Standardising security formats, application interfaces and compliance requirements for energy IoT hardware and software will be crucial for creating a level playing field that addresses common challenges.

TEIA’s goal is to develop standards for secure interoperability, enabling the energy value chain from conventional and alternative fuels, renewable and conventional generation to edge energy systems and devices for commercial and residential applications.

TEIA was launched by German multinational electric utility E.ON SE alongside Silicon Valley-based software company Intertrust, Japan-based electric utility company JERA and Australian electricity and gas supplier Origin.

“As with the consumer electronics industry, openness and choice are crucial for an industry as mission critical as energy,” said E.ON SE’s chief strategy & innovation officer, Thomas Birr. “The TEIA standard will reduce time to market and create an open environment for cost-effective, standardised and secure energy solutions that will both promote decarboniation and benefit energy customers.”

Developing an interoperable ecosystem

Energy companies currently procure connected devices and software from different vendors, but often find themselves with siloed systems and security gaps.

This creates a significant operational burden, states the newly formed alliance, increasing development and operating costs and introduces security vulnerabilities, which can be exploited by malicious actors and materially impact operating costs and performance.

These issues would also increase energy prices and complicate energy companies’ obligations to meet decarbonisation goals and data-related regulatory requirements for data privacy, residency and the upcoming EU Data Acts.

TEIA-compliant software and devices would work together securely, to create an interoperable system to meet this challenge.

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In a release announcing the alliance, the partners state that by adopting common, open specifications, software and hardware vendors can reduce costs and security burdens while providing operators with interoperable technologies that ensure consistent security.

Standards also bring clarity, they add, to Intellectual Property matters as value chains evolve from proprietary solutions to stack compositions with multiple component suppliers.

“The Trusted Energy Interoperability Alliance brings together global energy giants that collectively serve millions of customers,” said Intertrust’s CEO, Talal G. Shamoon. “We are proud to bring our extensive expertise in trusted, secure and open standards-based distributed computing to support this important effort.”

“Standardisation and interoperability of systems in the distributed digital energy ecosystem is becoming increasingly important as the complexity and number of participants increase,” said Origin Energy executive general manager of future energy and technology, Tony Lucas. “An open, standards-based approach will help streamline the transition to net zero.”

The TEIA standards organisation welcomes participation from companies and organisations in the digital energy ecosystem, including device manufacturers, software vendor and energy companies.

Dr. Ben Hall, UK Utilities Lead at Palantir Technologies, explains how companies can develop a culture of iteration and how many energy companies, like PG&E and Sonnedix, use the Palantir Foundry Ontology to accelerate their transition to cleaner, renewable energy.

Watch the full video interview below.

This interview was filmed in November 2022 at Enlit Europe in Frankfurt, Germany

For more information, you can visit the Palantir Technologies website here.

Note: At the publication date, Dr. Ben Hall, UK Utilities Lead at Palantir Technologies, has since left the company.

The portfolio will be deployed in numerous pilot projects and will be used to test data ecosystem interoperability.

For example, the international exchange of PCF data between Japan and Europe will be put to the test.

They’ve selected Sigreen for pilot projects and tests will be conducted to see how the software can be combined with their portfolio.

When it comes to decarbonising industry, Siemens cites the importance of factoring in production in the upstream supply chain, where up to 90% of emissions are generated.

The ability to securely share Product Carbon Footprint (PCF) data between companies and across industries, states Siemens, is made possible by open data ecosystems, which ensure the data sovereignty of the companies involved.

According to Siemens, Sigreen enables companies to determine and share the carbon footprint of a product along the supply chain in a secure and trustworthy manner.

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However, determining emission data, they add, requires comprehensive information from numerous systems within a company.

To do this efficiently, Operational Technology (OT) on the shop floor and IT systems should both be connected to Sigreen. This is especially necessary in companies that would like to automate the calculation of carbon emissions at the product level.

It is in this capacity that Siemens cites ICT providers NTT Com and NTT DATA’s expertise in providing IT/OT convergence.

“The decarbonisation of industry is a global challenge. To achieve it, we need to work together across continents. Siemens, NTT Comm and NTT DATA are combining IT and automation technology skills to give our customers enormous leverage for making production more sustainable,” says Cedrik Neike, member of the managing board at Siemens AG and CEO Digital Industries.

With the agreement, NTT Com and NTT Data join Siemens’ Xcelerator ecosystem, into which the one-stop portfolio will belong. The Sigreen software also belongs to the Xcelerator portfolio and is available as a service.

The portfolio will be tested along with OMRON Corporation, a manufacturer of electronic systems, and DENSO International Europe B.V., an automotive supplier.

Decarbonising the EU’s economy is inextricably linked with the electrification of high-emitting sectors. This reality means that energy system infrastructure requires smarter energy management and more flexible means of coordinating consumption.

Addressing this theme were three EU Horizon-funded projects, giving project updates during a Projects in the Spotlight event hosted by E.DSO (European Distribution System Operators), the key interface between 35 leading European DSOs and institutions.

Projects Platone (PLATform for Operation of distribution NEtworks), OneNET (One Network for Europe) and InterConnect specifically gave updates on the core outcomes of their project experiences.

Areti’s Platone – local flexibility markets

Rome’s DSO areti runs the Italian pilot of project Platone, a four-year project made up of 12 partners from Belgium, Germany, Greece and Italy to develop advanced energy management platforms and unlock grid flexibility.

“In the next years, the increase of the electrical loads, in urban areas, will request a new approach to manage the distribution network,” stated Gabriele Fedele, head of funded projects at areti.

In the Italian case, areti has implemented a local flexibility market to integrate DERs as a method to resolve grid issues.

“To avoid this congestion, we have two ways. One is to reinforce the grid and the other is to consider a new approach to manage infrastructure. [The latter] is the approach we selected for Platone.”

Their solution: a local flexibility market architecture enabling the DSO to acquire flexibility from DERs through a market approach.

In the project, data and signals are used in a DSO platform to locally maintain system integrity, while a blockchain-based open market platform interfaces the local system to the Transmission System Operator’s (TSO’s) domains, enhancing overall system cost and efficiency.

The EU Project Zone Podcast: Project Platone with Antonello Monti

According to Fedele, the project has so far developed three notable platforms/developments to better enable a local flexibility market, including:

• A Light Node device, installed in the customer’s property by the DSO, enabling the consumer to participate in the flexibility market.
• A DSO technical/IT platform, for grid forecasts and flexibility management, which can “check the flexibility offer that the aggregator sends to the TSO to enable DERs to provide flexibility on the global system”.
• A shared customer database to store data on DERs. This data is then shared with active stakeholders who have been participating in the flexibility market.

“It’s very important to account for these types of alternative solutions, because [when it comes to traditionally reinforcing the grid] there are usually problems when it comes to connecting to the authorisation in some parts of the city (Rome).

“So, if we can optimise the flow on the grid, we can avoid congestion” stated Fedele, a sentiment especially true during those times of the year when peak flow is far higher than the norm.

The results of project Platone will be further tested and extended in the FLOW and BeFlexible projects, which will investigate flexibility services provided by EVs and define the coordination schemes and data exchanges in TSO-DSO interactions.

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Enedis’ OneNet – flexibility management

Further on this note of interaction between DSOs and TSOs was Aleth Barlier, project manager at French DSO Enedis, who stressed that the coordination between these two entities is a key factor to consider for ensuring flexibility management and development.

Barlier spoke on the OneNet project, which Enedis is participating in alongside French TSO and parent company RTE to set up a back-office platform to simplify renewable flexibility management from order activation to curtailment compensation and to test blockchain technology.

The OneNet project’s aims are to set up a common market design for Europe, a common IT architecture and common interface, as well as large scale demonstrators to implement a scalable solution.

The EU Projects Zone Podcast: OneNet with Helena Gerard

According to Barlier, a French demo of the project was set up to enhance settlement data traceability and sharing between TSOs, DSOs and producers on renewable activations through platform STAR (System of Traceability of Activation of Renewable).

“The STAR platform is a back-office solution, not a real time process. The goal of this is to optimise the management of renewable prediction curtailments…With this demo we provide more transparency.”

The demo consists of two use cases, stated Barlier; the first focuses on the traceability of renewable activation, while the second is about the traceability of renewable curtailment activation done manually by Enedis.

The platform is currently ongoing and OneNet is expecting user feedback later this year.

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E-REDES’ InterConnect – driving interoperability

“Ensuring grid stability goes hand in hand with safeguarding user interests,” highlighted Carlos Damas Silva of Portuguese DSO E-REDES, who spoke on the InterConnect project and its outcomes from a Portuguese demo.

InterConnect is developing solutions for a digitalisation of the power system based on IoT architectures which, with the help of digital platforms and by using a universal ontology called SAREF (Smart Applications REFerence), aims to ensure interoperability between equipment and systems while preserving data privacy and cybersecurity.

Consisting of participation from 51 partners, the InterConnect project, which is entering its final of four and a half years, has started demonstrations with notable outcomes including a Semantic Interoperability Framework (SIF) and a DSO Interface.

Silva hailed the SIF as the “core development of the InterConnect project, which focuses on interoperability and communication between systems and platforms.”

To enable the SIF, the SAREF family of ontologies – which facilitates the matching of existing assets in the smart applications domain – was adopted and, “extended for other cases, such as grid management, flexibility and forecasts…which will enable cross-sector interoperability.”

A major focus of the project, stated Silva, has been the “linking on of other sectors”, enabling software solutions to be developed and adopted by platform owners, thus enabling interoperability.

“We are building on existing platforms and – assuming that these platforms will be used in the future, and most of them will be – are providing ways to increase this data sharing ecosystem.”

The second output of the project is a DSO interface, which Silva described as “the link between the interconnect project and decentralised resources, such as buildings, smart mobility and devices that are being connected to the grid.”

The interface, then, is a platform for the DSO consisting of the required information and data models that can be used to facilitate interaction between the DSO and such systems, in the aims of creating flexibility mechanisms.

Added Silva: “We are creating flexibility mechanisms and improving data sharing [between] the DSO and the general population, trying to increase observability of the grid’s lower voltages, leveraging the data from these distributed resources, such as electric vehicles, heat pumps, washing machines, dish washers and all kinds of devices that have intelligence at the edge.”

