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Project Objectives
and Scope
The Integrated Energy and Communications System
Architecture (IntelliGrid Architecture) project has developed an open, standards-based
systems architecture for the data communications and distributed
computing infrastructure that will enable the integration of a wide
variety of intelligent electric power system components. This
infrastructure builds upon prior industry infrastructure work,
leverages the newest communications and distributed computing
technologies available and provides the interoperability/interworkability
foundation for system development. This infrastructure will enable
innovative services such as real-time pricing and energy management.
The goal for IntelliGrid Project was to develop an overall
integrated energy and communications system architecture for the
data communications networks and intelligent equipment necessary to
support a self-healing grid and the integrated consumer
communications interface.
The IntelliGrid Project objectives are to:
- Develop
a complete set of systems requirements and architecture
documents to support industry-wide enterprise architecture for a
self-healing grid and integrated consumer communications
interface.
- Provide
a set of recommendations to relevant standards development
organizations and industry consortia. These recommendations will
encourage the development and enhancement of key open standards
vital to building a robust industry infrastructure.
- Apply
systems engineering to the development of the architecture
including but not limited to: the elicitation and management of
system requirements, analysis of requirements and development of
proposed architectural designs, evaluation of architectural
designs and the use of standardized industry notation for
documentation of architectural views.
- Identify
the potential for infrastructure sharing and synergy between
power engineering operations and other application domains.
IntelliGrid Architecture Benefits to the Power Industry
EPRI see a number of challenges facing the power industry that its communications infrastructure is not currently prepared to address. A power system making use of an integrated electrical and communications systems architecture would be:
- Self-healing and adaptive, applying automated applications for protection, fault detection, fault location, sectionalization and automatic service restoration over wide areas of the service territory.
- Interactive with consumers and markets, permitting real-time pricing, energy trading and load management.
- Optimized to make best use of aging equipment, personnel from multiple organizations, and other resources in a competitive environment.
- Predictive, scheduling maintenance ahead of time to prevent, rather than just react, to emergencies.
- Distributed, permitting activities such as generation, metering, load shedding, etc. to be easily performed at different locations and by different organizations.
- Integrated, merging the previously separate functions of monitoring, control, protection, maintenance, energy management, distribution management, business, and corporate information technology.
- Secure, protecting our vital infrastructure from cyber or
physical attack.
Although these functions are performed today by various utilities, there is much variation in the level of implementation, and they are generally not performed on a wide enough scale to address the level of problems faced by the grid today, as clearly illustrated by the Northeast
blackout.
IntelliGrid Project Deliverables
The IntelliGrid Project team has developed a number of deliverables to
ensure the architecture will become a reality:
- A list of the various stakeholders in the utility industry
today, to help utilities consider all those who might be
affected by decisions.
- Brief descriptions of the communications technologies that are
currently available for use in the industry.
- Descriptions of existing and planned utility activities and
best practices, especially as they affect data communications
requirements.
- Use cases describing important utility activities, especially
new practices and technologies envisioned by leaders in the
industry.
- An analysis, using standard systems architecture methodology,
of the communications requirements of the industry.
- Recommendations of best-practice existing technologies, when
and where they should be used, and migration plans for utilities
to make use of them
- Recommendations based on the analysis, of new technologies
that must be developed or modified from existing capabilities.
- An action plan for the steps required to put IntelliGrid Architecture in place,
especially new open standards that must be developed or
modified.
For Additional Information
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