Smart Grid Standards Project

The ISO-RTO Council is advancing the standardization of communications associated with Smart Grid resources in wholesale energy markets and transmission system operations. Starting from existing standards, such as the Common Information Model, as well as more recent developments, such as the North American Energy Standards Board's business practice standards for demand response, we developed the following:

• Common information exchanges to facilitate incorporation of demand-side resources and storage technologies on the wholesale level.
• Information models containing well-defined data elements for use in developing the next generation of Smart Grid software.
• Common definitions, business processes and information exchanges associated with Smart Grid technology.

The team submitted its work to appropriate standards-development organizations engaged in the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology's development of interoperability standards for the Smart Grid.

Project Resources

Business Process Diagrams

The business process diagrams and use cases illustrate the standard interactions between a System Operator and various Market Participants for the administration and deployment of demand response resources in organized wholesale electric markets.

The wholesale Demand Response end-to-end business process flow for the communications between the System Operator (SO) and the Service Provider (SP) is comprised of four major functions: Enrollment & Qualification, Scheduling & Award Notification, Deployment & Real-Time Communications, and Measurement & Performance. Two additional processes, Market Participant Registration and Settlements, are shown in, but are considered outside the scope of what is required for the communications flow for demand response.

NAESB Phase 1                  NAESB Phase 2

Consolidated Data Elements

The consolidated data elements list provides a detailed list of data indentified for the interactions illustrated in the business process diagrams for uses cases. The data elements list is provided in alphabetical order by data element and also by data element category ID and element ID within each data element category. A short description and long description, where applicable, are provided for each data element.

NAESB Phase 2

Information Model

The Enterprise Architect® Information Model incorporates all business information in a rigorously consistent tool. Several NIST PAPs and the IEC use this tool to maintain the Common Information Model (CIM). The information model is available in its original EA format (EAP), and in HTML format. 

Information Model - HTML             Information Model - EAP

Interaction XML Schemas

Consistent with proven communication CIM-based interactions, the modeling team created Message Profiles and corresponding XML Schemas for each interaction. The Message Profiles are in native format using the Eclipse CIMTool, which contain the original XSD files. The XML Schemas are provided in HTML format.

XML Schemas
Eclipse CIMTool Project
Interactions - Enrollment and Qualification
Interactions - Scheduling and Award Notification
Interactions - Deployment and Real Time Notifications
Interactions - Measurement and Performance


Non-Functional Requirements

The IRC Smart Grid Project provided recommendations for data exchange standards and APIs supportive of Smart Grid technologies and corresponding ISO/RTO products or services based on Demand Response Information Models. These recommendations include key functional areas, diverse markets and NERC Cyber Security and other relevant reliability standards. For each data flow, we developed a proposed set of nonfunctional requirements organized around the four major requirements categories recommended in IEC/PAS 62559.

Interactions Non-Functional Requirements