H. R. 6—294 
(1) ESTABLISHMENT.—The Secretary shall establish, within 
90 days of enactment of this Part, a Smart Grid Advisory 
Committee (either as an independent entity or as a designated 
sub-part of a larger advisory committee on electricity matters). 
The Smart Grid Advisory Committee shall include eight or 
more members appointed by the Secretary who have sufficient 
experience and expertise to represent the full range of smart 
grid technologies and services, to represent both private and 
non-Federal public sector stakeholders. One member shall be 
appointed by the Secretary to Chair the Smart Grid Advisory 
Committee. 
(2) MISSION.—The mission of the Smart Grid Advisory Com-
mittee shall be to advise the Secretary, the Assistant Secretary, 
and other relevant Federal officials concerning the development 
of smart grid technologies, the progress of a national transition 
to the use of smart-grid technologies and services, the evolution 
of widely-accepted technical and practical standards and proto-
cols to allow interoperability and inter-communication among 
smart-grid capable devices, and the optimum means of using 
Federal incentive authority to encourage such progress. 
(3) APPLICABILITY OF FEDERAL ADVISORY COMMITTEE ACT.— 
The Federal Advisory Committee Act (5 U.S.C. App.) shall 
apply to the Smart Grid Advisory Committee. 
(b) SMART GRID TASK FORCE.— 
(1) ESTABLISHMENT.—The Assistant Secretary of the Office 
of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability shall establish, 
within 90 days of enactment of this Part, a Smart Grid Task 
Force composed of designated employees from the various divi-
sions of that office who have responsibilities related to the 
transition to smart-grid technologies and practices. The Assist-
ant Secretary or his designee shall be identified as the Director 
of the Smart Grid Task Force. The Chairman of the Federal 
Energy Regulatory Commission and the Director of the National 
Institute of Standards and Technology shall each designate 
at least one employee to participate on the Smart Grid Task 
Force. Other members may come from other agencies at the 
invitation of the Assistant Secretary or the nomination of the 
head of such other agency. The Smart Grid Task Force shall, 
without disrupting the work of the Divisions or Offices from 
which its members are drawn, provide an identifiable Federal 
entity to embody the Federal role in the national transition 
toward development and use of smart grid technologies. 
(2) MISSION.—The mission of the Smart Grid Task Force 
shall be to insure awareness, coordination and integration of 
the diverse activities of the Office and elsewhere in the Federal 
Government related to smart-grid technologies and practices, 
including but not limited to: smart grid research and develop-
ment; development of widely accepted smart-grid standards 
and protocols; the relationship of smart-grid technologies and 
practices to electric utility regulation; the relationship of smart- 
grid technologies and practices to infrastructure development, 
system reliability and security; and the relationship of smart- 
grid technologies and practices to other facets of electricity 
supply, demand, transmission, distribution, and policy. The 
Smart Grid Task Force shall collaborate with the Smart Grid 
Advisory Committee and other Federal agencies and offices.
H. R. 6—295 
The Smart Grid Task Force shall meet at the call of its Director 
as necessary to accomplish its mission. 
(c) AUTHORIZATION.—There are authorized to be appropriated 
for the purposes of this section such sums as are necessary to 
the Secretary to support the operations of the Smart Grid Advisory 
Committee and Smart Grid Task Force for each of fiscal years 
2008 through 2020. 
SEC. 1304. SMART GRID TECHNOLOGY RESEARCH, DEVELOPMENT, AND 
DEMONSTRATION. 
(a) POWER GRID DIGITAL INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY.—The Sec-
retary, in consultation with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commis-
sion and other appropriate agencies, electric utilities, the States, 
and other stakeholders, shall carry out a program— 
(1) to develop advanced techniques for measuring peak 
load reductions and energy-efficiency savings from smart 
metering, demand response, distributed generation, and elec-
tricity storage systems; 
(2) to investigate means for demand response, distributed 
generation, and storage to provide ancillary services; 
(3) to conduct research to advance the use of wide-area 
measurement and control networks, including data mining, vis-
ualization, advanced computing, and secure and dependable 
communications in a highly-distributed environment; 
(4) to test new reliability technologies, including those con-
cerning communications network capabilities, in a grid control 
room environment against a representative set of local outage 
and wide area blackout scenarios; 
(5) to identify communications network capacity needed 
to implement advanced technologies. 
(6) to investigate the feasibility of a transition to time- 
of-use and real-time electricity pricing; 
(7) to develop algorithms for use in electric transmission 
system software applications; 
(8) to promote the use of underutilized electricity generation 
capacity in any substitution of electricity for liquid fuels in 
the transportation system of the United States; and 
(9) in consultation with the Federal Energy Regulatory 
Commission, to propose interconnection protocols to enable elec-
tric utilities to access electricity stored in vehicles to help 
meet peak demand loads. 
(b) SMART GRID REGIONAL DEMONSTRATION INITIATIVE.— 
(1) IN GENERAL.—The Secretary shall establish a smart 
grid regional demonstration initiative (referred to in this sub-
section as the ‘‘Initiative’’) composed of demonstration projects 
specifically focused on advanced technologies for use in power 
grid sensing, communications, analysis, and power flow control. 
The Secretary shall seek to leverage existing smart grid deploy-
ments. 