Other aims of the interface include accommodating flexibility services according to DSO needs and providing access to open and metering data.

The interface is currently being validated through several pilots in the aims of ensuring GDPR compliance and cybersecurity.

Aspects that should be incorporated include the role of the existing smart meter, the use of relevant submeter data, the ability to communicate control signals, the distributed computing capacity and interoperable solutions and the ability to communicate with controlling equipment such as a home energy management system and other energy-relevant appliances.

A decentralised energy system, in which not only energy generation is decentralised, but also data processing is ensured, is unavoidable, says E.DSO in a new white paper, pointing to the need for more data access and data processing capabilities, also in real time for balancing and congestion management.

“The volumes of data produced by smart devices are exponentially increasing. Making use of these amounts of data bears a huge value potential. One must bear in mind that energy data is not only valuable to the energy sector, but across many other sectors of the economy. The success of actions is enhanced by their ability to be interoperable across many different sectors.”

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The white paper follows a joint workshop of E.DSO with the European Commission’s DG ENER and DG CONNECT in November 2022, following the publication of the energy sector digitalisation action plan.

Arising out of this event, E.DSO has identified several of the most pressing actions for DSOs to address the opportunities and barriers faced by the sector in the digital and energy transformations.

One of these is the upcoming Energy Data Space for exchanging and sharing data. The DSOs will strongly cooperate with TSOs and other actors to deliver a vision on the governance and setting up of the energy data space, with E.DSO coming forward with a proposal in the upcoming Data for Energy taskforce.

Another is the market for flexibility. While the market is preparing for delivering flexibility to DSOs for mitigating congestion and keeping the system in balance, a key requirement is that DSOs can communicate their flexibility markets needs on a regular basis identifying where, when and to what extent they expect congestion in their LV, MV and HV grids.

To that end, DSOs should also have access to data coming from the edge and would develop short-medium-long term load forecasting and predictive load flow capabilities for their LV, MV and HV grids for the day ahead and intraday time frame in 15 minute granularity.

With digital technologies and the standards that underpin them driving the future energy system, DSOs are willing to define and implement in 2023/2024 data interoperability in close cooperation with stakeholders in the markets and standardisation bodies.

DSOs also will engage with the national/EU data protection authorities in developing a code of conduct for using smart meter and edge data for LV/MV/HV grid management purposes.

Last but not least, the DSOs need support from national regulatory authorities with the design of appropriate opex incentives in legislation to drive digitalisation forward, E.DSO states.

The increased share of digital solutions in grid operation will inevitably increase the opex share of the DSOs’ investments and solutions such as the technical enabling of flexibility measures, operationalisation of data hubs, backend-systems for sensors monitoring grid operation, AI systems supporting the analysis of grid state, etc. all need to be addressed in the investment schemes as well.

The project will see energy solutions firm SMS join hands with energy sector consultancy Engage and NMI, an independent specialist for measurement technology testing and inspection services.

Funded by the UK Government’s Net Zero Innovation Portfolio, the project will deliver laboratory testing schemes for interoperable Demand Side Response (DSR) applications. This includes behind-the-meter Energy Smart Appliances (ESAs) such as electric vehicle chargers, batteries, white goods and heating systems.

According to SMS, unlocking the domestic demand-side response market is a key enabler of the UK’s transition to a secure, flexible energy system and the Government’s wider ambition to reach Net Zero by 2050.

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Mark Hamilton, managing director of FlexiGrid at SMS, said: “To accommodate the shift to a distributed renewable energy system, flexibility will be required from many different sources, but will increasingly need to come from domestic behind-the-meter ESAs like EV chargers, heat pumps, storage heating and battery storage.

“However, this will require new levels of control and standards to be introduced to allow assets to be aggregated and operated as a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) and this is ultimately what we hope to achieve through this new programme.”

Consortium roles

As part of the project, SMS will develop a new version of its FlexiGrid aggregation platform to test ESAs against new interoperable DSR applications. The energy infrastructure company will also expand its existing smart metering test facilities to accommodate the testing of ESAs in mock domestic settings.

Engage will manage the project and drive the overall technical solution while NMI will design and develop the testing schemes and provide test execution assurance.

Richard Cullen, director at Engage, said, “demand response is widely recognised as being a crucial component of our future energy system. This project will play a key role in progressing the standards and interoperability required to deliver it at scale.

“Along with our partners NMi and SMS, we are very much looking forward to making this important project a big success”.

The next stage of the UK’s energy transition will involve a massive increase in distributed renewable energy generated and stored by homes and businesses across the country.

This will involve an estimated 30GW of low-carbon flexible assets to be deployed across the grid by 2030, representing a three-fold increase on today’s levels.

OPENTUNITY, with funding from the Horizon Europe programme, is aimed to support grid operators, prosumers and other market players to more easily provide demand flexibility to the grid and thereby accelerate its decarbonisation.

With innovative methodologies backed by advanced, interoperable software modules, the project is focussed on eliminating data silos and establishing standards for data exchange, all with a focus on creating value for end customers

As part of its activities OPENTUNITY will evolve and integrate an energy specialised blockchain as a distributed, fast and reliable energy dataspace for data exchange and service sharing among the participants.

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OPENTUNITY (OPENing the electricity ecosystem to multiple actors in order to have a real decarbonization opporTUNITY) is coordinated by project coordinators Etra R&D and includes 17 participants and three partners from eight countries in the project consortium.

The project will include 13 demonstrations using a common underlying digital infrastructure to test hypotheses and prove value for different technology and business use cases with a common theme, i.e. that distributed energy resources, properly integrated with the grid, can create value for both end customers and energy market participants.

These demonstrations will be conducted in four different countries, Greece, Slovenia, Spain and Switzerland.

They are expected to benefit some 27,000 citizens with initial estimates forecasting the potential for innovations that are unlocked to reduce energy bills by 30% for end customers and greenhouse gas emissions by 91.2MtCO2e, primarily by making distributed energy resources a core part of grid planning and operations.

Other participants include the energy companies HEDNO and the Independent Power Transmission Operator from Greece, Elektro Primorska and Elektro Ljubljana from Slovenia, Estabanell from Spain and Azienda Elettrica di Massagno from Switzerland.

Energy Web is providing the underlying digital infrastructure for data exchange and NODES’ market platform will be connected to test the feasibility and interoperability of the ecosystem setup and the potential of a flexibility market in the different test sites.

The project runs to the end of 2026 with a budget of €10.8 million (US$11.8 million), of which the EU contribution is €8.5 million.

For the latest updates on EU Projects, visit the EU Projects Zone

Some three years in the making, Matter is aimed to deliver interoperability among devices in what has been a conspicuously diverse domain and with its heritage in the creation of Zigbee promises to be equally ground-breaking.

Matter is designed to enable devices from multiple brands to work together seamlessly based on secure and reliable connectivity.

Its underlying network technologies include Wi-Fi and Thread, with Wi-Fi enabling Matter devices to interact over a high-bandwidth local network and to communicate with the cloud and Thread providing the mesh network within the home.

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Among the features are security policies and processes using blockchain technology to validate device certification and provenance in order to help to ensure users are connecting authentic, certified and up-to-date devices to their homes and networks.

Another is support for bridges to enable connection of devices using other networking technologies.

“What started as a mission to unravel the complexities of connectivity has resulted in Matter, a single, global IP-based protocol that will fundamentally change the IoT,” said Tobin Richardson, president and CEO of the Connectivity Standards Alliance.

“This release is the first step on a journey our community and the industry are taking to make the IoT more simple, secure and valuable no matter who you are or where you live.”

The confidence in the potential of Matter is built on the wide industry input into its development from over 280 member companies including competing giants such as Amazon, Apple, Comcast, Google and Samsung’s SmartThings as well as the Wi-Fi Alliance and Thread Group.

This initial release, running over Ethernet, Wi-Fi and Thread and using Bluetooth Low Energy for device commissioning, will support a variety of common smart home products as manufacturers upgrade them.

These, in many cases simply via a software update, should include lighting and electrical, HVAC controls, window coverings and shades, safety and security sensors, door locks, media devices including TVs, controllers and bridges.

Other device types, from cameras and home appliances to electric vehicle charging and energy management, are planned for addition with future releases.

Key for the implementation of Matter is the certification programme and eight authorised test labs are open with test harnesses, tools and the open-source reference design software development kit (SDK).

With manufacturers having long been working on the integration of Matter – Samsung for example, announced its programme in October 2021 – the first Matter certified products are likely to be available within days.

Electric vehicles and heating and other appliances are expected to be key in the future electricity system with their ability to deliver flexibility to support the variable bidirectional power flows on the grid.

With a view to the growing market the British government has drafted a set of proposals intended to deliver protections to consumers and the electricity system and the development of a competitive market.

The focus is on three “key” areas – the technical frameworks to unlock the potential of flexibility for domestic and small business consumers, the security of the electricity system and the confidence of consumers to engage with the system.

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In the short term by the mid-2020s proposals are to require energy suppliers to make time-of-use tariff data openly available in a common format and to require domestic smart appliances including heat pumps, storage heaters, heat batteries and batteries to meet minimum cybersecurity and grid stability requirements.

In the medium term, heating appliances with the greatest flexibility potential, i.e. heat pumps, storage heaters and heat batteries, should be required to have ‘smart’ functionality.

In addition it is proposed to establish a licensing framework for organisations providing demand side response to domestic and small non-domestic consumers and to require all organisations controlling large electrical loads, greater than 300MW, to comply to the national regulations on cybersecurity in their networks and information systems.

Longer term, in the mid-late 2020s, larger domestic smart appliances, including EV charge points, batteries and heat pumps, should be fully interoperable with demand side response service providers and should meet the requirements for cybersecurity, grid stability and data privacy.

For this purpose the previously consulted and developed PAS 1878 standard specifying the system functionality and architecture for energy smart appliances is indicated to form the basis.

The proposal document notes that some of the ‘new’ services are already being provided on a small scale for domestic consumers. For example, EV owners can get discounts, rewards or cash-back by charging their car during periods of the day when electricity demand is typically low.

