NIST Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Newsletter

January 2015

New Year’s Greetings from Chris Greer

As the NIST team steps forward into 2015, we are excited and energized about the many 

opportunities we will have this year to work with you, our colleagues in the smart grid and cyberphysical systems communities.

We believe that the two communities—smart grid and cyber-physical systems—are closely related, 

intersect in significant ways, and have much to offer each other. We’ll be including news about both 

areas in this and future newsletters.

As you will see from the list of upcoming workshops and meetings for the next four months (see 

below), it’s going to be a busy time for all of us. Here’s a very brief introduction to our strategy and 

plans for the coming year.

In the smart grid area, we are moving forward along three fronts:

• Working with the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP)—We continue to provide 

leadership in many of the SGIP’s working groups, and we look to SGIP as a key forum for 

interacting with the diverse stakeholders that make up the smart grid sector.

• Working with a partnership of government and industry organizations on the “Grid 

3.0” technology roadmap—We’ve launched a planning process that aims to help shape 

the grid’s future. Our goal is to consider strategic issues that will be important as the 

electricity sector transitions from the legacy grid of the 20th century (“Grid 1.0”) to today’s 

emerging smart grid (“Grid 2.0”) to tomorrow’s “Grid 3.0.”

• Developing a smart grid testbed at NIST’s laboratories in Gaithersburg, MD—A key 

goal for 2015 is to build and begin using an advanced multi-mode interacting measurement 

testbed to facilitate implementation, validation, and full characterization of smart grid 

interoperability standards and smart grid performance, with a particular emphasis on 

microgrids. 

In the cyber-physical systems (CPS) area, we are also using a three-pronged approach:

• Working with the CPS Public Working Group (CPS PWG) to develop a CPS 

Framework—This group, formed by NIST in 2014, brings together experts to help define 

and shape key aspects of CPS in order to accelerate its development and implementation 

within multiple sectors of our economy. The initial work of the group is being carried out in 

five subgroups: 1) Reference Architecture; 2) Use Cases; 3) Timing and Synchronization; 4) 

Cybersecurity and Privacy; and 5) Data Interoperability. The “Framework Elements” 

documents prepared by the subgroups are being combined and integrated into a CPS 

Framework and will be improved over the coming months.

• Working with Global City Teams Challenge—This nine-month initiative, which is led by 

NIST in partnership with U.S. Ignite, the National Science Foundation, the Department of 

Transportation, and a dozen other federal agencies and technology companies, is designed 

to advance the deployment of Internet of Things (IoT) technologies within a smart city / 

smart community environment. More than 30 teams are pursuing projects related to sectors 

including energy, transportation, and public safety. Participants in the Global City Teams 

Challenge are working to deploy an emerging technology within a cyber-physical system by 

June 2015.
• Developing a CPS testbed at NIST’s laboratories in Gaithersburg, MD—A key goal for 

2015 is to design and begin development of a CPS testbed to characterize CPS equipment, 

systems, performance, and standards. During our planning process, we expect to use 

perspectives, experiences, and needs that emerge during the upcoming CPS Testbed 

Workshop hosted at NIST (see below for details).

It’s a challenging agenda, and we’ll only be successful with your participation. We are very grateful 

for your support and engagement in 2014, and we’re looking forward to working with you to make 

2015 a great year for smart grid and cyber-physical systems.

Best wishes,

Chris Greer, Ph.D. 

Director, NIST Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program Office

Upcoming Meetings and Workshops (January – April, 2015)

January 15, 2 p.m. - 3 p.m. EST, Webinar by CPS Public Working Group 

This webinar will provide an update on the status of the integrated CPS Framework document, as 

well as provide details about the upcoming April 7-8 Face-to-Face Meeting (see below). Each of the 

five subgroups will give a short description of their sections of the CPS Framework. Interested 

community members who have not yet joined the CPS PWG effort are encouraged to attend the 

webinar. To register for the webinar, click here.

February 6, 9 a.m. - 1 p.m. PST, Event to Celebrate “The Birth of the Green Button 

Ecosystem,” at San Diego Gas and Electric’s Energy Innovation Center in San Diego, CA

Green Button creators, developers, industry vendors, utilities, and stakeholders will convene in 

southern California to celebrate “The Birth of the Green Button Ecosystem” and to discuss how 

Green Button will evolve going forward. This free event recognizes a number of key milestones 

achieved in 2014, including the following:

• Electric utilities and other stakeholders agreed on implementation profiles and guidance, 

industry vendors have initial implementations, third-party developers have unveiled 

applications using the standard, the Federal Government has supported Green Button 

applications in federal facilities, and customers have begun to take advantage of Green 

Button.