(2) GOALS.—The goals of the Initiative shall be— 
(A) to demonstrate the potential benefits of con-
centrated investments in advanced grid technologies on 
a regional grid; 
(B) to facilitate the commercial transition from the 
current power transmission and distribution system tech-
nologies to advanced technologies;
H. R. 6—296 
(C) to facilitate the integration of advanced tech-
nologies in existing electric networks to improve system 
performance, power flow control, and reliability; 
(D) to demonstrate protocols and standards that allow 
for the measurement and validation of the energy savings 
and fossil fuel emission reductions associated with the 
installation and use of energy efficiency and demand 
response technologies and practices; and 
(E) to investigate differences in each region and regu-
latory environment regarding best practices in imple-
menting smart grid technologies. 
(3) DEMONSTRATION PROJECTS.— 
(A) IN GENERAL.—In carrying out the initiative, the 
Secretary shall carry out smart grid demonstration projects 
in up to 5 electricity control areas, including rural areas 
and at least 1 area in which the majority of generation 
and transmission assets are controlled by a tax-exempt 
entity. 
(B) COOPERATION.—A demonstration project under 
subparagraph (A) shall be carried out in cooperation with 
the electric utility that owns the grid facilities in the elec-
tricity control area in which the demonstration project is 
carried out. 
(C) FEDERAL SHARE OF COST OF TECHNOLOGY INVEST-
MENTS.—The Secretary shall provide to an electric utility 
described in subparagraph (B) financial assistance for use 
in paying an amount equal to not more than 50 percent 
of the cost of qualifying advanced grid technology invest-
ments made by the electric utility to carry out a demonstra-
tion project. 
(D) INELIGIBILITY FOR GRANTS.—No person or entity 
participating in any demonstration project conducted under 
this subsection shall be eligible for grants under section 
1306 for otherwise qualifying investments made as part 
of that demonstration project. 
(c) AUTHORIZATION OF APPROPRIATIONS.—There are authorized 
to be appropriated— 
(1) to carry out subsection (a), such sums as are necessary 
for each of fiscal years 2008 through 2012; and 
(2) to carry out subsection (b), $100,000,000 for each of 
fiscal years 2008 through 2012. 
SEC. 1305. SMART GRID INTEROPERABILITY FRAMEWORK. 
(a) INTEROPERABILITY
FRAMEWORK.—The Director of the 
National Institute of Standards and Technology shall have primary 
responsibility to coordinate the development of a framework that 
includes protocols and model standards for information manage-
ment to achieve interoperability of smart grid devices and systems. 
Such protocols and standards shall further align policy, business, 
and technology approaches in a manner that would enable all 
electric resources, including demand-side resources, to contribute 
to an efficient, reliable electricity network. In developing such proto-
cols and standards— 
(1) the Director shall seek input and cooperation from 
the Commission, OEDER and its Smart Grid Task Force, the 
Smart Grid Advisory Committee, other relevant Federal and 
State agencies; and
H. R. 6—297 
(2) the Director shall also solicit input and cooperation 
from private entities interested in such protocols and standards, 
including but not limited to the Gridwise Architecture Council, 
the International Electrical and Electronics Engineers, the 
National Electric Reliability Organization recognized by the 
Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, and National Elec-
trical Manufacturer’s Association. 
(b) SCOPE OF FRAMEWORK.—The framework developed under 
subsection (a) shall be flexible, uniform and technology neutral, 
including but not limited to technologies for managing smart grid 
information, and designed— 
(1) to accommodate traditional, centralized generation and 
transmission resources and consumer distributed resources, 
including distributed generation, renewable generation, energy 
storage, energy efficiency, and demand response and enabling 
devices and systems; 
(2) to be flexible to incorporate— 
(A) regional and organizational differences; and 
(B) technological innovations; 
(3) 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 Fed-
eral laws, and are manufactured with the ability to respond 
to electric grid emergencies and demand response signals by 
curtailing all, or a portion of, the electrical power consumed 
by the appliances or equipment in response to an emergency 
or demand response signal, including through— 
(A) load reduction to reduce total electrical demand; 
(B) adjustment of load to provide grid ancillary serv-
ices; and 
(C) in the event of a reliability crisis that threatens 
an outage, short-term load shedding to help preserve the 
stability of the grid; and 
(4) such voluntary standards should incorporate appro-
priate manufacturer lead time. 
(c) TIMING OF FRAMEWORK DEVELOPMENT.—The Institute shall 
begin work pursuant to this section within 60 days of enactment. 
The Institute shall provide and publish an initial report on progress 
toward recommended or consensus standards and protocols within 
1 year after enactment, further reports at such times as develop-
ments warrant in the judgment of the Institute, and a final report 
when the Institute determines that the work is completed or that 
a Federal role is no longer necessary. 
(d) STANDARDS FOR INTEROPERABILITY IN FEDERAL JURISDIC-
TION.—At any time after the Institute’s work has led to sufficient 
consensus in the Commission’s judgment, the Commission shall 
institute a rulemaking proceeding to adopt such standards and 
protocols as may be necessary to insure smart-grid functionality 
and interoperability in interstate transmission of electric power, 
and regional and wholesale electricity markets. 
(e) AUTHORIZATION.—There are authorized to be appropriated 
for the purposes of this section $5,000,000 to the Institute to support 
the activities required by this subsection for each of fiscal years 
2008 through 2012.