However, there are currently barriers to the growth of this sector. Not all tariffs and services are available for all devices, and there are limited consumer protections to build confidence in the market. In addition, the greater use of smart appliances and other associated services could pose risks to the energy system, such as creating new routes for cyber security attacks.

The proposals are out for consultation, which runs to September 28, 2022.

The disconnect between utilities and consumers has long been a subject of concern as service providers have started trying to maximise energy efficiency as called for by the energy transition.

To resolve such an issue, a keyword has been finding itself more and more on our tongues – interoperability. That is the ability of different sets of information systems to communicate with each other in as seamless a format as possible.

But while this may be something we all know is needed, it is not something very easily achieved.

And although technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT) and Artificial Intelligence (AI) have been making significant headway, there is still a call for larger, more creative solutions and technological initiatives.

And this is where InterConnect, touted as one of Europe’s largest research projects, comes in.

With the hopes of designing interoperable prototypes that support the digitalisation of the European electricity sector, Interconnect has announced over €2 million ($2 million) for EU member-countries’ companies to develop 14 technological solutions comprised of applications or services for smart homes and grids.

The InterConnect funding programme is mainly aimed at European start-ups and SMEs.

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Each application will receive a maximum amount of €150,000 ($156,000) to develop the solutions. This is the first of three scheduled open calls for financing, which aim to promote innovation in the electricity sector, actively contributing to its digitalisation, as well as to the energy efficiency of homes and business buildings.

The selected applications will enter a support programme with technical experts and business mentors who will guide the proposal until its implementation and integration in the market.

The European country company Funding Box leads this process and is also responsible for communicating results in late October.

“In November, we will start working with the 14 companies chosen during the 1st Open Call and will launch the associated 7-month support programme. During this period, we will go through three phases: firstly, the objective is to define the proof of concept; then, we will move on to the stage where companies will develop their prototypes and their business models and, as a last step, the products will be tested in a market environment using the demonstrators that are being installed at European level to test all the solutions that are being developed by the project,” stated Yolanda Moreno, project lead at Funding Box.

Applications are open until July 26, 5pm, CEST.

By Dr Bob Campbell

Conformance and interoperability testing, backing a consumer logo, is key to the introduction of devices and systems that need to adhere to new industry standards. The testing ensures that all relevant specifications are met, which in turn drives trust in the logo, adoption, and commercial success.

Here we look at the elements and approaches to a successful logo conformance testing programme, and how these apply to smart energy appliances, which will be one such next-generation technology needed to attain grid stability and consumer benefits in tariffs and choice. Technology changes at a rapid rate. Analogue switch off of broadcast television began in 2007 and was completed in October 2012. However, before that transition was fully made, a new means of receiving TV was already on the horizon when Netflix launched services in the same year, 2012.

From our beginnings, Eurofins Digital Testing has been heavily involved with those developments. We have helped launch and ensure the success of many hybrid broadcast and broadband logo schemes, such as Freeview Play in the UK. Evermore next-generation technology standards must be deployed successfully to ensure similar revolutions in technology, business models, and consumer behaviour, in other markets.

A hot topic with the recent COP26 conference is of course “net zero”, and one impact of the rapid switch to carbon-neutral supplies will be the increased demands on the electricity grid. There will be a much greater need to balance supply and demand and offer consumers cost-effective tariffs and flexibility. Demand Side Response (DSR) is a technical approach to address this need and help consumers both save energy and cut bills, which is gaining wider notice both in government and the media. Two new British standards (PAS 1878 and 1879) are proposed that would adopt DSR, using OpenADR (Open Automated Demand Response) as the basis for the communication protocol between parts of the system.

Non-interoperable solutions that might have sufficed for the first generation of smart meters, for example, won’t be sufficient when considering a wider market of energy-intensive consumer devices, from heat pumps, electric car charge points, washer-dryers, and so on. Consumers won’t accept a tie-in to any one energy provider, or equipment vendor.

Elements of a successful conformance programme

The challenge is to make sure the disparate devices support the technology in a common way, without stifling the ability for market competition and for manufacturers to offer different capabilities at different price points.

Conformance testing is used to verify adherence to the requirements placed on a receiver by new standards. Interoperability testing augments conformance testing by ensuring that the real system components entering the market can achieve the desired results. DSR brings together supply side, appliances, and disparate systems and interfaces, which should be conformant, as a foundation for being interoperable. If such testing is conducted in an ad-hoc and piecemeal way, there can be no guarantee the desired results will be achieved.

Certainly, a conflicting pressure to minimise costs and get to market means steps can be skipped, testing shortcuts taken, and little assurance that all will be as rigorous or thorough as one might wish. Different approaches may also mean not all are tested to the same set of inputs, leading to non-conformance and services that don’t work on certain devices

To overcome this, a conformance test suite and interoperability testing approach should be standardised across the market. A common conformance test suite, shared by all adopting the standards, ensures a foundation on which innovation and adaptation can still produce competition. Collaboration on interoperability testing, e.g., by collecting and sharing use cases and example data sets from different players in the ecosystem, widens the pool of material further. These common materials also reduce the barriers and costs associated with mass adoption of a new standard in the industry, since the effort and costs of obtaining and validating the tests are shared rather than duplicated.

However, not all will choose to make use of such assets. This threatens to undermine the benefits for those that do and ultimately undermines consumer confidence in the technology. An apparently cheap device offering the promise, but not delivering it, could undo all the hard work of many others building a robust and quality ecosystem. Certification testing, leading to the award of a consumer-facing logo that is prominently advertised at retail and through marketing, drives testing to happen.

Developing a smart energy devices logo test programme

Recognising the importance of all the elements above, the BEIS (Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy) tasked Eurofins Digital Testing to consider the approach to testing PAS 1878, which details the requirements and criteria necessary to make an energy-smart appliance compatible with DSR activities. OpenADR forms a key component of the communications protocol on which PAS 1878 is based, and OpenADR has an established test suite and certification programme. Eurofins Digital Testing is the first European Lab to offer OpenADR compliance testing. As yet, there is no consumer-facing logo for this technology in the UK,

however, for example, OpenADR has developed a new “EcoPort” consumer logo for a related technology based on a control module that may be plugged into an appliance (conforming with CTA-2045).

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Extensions to the test coverage of OpenADR would be needed for PAS 1878 and Eurofins Digital Testing has extensive experience in creating and operating logo programmes for a range of technologies and in building test materials and providing operational support to certification authorities.

After a manufacturer has decided to adopt a logo on their device and signed up to the trademark license agreement which will place requirements on testing, logo display and include clauses on liability, indemnity and more, there need to be multiple routes to certification.

Not all will have the expertise or equipment to test themselves; especially in a complex system such as energy management, so a test house can perform the required certification, however, self-testing is an increasingly common route major consumer electronics manufacturers prefer. With many systems being heavily software-dependent, and due to tight margins, lean development and QA lifecycles and rapid updates of firmware and cloud-based software, the ability to self-test within such a release process is critical to streamlining cost and time to market. EDT has extensive experience of constructing a programme that is both robust, but flexible to different market dynamics, for example in figure 2.

Self-test does not necessarily mean a light touch – many mechanisms exist to ensure the robust adherence to the test regime and procedures and to verify authentic results and the security and integrity of the programme.

Self-testing requires the manufacturer to set up a local test environment which, at a minimum, comprises a set of emulated or simulated endpoints in the system, to provide necessary test inputs and responses to the component under test, and, ideally, a means to automate some of the test process, such as providing simple to follow test procedure instructions to the tester and capturing results back from the component under test.

Automation is not always cost-effective and shouldn’t be assumed to be necessary or practical for all types of tests. Some manual test relying on observed behavior or manual action may be more pragmatic when dealing with a potentially limitless range of component types, form factors and designs.

Completed certification test reports are provided to the Trademark License Authority – the agency or industry body that may be formed to act as the legal entity responsible for the certification and logo programme – for assessment. At this stage, a manufacturer may negotiate waivers and certify adherence to other obligations they will uphold as a Logo licensee.

Securing next-generation services that will comprise hardware firmware and software running on consumer devices and the cloud is critical to the integrity and fostering consumer confidence. Most platforms recognise the importance of building security into the system, and that is as much a part of conformance testing as technical compliance with communication protocols and other functional requirements. For example, IP-based encryption protocols, device certificates and rights management technology must all be verified in certification schemes.

Once established a logo certification programme must continue to evolve to reflect the needs of industry and to ensure the continued success of the technology in the market. New features will be added and testing may evolve to cover new designs and new business models that emerge. Similarly, consumer marketing and communication to media, retailers, and the wider industry about the benefits of the logo, the technology and the user features it enables must happen from launch and beyond. To that end, organisations looking to ensure the success of next-generation technologies need to work with an established test and certification partner with experience and the scale to provide a long-term commitment and support of the programme.

About the author

Dr Bob Campbell is Director of Engineering at Eurofins Digital Testing.

Bob is responsible for the team that delivers Eurofins Digital Testing Products, including their Test Harness and Test Suite products used globally to certify device compliance to key technology standards.

Prior to joining Eurofins, Bob worked in a variety of industries including at IBM and Siemens Rail and holds a PhD from Bristol University.

The onset of new energy networks has resulted in multi-utility AMI (advanced metering infrastructure) solutions across electricity, gas, heat, and water becoming a much more compelling business case than before. Leveraging existing AMI investment to realise operational and societal benefits to reduce cost and improve customer service is the new norm.

This article was originally published in Smart Energy International Issue 4-2021.

Read the mobile-friendly digital magazine or subscribe to receive a print copy

As the market continues to evolve and the use of embedded, decentralised generation becomes less niche and more mainstream, it has become evident that AMI is no longer just about installing smart meters but also utilising near real-time data to power new applications, markets, and services.

Markets and systems connect

Today’s AMI solutions are at the bridging point of regulated and unregulated markets with the provision of data from smart meters to other in-home energy management and home automation systems and applications outside of the traditional regulated utility domain.

The electrification of transportation and heating, coupled with decentralised generation and storage possibilities will further push the boundaries of the data possibilities from the smart metering network, both existing and new. A new focal point or nexus of interoperability, whereby the smart metering world meets the Industrial Internet of Things, has emerged.

