Smart Grid: Communication-Enabled Intelligence for the Electric Power Grid

10

Standards Overview

The nicest thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.

— Andres S. Tannenbaum

10.1 Introduction

This is the last chapter in Part Two on communication and networking for the power grid, and it closes the topic by looking at standards. This book is emphatically not about standards, but rather introducing fundamentals. However, standards are a practical requirement for a successful implementation of the “smart grid.” At the time of this writing, most standards are still under development and will continue to undergo considerable change as they evolve. The fundamentals introduced in this book help in understanding standards as they develop. Standard documents can be boring and tedious; we will only overview key points of standards that appear to have future impact on the fundamentals of power grid operation and we will expand on important points within standards that provide general, fundamental background for communication in smart grid. These are standards that have a direct bearing upon smart grid communication and are expected to be widely deployed. Standards can be viewed from an organizational perspective (that is, the standards organization under which the standard was developed), as well as from a functional standpoint (that is, the functionality provided by the standard). There are advantages to both approaches. Standards often have a history of development under a single standards organization, and so it can be helpful to ...