 

destruction of equipment. 

 Performed to maintain high levels of reliability and power quality. 

May work locally or on a wide scale. 

Record Performed by actors that permit other domains to review what has 

happened on the grid for financial, engineering, operational, and 

forecasting purposes. 

Asset 

Management 

Management performed by actors that work together to determine 

when equipment should have maintenance, calculate the life 

expectancy of the device, and record its history of operations and 

maintenance so it can be reviewed in the future for operational and 

engineering decisions. 

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9.7 Transmission Domain 

Transmission is the bulk transfer of electrical power from generation sources to distribution 

through multiple substations (see Figure 9-7). A transmission network is typically operated by a 

Regional Transmission Operator or Independent System Operator (RTO/ISO) whose primary 

responsibility is to maintain stability on the electric grid by balancing generation (supply) with 

load (demand) across the transmission network. Examples of actors in the transmission domain 

include remote terminal units, substation meters, protection relays, power quality monitors, 

phasor measurement units, sag monitors, fault recorders, and substation user interfaces. 

Figure 9-7. Overview of the Transmission Domain. 

Actors in the Transmission domain typically perform the applications shown in the diagram 

(Figure 9-7) and described in the table. The transmission domain may contain Distributed Energy 

Resources such as electrical storage or peaking generation units. 

Energy and supporting ancillary services (capacity that can be dispatched when needed) are 

procured through the Markets domain, scheduled and operated from the Operations domain, and 

finally delivered through the Transmission domain to the distribution system and finally to the 

Customer domain. 

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Most activity in the Transmission domain is in a substation. An electrical substation uses 

transformers to change voltage from high to low or the reverse across the electric supply chain. 

Substations also contain switching, protection and control equipment. Figure 9-7 depicts both 

step-up and step down sub-stations connecting generation (including peaking units) and storage 

with distribution. Substations may also connect two or more transmission lines. 

Transmission towers, power lines and field telemetry such as the line sag detector shown make 

up the balance of the transmission network infrastructure. The transmission network is typically 

monitored and controlled through a supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system 

composed of a communication network, monitoring devices and control devices. 

Table 9-7. Typical Applications in the Transmission Domain. 

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Substation The systems within a substation.

Storage A system that controls the charging and discharging of an energy 

storage unit

Measurement & 

Control 

Includes all types of measurement and control systems to measure, 

record, and control with the intent of protecting and optimizing grid 

operation. 

9.8 Distribution Domain 

The Distribution domain is the electrical interconnection between the Transmission domain, the 

Customer domain and the metering points for consumption, distributed storage, and distributed 

generation (see Figure 9-8). The electrical distribution system may be arranged in a variety of 

structures, including radial, looped or meshed. The reliability of the distribution system varies 

depending on its structure, the types of actors that are deployed, and the degree to which they 

communicate with each other and with the actors in other domains. 

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Figure 9-8. Overview of the Distribution Domain. 

Historically, distribution systems have been radial configurations, with little telemetry, and 

almost all communications within the domain was performed by humans. The primary installed 

sensor base in this domain is the customer with a telephone, whose call initiates the dispatch of a 

field crew to restore power. Many communications interfaces within this domain have been 

hierarchical and unidirectional, although they now generally can be considered to work in both 

directions, even as the electrical connections are just beginning to support bidirectional flow. 

Distribution actors may have local inter-device (peer-to-peer) communication or a more 

centralized communication methodology. 

In the Smart Grid, the Distribution domain will communicate more closely with the Operations 

domain in real-time to manage the power flows associated with a more dynamic Markets domain 

and other environmental and security-based factors. The Markets domain will communicate with 

the Distribution domain in ways that will affect localized consumption and generation. In turn, 

these behavioral changes due to market forces may have electrical and structural impacts on the 

Distribution domain and the larger grid. Under some models, third-party Customer Service 

Providers may communicate with the Customer domain using the infrastructure of the 

Distribution domain, which would change the communications infrastructure selected for use 

within the Domain. 

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Table 9-8. Typical Applications within the Distribution Domain. 

Example 

Application 

Category 

Description 

Substation The control and monitoring systems within a substation.

Storage A system that controls a charging and discharging of an energy 

storage unit

Distributed 

Generation 

A power source located on the distribution side of the grid. 

Measurement & 

Control 

Includes all types of measurement and control systems to measure, 

record, and control with the intent of protecting and optimizing grid 

operation.