Standardisation is key

So how do we unlock the potential of this new nexus? The answer to this question is simple: through standardisation. But this belies the complexity of the real-world delivery aspects.

Specifying a set of protocol standards is a great starting point, but that is only the very beginning of the story. Without a well-defined set of use cases and a precisely specified data model, all the large rollouts would not only be impossible, but the current expansion into new, innovative use cases and possibilities would also be much more difficult.

Now, more than ever, the bar is raised with regard to what is expected from interoperability and interchangeability. The utility industry has been tackling the issue of interoperability for over a decade, ever since the inception of the original 2009 European Union smart metering mandate. Over this time, a greater universal understanding of the concepts of interoperability and interchangeability has emerged.

At the forefront of that effort has been Standards Setting Organisations (SSOs) such as the DLMS User Association (UA), the IDIS Association and the OMS Group.

These organisations liaise with the Standards Development Organisations (SDOs) such as IEC, ANSI, CEN/CENELEC and various National Standardisation Committees at different stages of the standardisation process. The DLMS UA interacts with the SDOs at the beginning of the process to develop the core standards to be published by the SDOs.

The IDIS Association and the OMS Group, and more recently the DLMS UA, liaise with the SDOs to respond to industry needs after the publication of standards by developing application specific “Companion Specifications” or “Generic Companion Profiles” as well as certification platforms for compatibility of smart metering applications, bringing interoperability to the level of interchangeability.

Interchangeability explained

How is interchangeability different from interoperability and how does that relate to compliance and compatibility?

We can use a simple analogy to examine this question: imagine the core standards provide a precise list of cooking ingredients containing their name, exact description, and properties beyond question (“the standard ingredients”). However, the core standards do not always contain “recipes” telling the reader how to make a specific meal. This task of creating the recipes, and taking standardisation to the next level, is achieved through the Companion Specifications or Generic Companion Profiles that make choices and selections from the core standards to fully describe how to make a particular meal using the standard ingredients, consistently and to the same level.

The core standards (DLMS/COSEM, M-Bus, etc.) provide the standard ingredients. Then, either the associations themselves (in the case of the DLMS UA) or other associations (the IDIS Association, OMS Group, etc.) propose selections (Companion Specifications or Generic Companion Profiles) and provide certification services to ensure compatibility to warrant that the end result is always the same regardless of manufacturer or geography.

By adding a certification platform to prove compatibility between devices and systems operating in a specific operational environment, it takes interoperability one step further, providing a level of interchangeability within the scope of a certain set of use cases.

Interchangeability and certified compatible devices are crucial parts of a healthy competitive market, offering a “plug & play” option at the lowest cost of ownership, regardless of where the devices are purchased or by whom they are operated. It furthermore does not exclude innovation, but rather provides a baseline platform from which to innovate.

The utilisation of USB in the IT industry is a great example of how such innovation can be served through standardisation, paving the way to billions of devices being sold that can connect to any system while always guaranteeing a minimum set of functionalities.

Utility applications

Some organisations and utilities within Europe have opted to work through this approach on their own and develop an entire end-to-end solution from specification to certification.

However, due to its limited and targeted applicability, this approach can be very time consuming and expensive for both the specifiers and the vendors hoping to provide compatible equipment.

In contrast, other utilities have opted to use the proven methodology from SSOs who have already been through this consensus-based specification development and testing process. The benefits of taking a standard set of use cases are vast and have been clearly demonstrated over the past decade:
• Ecosystem of experts to manage the specification;
• Ready-made certification platform to guarantee compliance and compatibility;
• Shortcut to working solutions rather than years of development effort;
• Support and bug fixes as part of the process;
• Wider pool of interoperable products to choose from, without the overhead of special developments;
• Shorter time to market than developing a bespoke solution;
• Assurance that most of the common pitfalls in specification writing and edge cases (time adjustment, communication
failures, power outages, concurrent operations, invalid clock etc.) have been thought through and tested.

The drive for greater efficiency does not only apply to smart metering methodology and specifications. Utilities and new energy players are also looking at driving business growth through multi-utility and IOT efficiency. As electric vehicles and distributed power generation increase, consumers will inevitably play a more active role and drive the emergence of customer-facing innovation, digital multi-utility platforms enabling new applications and business models.

Utilities are beginning to venture out of their current business models and the industry is more open to collaboration on utilising existing networks to achieve these goals. The convergence of multi-utility solutions and the shared connectivity of strategic energy and water infrastructure are resulting in clear benefits of cost-efficiency, scalability, and additional functionality.

These new ecosystems present some challenges but also opportunities to drive innovation through standardisation ensuring flexibility, interoperability, and the ability to deploy these use cases efficiently and at scale, while anticipating future needs and allowing the emergence of innovative services bringing the consumer convenience that is expected nowadays.

More than metering

In recent times, the DLMS User Association has expanded its activities to cover data exchange beyond smart metering. New working groups were created to deliver generic companion specifications and compatibility profiles in a variety of applications including smart metering, communications from smart meters to electric vehicle charging stations and the communications between smart meters and remote displays and metrology sensors.

Innovation does not always involve developing new products or services, but often focuses on improving what already exists. Henry Ford is purported to have said: “If you think of standardisation as the best that you know today but which is to be improved tomorrow, you get somewhere.” This statement is.

Some use cases in the utility world that are the foundation of efficient and effective business operations may be standardised to a greater degree … but only when they are fully understood – while new and exciting developments and innovations can only be standardised when they are better understood and have had time to develop.

Let’s spend our valuable time and resources in the industry not reinventing known use cases, but rather innovating and understanding the next set of standard use cases so that we will be included in off-the-shelf specifications 10 years from now.

About the authors

Tony Field is Chairman of the DLMS User Association Board of Directors since 2016. With over twenty years of experience in the smart metering and smart grid space, he is currently Associate Director of Standards at Itron, having previously held positions in Manufacturing Engineering, Product Management, and Marketing.

Pieter Coetzee currently leads market and business development activities for Itron across EMEA and APAC; he is the elected president of the IDIS Association standardizing smart meter protocols globally.

Charles van Dyck has over 35 years experience with metering in the utility markets in Europe and has been involved in many smart gas metering projects from the early beginning. Today he is responsible for smart gas metering at the Polish manufacturer Apator Metrix. Since 2015 he is marketing group leader of OMS, Open Metering System.

Enlit Europe

A group of experts from across the industry will be examining this topic and some real-life practical examples in more detail at this year’s Enlit Europe, in Milan, Italy. Join the discussion on 1 December from 9.30-12.30 at the Interoperability Hub Session in Hall 8 or visit the DLMS booth at Enlit 8.D80 and the OMS booth at Enlit 8.B50.

To date, the first certified platforms are from the member companies Microchip and STMicroelectronics. Interoperability was also demonstrated in a plugfest last year with solutions from Renesas, Semitech Semiconductor and Vertexcom Technologies. Further platforms are currently under certification and will follow soon.

Leon Vergeer, G3-PLC Alliance General Secretary, says, “After announcing the extension of the certification program to include the hybrid PLC&RF solution in March this year, we are very proud to announce the first certified platforms! The two first interoperable, certified hybrid solutions are a major milestone for the G3-PLC Hybrid roadmap and shows the commitment of the G3-PLC members, investing time and resources for the success of this technology. This is a great achievement for all the people involved! Therefore, I want to congratulate STMicroelectronics and Microchip for their hybrid certification and thank our test laboratories LANPARK (France) and TÜV (Japan) for their developments and support! More chipsets and products from these and other members will follow soon!”

The hybrid protocol stack is built using open standards IEEE 802.15.4-2015 in addition to the existing G3-PLC protocol. Each device in the mesh network can use PLC as well as RF for the communication. Depending on the actual conditions in the field, messages between two devices are sent over the ‘best’ available channel. The channel selection for each link in the network is done automatically and adjusted dynamically. This way, the hybrid profile provides an efficient and cost-effective solution for many applications and opens up new use cases as it extends the connectivity of G3-PLC to RF-only devices. The G3-PLC Hybrid profile is fully compatible and interoperable with existing G3-PLC implementations, so it is possible to mix hybrid and non-hybrid nodes.

Have you read?
G3-PLC Alliance launches certification programme for first Hybrid PLC & RF communication standard
G3-PLC Hybrid: Extended capabilities for the smart grid and IoT

“We are convinced from the very first day G3-PLC Hybrid technology will have a bright future and we are working on it to make it happen with several customers. Getting those certificates is a great achievement for the team and we are proud to be with the first manufacturers to be certified!” said Marc Delandre – Chairman of G3-PLC Alliance.

The certification process is open for all current and future members of the G3-PLC Alliance. Certification covers chipsets and a wide range of G3-PLC manufactured by the members of the G3-PLC Alliance. The G3-PLC Certification Program covers conformance, interoperability and performance testing. Products that have been awarded with the G3-PLC Certificate are conform to the G3-PLC specifications, are interoperable with other G3-PLC certified devices and fulfill defined performance requirements.

An overview of all certified platforms and products can be found on the G3-PLC website.

The G3-PLC Alliance has accredited two experienced laboratories to run the certifications tests, LANPARK and TÜV Rheinland:

• LANPARK is a French company, certification testing is performed in their facilities located in Tauxigny, France.
• TÜV Rheinland is a German company with worldwide offices. TÜV Rheinland performs the certification testing in their facilities in Yokohama, Japan.

About G3-PLC
G3-PLC is a proven Powerline Communication technology for smart grids used worldwide and offering the lowest total cost of ownership and independency on telco operators. G3-PLC facilitates high-speed, highly-reliable, long-range communication over the existing powerline grid. It is standardized under ITU-T G.9903 and with its support of IPv6, G3-PLC will support powerline communications well into the future.

About the G3-PLC Alliance
The G3-PLC Alliance is a consortium created in 2011 to standardize and promote G3-PLC technology globally. Today, the G3-PLC Alliance counts more than 90 members that are international key stakeholders of the smart grid ecosystem, including utilities, semiconductor companies, equipment manufacturers and industrial companies. Together, they support, promote and implement the G3-PLC technology and established an industrial certification program to guarantee the interoperability of devices from different manufacturers.