• UCAIug and Underwriters Laboratories LLC, with development supported by NIST, have 

established a full testing and certification program. 

• About 60 million Americans (and 2.5 million Canadians) now have access to their own 

Green Button data in a standardized format. 

The Green Button ecosystem has now been created, and will improve with community contributions 

in the coming months and years. According to the event organizers, “It’s time to turn promise into 

performance, and performance into profit.”

To register for the Green Button celebration, click here.

February 12-13, Tech Jam for Global City Teams (GCTC) Challenge, at NIST-Gaithersburg

The Tech Jam will provide opportunities for:

• Existing GCTC participants to present their project plans and identify additional project 

partners. 

• Entities not yet participating in the Challenge to explore a new project idea and/or identify 

partners and develop new Action Clusters.

• Attendees to hear from government agencies about funding programs relevant to GCTC 

participants and IoT/CPS/Smart Cities more generally. 
• Attendees to hear from global leaders and experts of IoT/CPS/Smart Cities and to begin 

discussion of the NIST Smart City Framework.

The Tech Jam, which is free, begins at 9 a.m. on February 12 and will conclude by 1 p.m. on 

February 13. To register for the Tech Jam, click here. To learn more about the Global City Teams 

Challenge and current Action Clusters, visit the GCTC website.

February 24-25, Workshop on CPS Testbeds, at NIST-Gaithersburg 

NIST will host a workshop to identify key characteristics and conceptual design elements of CPS 

testbeds. This workshop will enable the CPS community to share perspectives, best practices, and 

challenges in support of this goal. Participants will engage in efforts designed to: 

• Highlight the present state of CPS research facilities. 

• Gain insights into the key conceptual design elements contributing to successful testbeds.

• Pinpoint specific elements to effectively address opportunities.

Participants will actively contribute to workshop outcomes and help guide the community’s efforts to 

develop a successful CPS testbed architecture. To register for the free workshop, click here.

March 24-25, Transactive Energy Challenge Preparatory Workshop, at NIST-Gaithersburg

Transactive Energy (TE) is a subject of great current interest in the energy sector. It refers to 

techniques for managing the generation, consumption, or flow of electric power within an electric 

power system through the use of economic or market-based constructs while considering grid 

reliability constraints. To understand TE’s potential and to support technology developers and 

policy makers, the smart grid community will require simulation tools and platforms that can be used 

to explore the impact of alternative ways to create and operate TE systems. 

The purpose of this workshop is to design a future Transactive Energy Challenge that will bring 

together stakeholders, tools, and technologies to create and demonstrate the viability of TE 

simulation platforms and problem solutions. Attendees will include leaders and experts from 

academia, utilities, ISOs / RTOs, companies, and government. The workshop, which is being 

organized in collaboration with the Department of Energy and the GridWise Architectural Council 

(GWAC), will be free and open to the public for in-person attendance. 

Save the date. More details will be available soon.

March 26-27, Grid 3.0 Open Workshop, at NIST-Gaithersburg

Building on the success of the Electricity Sector Issues Roundtable: Grid 3.0 and Beyond

(November 13, 2014), NIST and its partner organizations (DOE, EPRI, GWAC, NEMA, and SGIP) 

are organizing a follow-on Grid 3.0 Workshop. We’re bringing together subject matter experts to 

develop action plans for the interoperability issues identified at the Roundtable. The Grid 3.0 

Workshop will be held on March 26 and 27 at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, MD. The 

workshop will be organized around five pillars that reflect critical issues facing the electricity sector:

• Resiliency

• Reliability

• Emerging / evolving markets

• New actors in the grid ecosystem

• Pace of technology innovation

Save the date. More information on the Grid 3.0 Workshop, including registration details, will be 

provided in the near future.
April 7-8, CPS Public Working Group (CPS PWG) Face-to-Face Meeting, at NIST-Gaithersburg

A face-to-face meeting of the NIST CPS PWG is scheduled for April 7-8, 2015 at NIST in 

Gaithersburg, MD. This workshop will review the integrated CPS Framework (see update webinar 

information, above) being developed in phase two of the CPS PWG. The workshop will also serve 

as the launchpad for phase three of the CPS PWG, which will focus on development of CPS 

Roadmap(s) to extend and refine the initial CPS Framework and support CPS research, 

development, and deployment.

Save the date. More information will be provided in the near future.

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