U.S. and Europe to collaborate on smart grid standards development
September 22, 2011
Europe and the US have identified Smart Grids as a major means for the necessary transformation of the power grid and to unlock the potential for innovation in the electric sector. Overall goals include reduction of carbon emissions and security of supply. Improved energy efficiency and usage of renewable energy are seen as key to reach these goals. Both measures call for modernization of our energy supply system leading to Smart Grids as key enabler for the required innovation. To promote this transformation both the US and EU have taken a number of actions including the EISA (2007) and ARRA (2009) in the US and the 3rd Package for the internal energy market (2009) in the EU. These have resulted in a number of standards initiatives like the NIST Interoperability framework4 in the US and a Smart Grid mandate in the EU. Similar activities have been started in other countries, e.g. in China, Japan, Korea and others.
Standardization of Smart Grids is not “business as usual”. The multi-sectoral nature of Smart Grids, the need for integration of multiple technologies, huge number of stakeholders, the necessary speed, the many international activities and the ever changing technical solutions make it a challenging task for standardization organizations worldwide. For reference or details see NIST interoperability report and EU report on standards for Smart Grids.
NIST and SG-CG promote a number of common positions and areas of collaboration to ensure a consistent set of standard. For the full report see: http://www.nist.gov/smartgrid/upload/eu-us-smartgrids-white-paper.pdf