For more information visit our website
Follow us on LinkedIn
Or contact G3-PLC Alliance: Leon Vergeer, G3-PLC Alliance General Secretary, generalsecretary@g3-plc.com

The focus in this latest edition of the document is a push on interoperability, with the prospect of the smart grid becoming more of a plug-and-play ecosystem.

Interoperability remains underdeveloped, according to the authors, who say that despite the significant grid modernisation that has occurred, the proliferation of technology and associated standards has only modestly improved interoperability.

Moreover, the expansion of distributed energy resources and other technologies, along with changing customer expectations, have complicated the interoperability challenge.

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Interoperability is defined as “the capability of two or more networks, systems, devices, applications, or components to work together, and to exchange and readily use information – securely, effectively and with little or no inconvenience to the user.”

As such, the smart grid will be a system of interoperable systems, i.e. different systems that will be able to exchange meaningful, actionable information in support of the operation of the grid.

The document introduces evolving technology and power system architectures to update the Smart Grid Conceptual Model, determine the communication pathways and assess the interface requirements.

Interoperability is identified as a principal enabler of the new system control schemes necessary to manage the active participation of distributed resources in a decentralising system, all while empowering customers to provide solutions across numerous scales. This expands the interoperability concept beyond the traditional utility-centric focus of it as a mechanism to decrease system integration costs.

Interoperability also is key to the economics of the future grid as the changing customer capabilities with the growth of distributed resources alters the traditional economic dependencies and the role of the distribution utility.

The document also identifies cybersecurity as a key consideration, stating that interoperability requires a cybersecurity approach that manages risk while opening new communication interfaces. The desired outcomes for the grid and the information exchanges that must be protected will have to be considered in concert and will benefit from a structured approach to system security.

Interoperability profiles

Arguably the most novel concept of the new release is that of ‘Interoperability profiles’, which are proposed to extend the current industry focus on certifying conformance to individual standards.

Testing and certification is identified as a critical enabler of smart grid interoperability. Interoperability profiles would describe a subset of requirements that, when implemented and verified through testing and certification, would ensure interoperability across devices and systems.

“The reason Wi-Fi works on everybody’s phone and computer and everything else is because of an effective testing and certification programme,” said NIST smart grid programme manager Avi Gopstein, lead author of the framework.

“Specific performance requirements and validation tests have been established. For interoperability, we don’t have that.”

Rather than develop new standards, the interoperability profiles would bring together subsets of the existing standards for both physical function and communication suited to specific types of devices. With testing based on profiles, manufacturers would have explicit guidance on how to make their devices interoperable with the grid.

Over time, as products become certified, the grid would become more of a plug-and-play ecosystem, giving customers more options to choose from, says Gopstein.

The Release 4.0 of the NIST’s smart grid framework comes eleven years on from the release of the first version. As that was foundational for the development of the smart grid and standards in the US as well as elsewhere in the world, so too this new release is set to be equally influential.

The paper, “Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN trials – an overview of use cases across regions combining two technologies,” provides details on practical trials and proof of concept deployments (POCs), representing a variety of uses cases implemented across different geographies and verticals.

It builds on the two organisations’ earlier whitepaper, “Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN deployment synergies: Expanding addressable use cases for the Internet of Things,” which compared the two technologies theoretically and sought to demonstrate how they could be utilised to effectively support a vast array of use cases.

The POCs explored in this new white paper conclude that hybrid Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN connectivity increases market opportunity, provides a strong ROI, and offers enhanced network solutions.

Adding LoRaWAN to Wi-Fi using network mutualisation is a cost-effective approach to deployment using the existing base of Wi-Fi access points.

This offers a significant opportunity for Wi-Fi providers to expand their addressable businesses on complementary use cases that cover both broadband applications and massive IoT leveraging the license-exempt spectrum.

This work is the result of a collaboration between members of the WBA and the LoRa Alliance.

Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN are two of the most widely adopted unlicensed technologies, and together they address a large proportion of current IoT use cases.

Both technologies are disrupting private-public business models and enable participation in the 5G ecosystem and developing capabilities for IoT roaming, using OpenRoaming models.

Some 11 companies representing both alliances from all global regions contributed to this work, including: Actility, Abeeway, Boingo Wireless, Charter Communications, Cisco, Kerlink, Lacuna Space, Nesten, Simplycity, Skyhook, and Semtech.

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Covered use cases include:

• Smart Buildings: Multi-Family Dwellings (Boingo Wireless, United States).
• Smart City: Smart Light Pole (Charter Communications, United States).
• Smart City: Energy Management and People Attendance Monitoring (Simplycity, Australia).
• Smart City: Interoperability between Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN at the Network Level (Nesten, Skyhook, United States).
• Smart Interconnection: OpenRoaming™ & LoRaWAN (ORL) (Cisco, Switzerland).
• Smart Retail: Wi-Fi & LoRaWAN In-Store Retail Analytics (Kerlink, Smart Traffik, The Netherlands).
• Smart Tracking: Tracking with Semtech LoRa Edge™ and Lacuna Satellites to Resolve Human-Wildlife Conflict (Lacuna Space, IRNAS and Smart Parks, South Africa).
• Smart Transportation: Asset Tracking for the Automotive Industry (Actility, Abeeway, Volvo, France).

These featured use cases are expected to give existing market players who have deployed both technologies new ideas for how to leverage their networks to support innovative applications.

Additionally, network operators, enterprises or communities that have deployed either Wi-Fi or LoRaWANnetworks are shown ways they might consider extending their offerings by deploying the other complementary technology.

Donna Moore, CEO and chairwoman of the LoRa Alliance, said: “2020 has been a turning point for IoT adoption, and unlicensed wireless technologies are a key driver supporting the rapidly accelerating digital transformation.

“This latest collaboration between our Alliances clearly shows that Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN can deliver real business advantages and improved ROI.”

Tiago Rodrigues, CEO of WBA, adds: “Homes, cities, transport systems and retailers all stand to benefit from these findings. In proving this large variety of use cases, we are able to demonstrate how Wi-Fi and LoRaWAN can work together to augment capacity, coverage and increase ROI, and we start to see real commercial drivers for the two technologies working side by side and resolving interoperability through OpenRoaming.”

Download the full white paper: https://lora-alliance.org/resource-hub/wi-fi-lorawanr-trials-overview-use-cases-across-regions-combining-two-powerful

During the Enlit Europe webinar Interoperability – The cooperative approach, Davey Michiels, project manager for digital metering at Fluvius, shared some of the experiences from the company’s current upgrade of existing metering points.

This article was originally published in Smart Energy International Issue 5-2020.
Read the mobile-friendly digimag or subscribe to receive a print copy.

Fluvius is a multi-utility in the northern part of Belgium which manages 7.3 million connections across a variety of services. For example, the utility has 3.5 million power connections, 3 million natural gas connections and other points to services such as internet connectivity and public lighting. It is also planning on adding water distribution to the services it offers.

In 2019, the company started its smart meter rollout and has identified 6.1 million meters which need to be replaced by 2029.

Michiels says the initial part of the rollout is on an accelerated timeline. “Some 80% of the rollout, or 4.8 million meters, need to be rolled out by 2024. This really is one of the drivers to work towards interoperability.”

Using IDIS specification smart electricity meters and OMS specification smart gas meters, the team at Fluvius felt it was important to choose available standards and specifications. “We don’t need to reinvent the wheel ourselves,” Michiels shares. Part of the plan to achieve the goals of the rollout “will come from using reliable, easy to use products. The rollout needs to be efficient operationally for technicians and efficient across the supply chain. This will ensure the handling is as easy as possible for technicians – interchanging devices must not be limited by technical constraints.”

Michiels highlights that interoperability is a way for Fluvius to achieve its business goals, saying that interoperability in and of itself is not the goal.

“Customers need different types of connections which means different types of meters… single phase, poly phase, with gas connections, without gas connections. Over time, things might change – a customer might purchase an electric vehicle which might increase his electricity consumption and that might influence the type of connection. There is flexibility needed in what we offer to the customer.”

Last but not least – smart meter data is being used for billing and grid management. All this data, regardless of its source, needs to be transparent and flexible so it can be used for both back-end and market systems. In particular, the Fluvius team has focused on the interoperability and interaction between smart electricity meters and smart gas meters. This is a key element of the smart meter rollout. The electricity meter serves as the communication hub towards the headend system using the wireless protocol to link the gas meters.

“We started with IDIS package two,” shares Michiels. “However, Fluvius have decided to continue in future meter rollouts to use IDIS package 3 due to its increased functionality and web centres. On the OMS level, we have decided to utilise version 4.2.1.

Speaking about the challenges of interoperability, Michiels says: “We learned some hard lessons. Interoperability really requires thorough testing. Interoperability is not limited to the lower physical layers and having certain things defined. It is important to have use cases defined on higher level application levels and even above, because the crucial thing is the interoperability between the three building blocks namely a central AMI head-end system, then the electricity meters (IDIS or DLMS based), and then going through the gas MBUS meter (see Figure 2).

“It’s really key that you don’t limit your testing or your setup to technical messages, but it really starts off with a list of use cases. It’s those use cases that determine a sequence of activities which need to be carried out in a correct order. And it’s the sequence which needs to be assured.”

Enlit Europe will gather in Milan between 30 November and 02 December 2021 and will feature innovative companies accelerating decarbonisation at Europe’s largest gathering of companies driving and leading the energy transition. Are you going to be there?
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For Fluvius, this is one of the important things in the available conformance testing, both on the IDIS and OMS parts. This testing on the use case level is the key element to verify because it’s what makes the difference, and this will enable a DSO to run its business end-to-end.

Michiels explains: “Then you are able to collect data from electricity meters which in their turn are linked to gas meters and for these use cases, everything is defined. Don’t limit testing or verification to certain messages on the physical layers but really go into the more complex use cases – and indeed they are complex. It’s not an easy task. There is a lot of work that is still ongoing and we have been collaborating for a number of years to read both IDIS and OMS.”

He adds: “For this rollout there are two main extensions we are working on. We will add smart water meters in collaboration with the local Flemish water distribution companies. We are embarking on the first pilot tests, but we will work together in order to realise the rollout synergies.

