NIST Smart Grid and CPS Newsletter

February 2016

 Global City Teams Challenge: Tech Jam on March 22-23, 2016

 International Working Group on IoT-enabled Smart City Framework: Kick-off on March 24-

25, 2016

 Transactive Energy Challenge: Webinar and Conference

 NIST Officials Discuss the Internet of Things

 SGIP Update

Global City Teams Challenge: Tech Jam on March 22-23, 2016

The Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Tech Jam will take place on the NIST campus in 

Gaithersburg, Maryland, on March 22-23, 2016. As described in this article in the Department of 

Commerce’s “The Commerce Blog,” the two-day Tech Jam brings together cities and innovators 

pursuing smart city technologies that provide measurable benefits to residents, in areas ranging 

from community resilience to sustainable energy management to mass transit improvement. At the 

Tech Jam, existing Action Clusters (i.e., GCTC teams comprising experts from industry, 

government, and academia) will present their project plans, discuss project measurements and key 

performance indicators, and identify additional Action Cluster partners. The Tech Jam will also 

provide an opportunity for interested parties to create new Action Clusters. 

There is no cost to participate in the Tech Jam event on March 22-23, but registration is required by 

March 15, 2016. To register, please visit the registration webpage.

NIST has released a grant program for U.S. local governments participating in the Global City 

Teams Challenge. The new program is called the "Replicable Smart City Technologies" (RSCT) 

Cooperative Agreement Program. Under the RSCT funding opportunity, approximately $300,000 

would fund three projects. Single project proposals submitted by current U.S. local governments 

participating in the GCTC challenge are eligible. The application deadline is May 12, 2016. For more 

information about the RSCT program, please use the following link: 

http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=281680

For the GCTC program, NIST has teamed with US Ignite, a nonprofit organization focused on the 

creation of next-generation Internet applications that provide transformative public benefit. More 

than 30 other organizations—from the federal government, nonprofit, industrial, and academic 

sectors—are partnering with NIST for GCTC 2016. Other participants include over 25 cities around 

the world, as well as the governments of Italy, Netherlands, and South Korea. For additional 

information about the GCTC program, please visit http://www.nist.gov/cps/sagc.cfm and 

www.globalcityteams.org.

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International Working Group on IoT-enabled Smart City 

Framework: Kick-off on March 24-25, 2016

With the support and participation of several international organizations, NIST is establishing an 

international technical public working group to help develop an “IoT-Enabled Smart City 

Framework,” now shortened to “IES-City Framework” (pronounced: 'yes city' framework), which will 

identify pivotal points of interoperability across the many existing and deployed architectures. The 

motivation for this activity is the great interest in the Internet of Things (IoT) envisioned and 

deployed in smart cities around the world. At the present time, dozens of unconnected 
standardization and specification activities are competing for attention and market share throughout 

the world. 

This international group will be holding initial workshops immediately following the GCTC Tech Jam 

in the United States (March 24-25, 2016, in Gaithersburg, Maryland) and in Europe (April 14-15, 

2016, in Rome, Italy). 

There is no cost to participate in the event, but registration for the March workshop is required by 

March 15, 2016. To register for the March 24-25 kick-off workshop at NIST, please visit the 

registration webpage. To register for the April 14-15 kick-off workshop in Rome, please visit the 

registration webpage.

Participation in the activity is open to anyone. NIST has set up a collaboration website for the 

project and a briefing paper providing more information on the project. An email list has been 

established for interested parties to join to be informed and discuss the project. Project contact: Dr. 

Martin J. Burns. 

Dr. Chris Greer, Director of NIST's Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program Office, said, 

"The growth of the smart cities market is currently hindered by deployments that are customized 

and not fully interoperable or scalable, as well as by the lack of convergence around architectural 

design principles and a common language and taxonomy. We want to enable the full spectrum of 

standards activities to cooperate and harmonize their efforts to enable smart city solutions that meet 

the needs of modern communities.”

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Transactive Energy Challenge: Webinar and Conference

The topic of transactive energy is receiving increased attention these days, as evidenced by the 

large audience (over 100 attendees) at the February 23 Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) 

webinar, “Transactive Energy Getting Real? Update on the TE Challenge.” The webinar, organized 

by NIST’s David Holmberg, highlighted the recent progress of three of the seven teams participating 

in the NIST Transactive Energy Modeling and Simulation Challenge for the Smart Grid (TE 

Challenge).

The webinar featured:

 a review of the draft white paper from the TE Business and Regulatory Models team

 an update on plans and deliverables from the TE Demo for Microgrid Energy 

Management team

 an introduction to a new effort in the OpenADR Alliance to develop Transactive ADR

The recording and slides for the webinar are now available online.

All seven of the TE Challenge teams will make presentations at an upcoming conference and 

workshop, “Transactive Energy Systems: Harnessing Flexibility in an Evolving Electric Power 

System (TES 2016).” The conference is sponsored by the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) 

and Smart Grid Northwest, and will be held May 17-19, 2016, in Portland, Oregon. Registration 

information is available online.

For complete details about the NIST TE Challenge, including information on how to join, please visit 

the collaboration website.

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NIST Officials Discuss the Internet of Things

With the growing media interest in the “Internet of Things” and cyber-physical systems, NIST 

scientists are getting plenty of opportunities to do public outreach on these topics, to help various 

audiences understand the importance of measurement science and standards in their lives. 

At the Industry of Things World USA conference and exhibition in San Diego, California (February 

25-26, 2016), two NIST leaders gave presentations:

 Dr. Willie May, Director of NIST and Undersecretary of Standards and Technology at the 

Department of Commerce, gave the opening keynote address, “Paving the Way to the 

Industrial Internet of Things.”

 Dr. Chris Greer, Director of the Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program 

Office, gave a presentation, “Cyber-Physical Systems and Their Role for the Factory of the 

Future.”

Dr. David Wollman, Deputy Director of the Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program Office, 

was one of five speakers at the Federal Executive Forum, an hour-long monthly program on Federal 

News Radio. The entire program, “Internet of Things (IoT) ‘Progress & Best Practices’ 2016,” is 

available online. Two of the other speakers, executives from industrial organizations (Cisco and 

Intel), highlighted the important role that NIST and the federal government will be playing in the 

future. Alan Balutis, Senior Director and Distinguished Fellow at Cisco Systems, said, “As 

standards develop, we can’t allow separate standards in separate sectors. .... There are exciting 

things happening in transportation, health care, and [a number of different sectors.] ... It would be 

devastating for the growth in this area if the transportation sector developed standards different than 

the health care sector and different than [other sectors]. [There is] a key role for NIST, a key role for 

the Congressional Caucus on the Internet of Things, and a key role for the government to achieve 

the interoperability and agility that’s needed.”

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SGIP Update

The Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) recently released a publication titled “2015 North 

American Grid Modernization Test Bed Survey.” Based on a survey conducted between March 

2015 and September 2015, the publication’s objectives are to:

 Increase awareness of smart grid testing activities underway 

 Provide a starting point for interested parties to get an understanding of the capabilities of 

various labs 

 Help identify possible gaps in what is being tested 

 Support collaboration among test bed operators and industry players 

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