A project of this magnitude has significant project
management requirements. A very disciplined approach
is required to elicit system requirements and resolve conflicts. The IntelliGrid Architecture team
applied Six Sigma® quality methodology, which encompasses and extends the
traditional systems engineering process, to identify, design, optimize, and
validate IntelliGrid Architecture framework architecture. In accordance with the Six Sigma
methodology, IntelliGrid Architecture development was broken down into seven tasks – each building
on, in general, the previous task. The list and sequence of these tasks are
described below.
Task 1: Define the Scope of
Requirements
The initial step when developing IntelliGrid Architecture was clearly
defining the scope of the requirements of the energy generation, delivery, and
system functions and identifying all stakeholder roles. There are many power
system applications and a large number of potential stakeholders who
participate in energy system operations. In the future, more stakeholders
(including customers responding to real-time prices, distributed energy
resource owners selling energy and ancillary services into the electricity marketplace, and consumers demanding high quality) will
actively participate in energy system operations. At the same time, new and
expanded applications will respond to increasing pressures to manage energy
system reliability as market forces push the power system to its limits.
System security was also recognized as crucial
in the increasingly digital economy. The key has been identifying and
categorizing all of these elements so their requirements can be understood,
their information needs could be identified, and synergies among these
information needs could be determined.
The purpose of Task 1 was developing a deeper
understanding of the project’s scope and beginning to develop the rigorous
methodologies IntelliGrid Architecture team used to determine and analyze functional and
non-functional requirements for automating, managing, and planning electric
energy operations. The scoping entailed identifying some 70 high-level
activities and over 400 supporting activities. In addition to objectives stated
above, Task 1 also included a rigorous tools selection for IntelliGrid Architecture development.
Analysis of the identified activities resulted in three areas of focus in Task
3.
Task
2: Assess the Industry and Technologies
Task 2 included a
‘first pass’ listing of the technologies that IntelliGrid Architecture team believes should be
considered in developing a comprehensive utility communications architecture, and the reasons these technologies should be
considered. This assessment formed a baseline solution for meeting the power
system functional requirements that was developed in Task 3. In addition, the
assessment identified potential problems where there were missing or weak
infrastructure development efforts, duplication of efforts, overlapping
standards, and ad hoc industry infrastructure initiatives that could lead to
greater confusion and fragmentation in the industry.
Task 3: Perform a Formal
Requirements Gathering Process
Task 3 defined the formal requirements gathering
and development process. The process began with development of a ‘Domain
Template’ that identified key pieces of information to be elicited from domain
experts in the stakeholder interview process. The information to be solicited
was driven by the IEC standard – Reference Model for Open Distributed
Processing (RM-ODP). Part of the
requirements gathering process involved identifying various stakeholder classes
that would have input, at different levels, into the requirements development
process. Captured information was input into the domain template, resulting in
Use Cases for the selected applications.
Task 4: Analyze Requirements
Task 4 focused on ‘commonality/normality’
analysis of the various data items identified in Task 3. Commonalities were
identified and abstracted into data objects, common services, and generic
interfaces. Identification of common elements allowed for minimization of the
data items, services and interfaces that the
architecture must support.
The Task 4 objective was to begin the design
process by building on the foundation established by the requirements gathering
process. The first step was mapping the general requirements into a
preliminary, abstract, high-level design, which consisted of general components
and subsystems. The next step was identifying the interactions between these
subsystems and components to produce requirements for the communication system
between these entities. The third step was unifying the working requirements by
identifying potential synergies and overlaps among requirements that could be
exploited to streamline and simplify the requirements. The fourth step was
describing the methodologies that support the building of the systems
architecture, as well as subsequent activities to manage changes.
Task 5: Specify and Analyze
Architecture
Task 5 included the distillation of the
normalized Use Cases into standard notation and subsequent mapping into
applicable technologies. In Task 5, the team took the high-level design and
began the process of making it architecturally coherent and internally
consistent. Abstractions were finalized, components and subsystems specified,
and interfaces and protocols were formally specified where these have been
clearly standardized or are in de facto use by the industry.
Task 6: Assess Existing Standards
The focus of Task 6 was identifying the existing
technologies, identified in Task 2, against the requirements identified in
Tasks 3 and 4 and IntelliGrid Architecture design that resulted from Task 5. It is important
to distinguish between this task and the technology assessment performed in
Task 2. Task 2 was concerned with identifying technology that might be useful
in the new design, before any requirements were defined. Task 6 focused instead
on how to build the new architecture on top of what exists now. In other words,
the output of Task 6 describes ’how to get there from here’, now that a ‘there’
had been defined.
Task 7: Formulate Recommendations
As Task 6 attempted to map existing
technologies to the identified requirements, inevitably, there will be gaps and
seams between existing technologies and the required functionality. Task 7
identified new and/or technologies that will be required to meet future
implementation needs. It is expected that IntelliGrid Architecture recommendations will be used
as inputs to standards bodies to help formulate implementations to meet the
identified needs. In addition, Task 7 identified industry trends from present
implementation strategies, future functional requirements, and emerging
technologies. The recommendations were laid out in a road map showing how IntelliGrid Architecture must migrate and evolve in the future.