“There is a choice to keep on using the smart electricity meter as a communication hub. But by continuing to use the smart water meter along with smart electricity and smart gas meters, it means that the end customer really gets a total overview and good customer insight into his total energy consumption including water. And that’s really an important evolution.”

Secondly, Fluvius have also started a collaboration project with the leading DSOs from other Belgian regions, and rollouts have started using the same technical solution. “The goal is to leverage our existing technical solution and to streamline the supply chain.”

Michiels stresses that all these elements together are there to realise their business demands. “This interoperability allows us to extend the solution by adding other types of meters, for instance other electricity meters or even water meters. We also make our supply chain resilient and have an optimal supply and logistics chain. This requires a multi-vendor approach. And that’s really also where interoperability comes into the game.

“Last but not least, using these standards, we are also able to extend our portfolio of services and the asset management of those devices in a more structured way, because it’s really built on a clearly documented set of standards.”

Michiels concludes: “The future is tomorrow. In fact, I’d even say ‘the future is today’. We need to really start preparing the future of our connection grids today.” SEI

Data interoperability in Estonia

Elering, the Estonian independent electricity and gas transmission system operator (TSO) created Estfeed in September 2017 – a solution for data access and exchange on Elering’s smart grid platform.

Estfeed ensures smart meter data access and management in Estonia. It enables third parties that would otherwise not have legal data access – suppliers, app developers, and consumers – access to consumer smart meter data if users have previously granted access rights to the specific service provider.

Located at the intersection of the needs of consumers (data owners), energy service providers (data users) and meter data hubs (data providers), effective information management is the key to systemically increase the efficiency and reliability of the energy system.

Because access to data by law, universities, research centres, and app developers was requested Elering needed an interface which provided secure data exchange, and organisation and machine-to-machine level authentication. The X-Road platform seemed to fit those requirements. Together with the Estfeed consent management system (built on top of X-Road) the utility monitors and grants third parties access to users’ information, as citizens remain the owners of their own data.

Since September 2017, Estfeed has provided harmonised energy data access for companies, developers, and citizens for an efficient management of energy meter data in a trusted, GDPR-compliant environment. It also allows consumers to participate in the energy market – an essential goal in the Clean Energy Package – using smart services like consumption management, providing flexibility services to the transmission grid through the aggregation of many consumers.

The platform developed by Elering features high-security standards in access and authentication, interoperability and efficiency in information exchange through standardisation. Furthermore, the e-Elering portal – as the front office of Estfeed´s consent management system – gives customers the possibility to check, compare, and grant third parties access to personal energy metering data through 14 different services. (Source: X-Road)

The creation of a new class of membership – ‘Promoter Class’ – encourages companies who are keen to take an active role in the development of the DLMS/COSEM Standard for the new world of IoT to join the board.

This new membership class enables members to play a strategic role in the future direction of the DLMS UA, as they can vote on all corporate matters and have a continuous seat on the Board. 

At the meeting, the User Association welcomed eight new Promoter members –  Edf,  Elster Solutions (Honeywell Group.), Goerlitz, Iskrameco, Itron, Landis&Gyr, Nagravision  (Kudelski Group) and Semtech.

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This is an exciting step forward for the User Association, as we look to see how our proven technology, currently rolled out to over 100 million smart meters worldwide, can be developed to provide a secure and interoperable standard for an increasing array of metering and IoT technologies across Energy and Water. 

Initially, the Association will be focusing on the key areas of Mobility, Industrial and Consumer Appliances, and Public Lighting – all areas where a standardised approach could deliver significant benefits for industry participants.

Sergio Lazzarotto, Executive Director of DLMS UA, said: “These are hugely exciting times for the DLMS/COSEM standard.  Whilst we are currently considered a hugely trusted and reliable standard approach for electricity and gas metering, there are  several other  markets that are seeking a way of standardising the myriad of technologies coming into the new world of IoT, Smart Homes and Smart Cities and in particular related to energy Demand Side Flexibility.  

The DLMS User Association can play a significant role in helping businesses to link with interoperable and secure smart devices across any communication pathway, and we welcome these new Promoter Members to the organisation – and look forward to working with them to  bring the DLMS standard to the next level across energy and water.”

About DLMS

DLMS – The smart link between consumption and supply.  The secure protocol for interoperable smart devices across all communication pathways.

DLMS User Association promotes and develops the use of the DLMS/COSEM standard – guaranteeing interoperabilty and security for smart devices.  With over 300 global members ranging from Utilities to technology and meter manufacturers, as well as Consultancies and System Integrators, the User Association has just started a new period of development of the Standard, to support standardisation across other smart technologies.

The alliances have collaborated under the IP Building and Lighting Standards, a new initiative aimed at improving the integration of smart building products.

The aim of the collaboration is to promote a secure multi-standard IP-based infrastructure as a backbone in building automation to replace the less efficient, still-widespread use of siloed solutions.

The associations will harmonise leading technology standards, reduce the fragmentation in smart building connectivity and promote a broad acceptance of coexistent solutions.

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Silo solutions as costly barriers

Currently, there is no automation technology available that covers all of the use-cases required to fully automate a commercial building. From elevators and energy management to lighting, water supply and air conditioning, to access control and surveillance systems: there are countless application scenarios for technologies in smart buildings.

However, some individual building systems still use a wide variety of proprietary solutions that often require separate hardware-based gateways and infrastructures. This fragmentation results in higher costs for planning, installation, maintenance, and administration of smart building projects. In addition, synergistic opportunities over the long-term remain unused.

The future is IP

In order to overcome these barriers, the members of IP-BLiS intend to combine light control and building management systems with IT networks by using a secure all IP-based configuration while harmonising the operation of their technical standards accordingly. This will allow data from a wide variety of building systems to be accessible via a single IP address.

There are several advantages to this approach. Hardware-based gateways become unnecessary, as various devices across some of the most diverse systems can communicate via a single secure IP connection, and it will be much easier to seamlessly integrate IoT products into existing smart buildings. Furthermore, an IP-based approach will significantly reduce effort and costs while increasing security, allowing smart building projects to become more scalable.

Worldwide commitment to IP

Through worldwide marketing and communication measures, IP-BLiS will enlighten the building automation market about the use of IP-based solutions, identify the security requirements that will be necessary for different regions and further influence legislation to increase adoption.

Andy McMillan, the president of BACnet International, said: “IP-BLiS is a powerful platform for communicating the value of IP in addressing the complexity and dynamic requirements of building information and control systems.”  

David McCall, president, Open Connectivity Foundation, adds: “Collaboration and cooperation are key to allowing the IoT to reach its full potential.”

Grant Erickson, President of Thread Group. “We believe that IP-BLiS will provide a crucial standard that smart buildings need to improve interoperability and reduce costs, improving the efficiency, functionality, automation, and safety of buildings such as offices, healthcare facilities, hotels, and schools.”

The smart grid – an electric network capable of two way electricity and data flows that can detect, react to changes in the network, that has self-healing capabilities and allows electricity customers to actively participate in the system.

Essentially the two way flows of information is enabled with communications – and this is where things become challenging. It is a complex collection of components that enables to flow the information along the grid – yet there isn’t a ‘one size fits all’ solution when it comes to picking the communication technology best suited to your particular environment.

The panel addresses the following questions:

• What communication technology is the best for your utility’s needs?

• What about privacy and security of the information you are transmitting?

• What are the pros and cons of the various technologies out there?

• What standards and communication protocols do you need to know about?

• What type of communication works best in noisy environments? Or rural settings?

• How important is interoperability and how hard is it to achieve?

Speaker(s):

Miguel Angel Sánchez Fornié, Secretary-General at PRIME ALLIANCE.

Phil Beecher, the CEO of Wi-SUN Alliance

Rémi Demerlé, LoRa Alliance Utilities Development Director, and LoRaWAN Ambassador, Semtech

DISTRIBUTECH 2020 brought together the leading minds in the North American (and global) energy industry as the energy transition, grid resilience and the transition to energy storage and e-mobility came under the spotlight.

We’ve put together the leading industry intelligence, insights and thought leadership content, to bring you the best and latest in the US power industry, and the big predictions for the year and decade ahead.

Julia Hamm, President & CEO of Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) (above) chats about their four priorities for 2020 and the shared vision of a cleaner, modern grid, and the US’ transition to a carbon-free future by 2050.

Utility business models, regulatory innovation, grid integration and the electrification of transport are the four key drivers for SEPA – and the organisation sees utilities as essential to achieving the fastest, most-efficient transition to a clean energy, zero-carbon future. Find out how.

Gain insights into how consumer engagement with energy has shifted, the urgent need for customer education, and delivering new value for customer service.

Learn more about the association’s work in helping regulators give access and value to grid-based storage across the US, the massive growth in the sector forecast for 2020, and the rise of residential solar in 2019.

More than half of Hawaii’s capacity is expected to be sourced from customer-sited, dispatchable renewable generation assets, which promises improved grid support services, but Hawaiian Electric is also facing expected growth in load demand thanks to the electrification of transport in the state. See how a leading utility in the energy transition is preparing for a renewables-powered, decarbonised future.

Get insight into the importance, but elusiveness of grid interoperability as the grid becomes ever-more sophisticated, to allow competition, innovation and adaptability to take root in the modern US energy market. With DLMS/COSEM gaining ANSI approval, the road to a modern, efficient, sustainable US power grid is in reach.

Dadon touches on Itron’s approach to an electrified transport future and Itron’s Resiliency Challenge – where true resilience in the face of environmental disasters means more than just a stable power grid.

Reza shares highlights from the show floor like fault location, isolation and restoration, new technology streams, and industry trends towards artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML) and virtual reality (VR).

Clarion Energy had a chat with Tony Fields, Chairman of the Board of Directors at DLMS, Edward J. Beroset, Principal Technical Leader at Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) and Paul Sisson, Smart Grids- Program Director at Avangrid Service Company at this year’s DISTRIBUTECH 2020.

The panel offers insights into the importance, but elusiveness of grid interoperability as the grid becomes ever-more sophisticated, to allow competition, innovation and adaptability to take root in the modern US energy market. With the approval of DLMS/COSEM as a communications standard by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), the road to a modern, efficient, sustainable US power grid is in reach.

Richard Stamvik shares the verticals the Lora Alliance are focussing on – and it’s more than just utilities.

