Facility Smart Grid Model Standard is Open for Review

A proposed standard from ASHRAE and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA) to create smart facilities supporting smart grids is part of an international effort. The proposed standard is open for public review until Oct. 6, 2015. ASHRAE/NEMA Standard 201P, Facility Smart Grid Information Model, would provide a common basis for electrical energy consumers to describe, manage and communicate about electrical energy consumptions and forecasts.

Committee chair Steve Bushby said 201P also is being considered for adoption as an international standard through the International Organization for Standardization. In addition, the standard coordinates with and uses content from the International Electrotechnical Commission’s Common Information Model (CIM) standards. It also coordinates with the North American Energy Standards Board’s basic energy usage data model standard, informally known as Green Button, that facilitates consumer access to energy usage information for homes and commercial and industrial buildings.

“The effort to substantially modernize and transform electric grids around the world is an enormous undertaking that reflects both the size and importance of those grids,” Bushby said. “Viewed in its entirety, it is an intentional effort involving hundreds of organizations and companies and will impact billions of people. The standards infrastructure that will be needed to support this transformation may include over 100 standards by the time that is fully in place. This standard is one part of that infrastructure.”

The proposed standard defines an object-oriented information model to enable appliances and control systems in homes, buildings and industrial facilities to manage electrical loads and generation sources in response to communication with the smart electrical grid and to communicate information about those electrical loads to utility and other electrical service providers.

“Almost all electricity is consumed in a building of some kind – homes, retail establishments, offices, schools, factories, hospitals and the list goes on,” he said. “Standard 201P attempts to capture the breadth and diversity of these consumers by using the term ‘facility.’ A facility is any kind of building or collection of buildings and all of the electrical loads or local generation sources contained within them or controlled by the facility owner.”

The standard is part of ASHRAE’s supporting efforts for the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a private-public partnership initiated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to speed development of interoperability and cyber security standards for a nationwide smart electric power grid.