Discovery verticals, certification and how the water sector is going to be benefitting from Lora enabled communications.

Related videos:

• “Technology knows no borders”
• Fibre opportunities for power utilities
• Understanding the rollout of smart meters in Europe
• Industry standards pave the way for secure investments

Click here to watch more videos about the energy transition in Europe.

The European Union (EU) is building an energy union that is designed to guarantee secure, accessible and sustainable energy for consumers across the EU.

EU countries are tasked with developing integrated national energy and climate plans that address the energy union strategy’s five dimensions:

• security, solidarity and trust
• a fully integrated internal energy market
• energy efficiency
• decarbonising the economy
• research technology and innovation.

As utilities look to adapt to these changes, it is clear that smart metering systems, and access to the real-time energy data they provide, are enablers of a fully flexible system that puts information into the hands of the consumer. Utilities are being given the tools for demanded systems that are changing the face of traditional power generation and management.

To deliver on this future, across the globe, smart metering rollouts are gaining momentum. More and more countries are installing meters that provide a granular level of data on energy consumption and usage, giving utilities the power to flex generation effectively, as well as enabling consumer engagement via the add-on of additional services and technology.

Making decisions around technology can be fraught with risk – how do you avoid obsolescence when the pace of change is moving so rapidly and how do you maintain security when connectivity is key?

As an increasing number of devices and players enter the energy environment and we move toward a world of the Internet of Things (IoT), it is more important than ever that interoperability and security are guaranteed.

Interoperability and security are not new challenges for the utilities space – over the last 10 years proven, open standards have provided the foundation and the roadmaps for utilities to follow. Employing open standards supported by global bodies like CEN, CENELEC, ETSI and the IEC in combination with a clear functionality selection through a published and proven companion specification reduces the risk of large-scale meter technology implementations by:

• Decreasing time needed to develop technical specifications, • Avoiding stranding assets,

• Utilising out-of-the-box solutions to address industry requirements, and

• Enabling a competitive, multisource device environment with certified and accredited devices.

IDIS is based on the best-practice learning from successful mass rollouts in France, the UK and the Netherlands covering more than 50 million endpoints – all deployments were underscored by a clear and specific companion specification based on open standards. This proven companion specification methodology is now being extended to, and adopted by, other utilities in Europe and beyond. And that’s the historical learning that IDIS leveraged.

With over 50 certified devices that underwent rigorous and independent compliance testing process, IDIS provides the confidence to utilities that multiple vendors are qualified and interoperable, reducing risks to mass rollouts and providing the basis for multi-sourced solutions.

With the recent release of IDIS Package 3, the specification has evolved to encompass 13 core use cases answering to latest industry requirements. The IDIS companion specification could furthermore be extended to cover utility and market-specific requirements, whilst retaining the core principles of certification and interoperability.

Since IDIS is a companion specification based on open IEC/EN standards, close collaboration with both the DLMS User Association and the OMS-Group ensures a future-proof environment to meet emerging requirements. To support the energy market transition, tried, tested and proven specifications and standards are key to implement the necessary levels of interoperability and security. With the right technology and standards in place, utilities can lower investment risk, reduce cost and ensure the success of smart meter rollouts in an increasingly connected world.

ABOUT IDIS
Based on the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) 62056 DLMS/COSEM suite of international standards, IDIS Companion Specifications define precise use cases and options to ensure 100% interoperable smart meter devices. The Companions Specification is supported by an independent, proven, and test-driven conformance and interoperability process through certification provided by the IDIS Association.

The achievement of interoperability serves as the cornerstone of IoE in the power industry. By managing interconnectivity in AMI solutions, Sanxing realised interoperability and optimised the follow through.

This article first appeared in Smart Energy International Issue 4-2019. 
Read the full digimag here or subscribe to receive a print copy here.

Figure 1 below shows how it works.

1. System interoperability:

Sanxing has extensive experience in working with a number of system suppliers such as Siemens and Schneider.

2. Protocol interoperability:

Through protocols based on DLMS/IDIS and other standards, the SanPlat system provided by Sanxing is able to access concentrators from third-party suppliers or meters utilising GPRS communication.

3. Module interoperability: Based on standardized G3 communication mode, the SX5D1-AEOT-14 series concentrator provided by Sanxing realizes two-way intercommunication with the G3 meter of the third-party supplier through the G3 module.

System Interoperability

As utilities oftentimes make use of multiple AMI-level systems, serviced and produced by different vendors, the use of multiple sets of peer systems can result in a number of challenges, including (Figure 2):

• Increased operational requirements within the utility and added management complexity.
• Files and data in different systems cannot be shared, and manual consolidated reports are required.
• Grid data analysis is not comprehensive enough.
• Increased implementation and maintenance costs.

In order to manage these challenges, Sanxing has developed a system-level management platform with the following features:

• Unified system protocol – native support for the subsystem or conversion by the vendor development interface
• Unified file management – including alteration, creation, deletion and search functionality
• Unified remote management – including remote individual reading, upgrades, batch operations, etc.
• Unified data management – data collected by the subsystem is unified to the system level management platform for processing and analysis
• Unified report management – exporting comprehensive reports through the management platform by integrating devices and data of all subsystems.

Protocol (IDIS standard) interoperability

In order to solve the interconnection problem, the smart meter communication protocol generally follows the DLMS protocol.

The DLMS protocol has opened up interoperability for all manufacturers through the communication link. However, when it comes to the application level, the definition of specific protocols varies from manufacturer to manufacturer and may have different attributes, different functional categories and different functional standards.

To solve this problem, Sanxing defined the functional categories in accordance with the IDIS standard and specified the definition of OBIS, limited to the attribute of each OBIS. It also standardised key algorithms, such as load curve, powerdown billing, adjustment processing and key handling, etc. Some personalised definitions are unified such as alarm, event code, etc.

At present, Sanxing has successfully joined the IDIS association, and its products P34S02, S12U16, S34U18, S34U18 CT have obtained IDIS2DLM certification (Figure 3).

Module Interoperability

The G3-PLC specification is a technical specification jointly published by the French distribution network and Maxim Semiconductor, which uses multi-carrier modulation technology based on Orthogonal Frequency Division Multiplexing (OFDM) and Media Access Control layer (MAC Layer).

The network layer, transmission layer and COSEM system compatible application layer are based on the IEEE802.15.4 standard. It can work in the frequency bands specified by CENELEC, ARIB, and FCC, and can provide data transmission rates of 20~240kb/s. Its main advantages are good synergy, low construction costs, high communication security, support for IPv6 and good interoperability.

G3-PLC technology first uses adaptive frequency selection technology to achieve coexistence with existing PLC technology and introduces the COSEM standard measurement system in the application layer.

COSEM is used to meet the application requirements of all metering and automatic meter reading systems in the free market with one standard. It has compatibility, independence and expandability as its implementation goals. It is not directly related to the communication modes adopted by the lower layers. Thus, G3PLC technology can interoperate and be compatible with existing COSEM-compliant devices. In addition, G3-PLC technology can work with IEC61334, IEEEP1901 and ITU G.hn standard systems.

At present, Sanxing’s products SX5D1AEOT-14, P12S01, P34S02 and P34S02 CT have successfully obtained G3-PLC certification (Figure 4). SEI

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Paul Zhang is the Director of Technical Support at Ningbo Sanxing, responsible for Sanxing’s overseas marketing strategy and product planning. He has 10 years’ experience in AMI smart meter developing as well as three years’ experience in technical support.

ABOUT THE COMPANY:

Founded in 1986, Ningbo Sanxing Smart Electric Co., Ltd. has been dedicated to becoming an integrated solution provider of intelligent power distribution and utilization. We have built 26 domestic marketing centres and our business net covers 50+ countries and regions.

The two companies also intend boosting the adoption of bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programmes, to help create a more connected utility experience for customers, whilst enabling distribution operators to integrate DER’s at scale.

The two companies are teaming to supercharge enrollment in bring-your-own-device (BYOD) programs, create a connected utility experience for customers, and enable utility distribution operators to integrate DERs at scale.

Oracle’s Opower solution includes a utility customer engagement platform and Network Management System (NMS) for advanced distribution operations.

EnergyHub offers its Mercury DERMS platform, which enables utilities to enrol, monitor, and orchestrate DERs at scale. As a combined solution, the companies’ platforms unlock new utility value from DERs and improve utility customer experience and relationships.

The two solutions combined offer utilities energy usage, DER and rate plan insights in a single customer experience, and add a new depth of personalisation and targeted marketing.

EnergyHub and Oracle Utilities claim they can not only boost enrollment in utility BYOD programmes but also accelerate adoption and beneficial use of all types DERs, from smart thermostats and EV chargers to batteries and solar inverters. The companies will help utilities strengthen their position as trusted advisors and to lead all types of energy consumers to actively participate in a customer-centric grid.

Related Stories:
–Ed’s Note: In the dark
–New York addresses DER – grid integration challenges with new funding
–Distribution automation solutions market to record 11.69% growth

A second joint-offering combines EnergyHub’s grid-edge platform with the Oracle Utilities Network Management System (NMS) for advanced distribution operations. One solution will give the control room visibility and optimisation of grid-edge DERs and extend the reach of distribution operations to behind the meter.

Grid operators using the Oracle Utilities NMS will get real-time situational awareness and optimised load and voltage control of both customer-owned and utility-scale DERs in real-time. As a result, they will be able to dispatch everything from system-wide peak load reduction to real-time calls for localised voltage and load relief to proactively mitigate grid constraints before they happen.

Smart Energy International spoke with the DLMS Association’s Tony Field and Larry Colton to understand how open standards encourage collaboration and interconnectivity.

The panel discussion included Tony Field, Chairman, DLMS Association; Ed Beroset, Principal Technical Leader, AMI Research, EPRI and Larry Colton, Director, DLMS.

The group unpacks how to ensure good organisation to back up the standard being used, a solid support network, an inclusive network of consultants and certification houses that can promote and verify an interoperable design.

Watch the video by clicking on the graphic above.

“Standards and interoperability are key to continued growth for the IoT industry,” says Phil Beecher, president and CEO of the Wi-SUN Alliance. “The availability of certified Wi-SUN FAN solutions delivers on our mission to offer utilities, cities and service providers adaptable multi-service networks that will help ensure interoperability today and for future generations.”

The solutions from Cisco, Itron, Nissin Systems, Kyoto University, Landis+Gyr, Renesas and ROHM address the needs of utilities, city developers and other service providers to simplify and support large-scale, outdoor networks for smart cities, smart utilities and other IoT rollouts.

Wi-SUN FAN is a communications infrastructure for very large-scale networks, enabling many devices to interconnect on one common network.

All Wi-SUN certified products were rigorously tested by Allion Test Labs in Taiwan, the first test lab to achieve Wi-SUN FAN 1.0 validation, to ensure the devices worked together effortlessly and securely to ensure rapid time to market.

Upon successful test completion, approved products are permitted to display the Wi-SUN Certified FAN logo, which indicates to users that these products are compliant with open standards, interoperable, secure and scalable and can be deployed with confidence.

Click here to learn more about Wi-SUN product certification.

Wi-SUN at DistribuTECH

Join the Wi-SUN Alliance and utilities Hawaiian Electric, Xcel Energy and Avangrid for the Smart City/IoT panel session: Field Area Networks Support Utility and Smart City Initiatives on Wednesday, February 6th, 2019, from 1:30 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. in rooms 280-282.
Panelists will discuss how FANs are becoming a vital component in the creation of smart cities.

Also don’t miss the Expanding the Grid Knowledge Hub on the exhibit floor booth 12031 scheduled for Thursday, February 7th from 10:00 AM -11:00 AM.

Iker Urrutia from Iberdrola will discuss interoperability applied to smart metering and how Wi-SUN technology is the communication protocol chosen to address the challenge for an upcoming project in the state of New York. Phil Beecher, President and CEO of the Wi-SUN Alliance will provide an overview of the Wi-SUN Alliance organisation, the specification for Field Area Networks, and an update on certification status, technical collaborations with other organisations, and plans for the future.

The Wi-SUN Alliance is a global ecosystem of member companies seeking to accelerate the implementation of open standards-based Field Area Networks (FAN) and the Internet of Things (IoT).

Put simply, the answer is yes, they were. To date, we really haven’t seen the kind of IoT-led transformations so hyped in recent years. Sure, we’ve seen some interesting projects and capabilities. But actual transformations? Hmmm. Not so much.

Why not? Should we all have been much bolder; building strong foundations for transformation, investing in end-to-end platforms capable of supporting our wildest dreams? Maybe…but maybe not. That kind of investment has its risks.

If I build it, will they come¹?

Everyone has a favourite ERP implementation disaster story. And while many factors from dodgy technology to lazy budgeting to poor understanding of requirements contribute to these tales of woe, one thing is clear: big IT programmes can and do fail. Even if the technology works perfectly and the programme comes in on time and to budget, poor change management can still lead to users failing to adopt new tools, rendering the investment valueless. Such risks can make businesses reluctant to invest in big new programmes, even in times of great challenge and opportunity.

That said, survey after survey reconfirms that businesses do see the value in digitalisation and do see the need to transform to remain competitive in a rapidly changing environment. But if Gartner is right and doing the little stuff is squandering the real opportunities, what’s the alternative? Must it be to go all-in once again and build an entire IoT platform, then sit back, waiting for the magical transformation to happen?

A different approach

My answer to the last question above is a resounding no. Now, that doesn’t mean I’m immediately discounting working with the many IoT platform vendors out there today. Teradata partners with many of them already and we clearly see their value. They’re likely to have many – though not all – of the pieces of the IoT puzzle your business will need to fit together. They’ll bring experience of other engagements. They’ll have great ideas.

But an end-to-end, platform-first approach is still not the answer. All those familiar massive IT programme risks still apply. To help introduce the alternative, let me do a little editing of that Gartner quote from earlier. It’s my belief that:

Through 2018, 80% of IoT implementations squandered transformational opportunities by focusing on quick, point solutions, with little or no thought towards standards, scale or re-usability.

I have nothing against quick solutions. Quick is good. But not if the quick solution to each departmental problem needs new and different comms capabilities; new security measures; new custom integrations. Narrow use-cases can be good too, as long as they’re solving something that needs to be solved and they’re doing it using methods that can be repeated; standards that will allow integration and management; and with solutions that can scale up as data volumes rise.

But every time a department or division goes out on their own to solve their own little problem with no consideration of the bigger picture, your organisation is adding yet another layer of complexity. This parochial, short-sighted approach to technology is one key reason why there can be no transformation. Fortunately, it’s a problem that can be addressed – and without up-front investment in another massive IT programme.

Standards, scalability, reusability

Just as today, go on finding opportunities that will deliver value from IoT data. Get on and deliver on one of those opportunities, then another and another. But ensure that from now on, your business does it with an eye to the future. No proprietary protocols. No vendor-lock-ins. No skunkworks to get around policies or departments that might disagree with you. Instead, think standards; think scalability; think re-usability. This is what the over-used phrase “start small, think big” really means.

Yes, it’ll be complicated at times. The world of IoT standards is a somewhat confusing and crowded landscape right now. But this is always the case. No new discipline has ever been in a position to sit back and wait for standards to mature and be agreed across all parties before getting on and delivering something. It doesn’t mean we just do what we like, delivering every project to whatever standard suits that department or vendor.

We must choose standards that work for us; that have the flexibility to evolve and adapt; that don’t mean a vendor lock-in; that can be applied in many projects, many departments, many relationships. And to vendors. And to partners. And to our own increasing integration and connectivity and bottom-up progress towards what will become that IoT platform of our dreams.

As data volumes increase, massive scalability in data management, integration and analysis will be critical. It is no economy to create a solution that works for the first year of a project but has to be entirely re-engineered when data volumes increase or when a second or third project needs to share that data. Think scalability, right from the beginning. Once again: start small, think big.

And think re-usability. Yes, you’ll have to develop things for your first projects. But think about how what you develop could benefit other projects. Did you develop an app or even some code that used augmented reality techniques to bring servicing information to engineers working on Siemens turbines? How much of that work could be re-used to extend the capability to all turbines? Or to another class of rotating equipment? Or to all rotating equipment?

Have you integrated asset history and specifications from your ERP with operational data from your Historians to better predict deterioration in circuit breakers? What else could be done with that integration? Could that same data influence purchasing decisions? Resource management? Only if you’ve integrated it with a view to re-usability. Only if you’ve chosen standards that support more than just your personal or departmental KPIs.

A new Field of Dreams?

It is true that to date, we really haven’t seen much in the way of genuine IoT-enabled transformation. But building and end-to-end IoT platform and waiting for the users to adopt it in their droves won’t change that.

Transformation may well be technology-enabled, but it isn’t technology-led. Rather than spending years building a platform that will probably be out-of-date (and circumvented) by the time it’s ready, it’s time to once again start small, but think big. Think standards; think scalability; and think re-usability.

Transformation is coming. The IoT is here already. Start exploiting it today. But do it with an eye to tomorrow and to the rest of your business’ life. It could be up to you how long that is.

1 Misquoting the famous “if you build it, he will come” from Field of Dreams (1989).

About the author
David Socha is Teradata’s Practice Partner for the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT). He began his career as a hands-on electrical distribution engineer, keeping the lights on in Central Scotland, before becoming a part of ScottishPower’s electricity retail deregulation programme in the late 1990s. After a period in IT management and consulting roles, David joined Teradata to found their International Utilities practice, later also taking on responsibilities in Smart Cities and the wider Industrial IoT sector.

IOTA Foundation, a non-profit foundation focused on distributed ledger technology (DLT) and permissionless ecosystem development and eCl@ss will standardise and simplify communication used across connected IoT devices.

“We look forward to collaborating with IOTA towards the development of new standards of device communication and complex payment processes in the Internet of Things,” said Thorsten Kroke, general manager at eCl@ss.

“In conjunction with eCl@ss, the IOTA Tangle offers a clear and standardised description for IoT devices and products, meaning that IOTA and eCl@ss can be used together for any industry transaction.”

eCl@ss has established standards for the classification and description of connected devices with a worldwide consortium of leading companies including Lufthansa, Siemens, Staples, PBS Network and Medtronic among many others.

The organisation’s standardised catalogue allows companies to quickly introduce trusted identification and simplified communication between IoT devices, while simultaneously lowering costs associated with device management. By implementing a universal standard between devices, eCl@ss also enables organisations to develop new methods of machine-to-machine payments.

“After we first learned of IOTA and its Data Marketplace, the idea of a joint implementation between eCl@ss and IOTA was a natural fit,” said Gerhard Treitinger, senior expert product data management system and standardisation at BSH Hausgeräte GmbH, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Bosch Group.

Both eCl@ss and IOTA are key players in the development of the industrial IoT and digitised world, as the leading standard in their respective industries. By exploring several use cases, we found that a cooperation between eCl@ss and IOTA would be a win-win situation for both.”

eCl@ss and IOTA will also explore how IOTA’s Data Marketplace can be leveraged in combination with eCl@ss’ IRDI (International Registration Data Identifier) system to purchase product data across various IT systems, businesses and industries. IRDI is based on international ISO standards, and uses globally unique identifiers for every device to securely share data on its status and attributes.

The integration would allow organisations to collect a host of valuable new information on their products and other connected devices. For example, companies could collect data on the current and average power consumption of their microprocessors, to determine needed software updates and fixes for the next generation of the product.

Machines of different vendors could also request attributes of their peers, to directly identify compatible machine partners and their needs, such as current engine power consumption or whether certain modules/capabilities are present.

“We are excited to team up with such a strong and trusted organisation,” said Holger Köther, director of partnerships at the IOTA Foundation. “It is an exceptional opportunity to shape how the next generation of devices, across all industry landscapes, can communicate through data and micropayments, truly empowering a machine-to-machine economy for the Internet of Everything.”

Click here for more information.

The adoption of robust and secure Internet of Things networks is vital to simplify the energy transition.

However, utilities are facing the challenge of optimising smart meter connectivity and meter data management due to unrealistic communications technologies.

El Sewedy explains how stakeholder partnerships are encouraging the development of grid communication solutions, as well as the development of global IoT standards to accelerate the interoperability of grid devices.

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