IEEE Delivers New Globally Relevant Smart Grid Standards

The world's largest professional organization advancing technology for humanity, announced updates to four standards and a new standards-development project that provide new communications and operational capabilities needed for smart grid worldwide. The new standards activities are among the latest smart grid contributions to come from the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA), which has a portfolio of 100 standards and standards in development pertaining to this vitally important industry.                 

 “IEEE is continually updating its standards and developing new standards to address the needs of utilities around the world as they integrate new technologies and upgrade their systems to meet current and future operational and service objectives for smart grids,” said Bill Ash, strategic program manager, IEEE-SA. “These latest IEEE standards activities underscore the importance for new standards to support the growth and evolution of the smart grid industry globally.”

 The latest IEEE smart grid standards include:

IEEE 1815-2012 – Standard for Electric Power Systems Communications – Distributed Network Protocol (DNP3) – specifies the DNP3 protocol structure, functions and interoperable application options for operation on communications media used in utility automation systems. It revises the earlier standard, IEEE 1815-2010, by updating its protocols to address and help mitigate current and emerging digital cyber security hazards that could affect the communications systems used in smart grids and other infrastructure, including power, energy and water systems. 

IEEE 1366-2012 – IEEE Guide for Electric Power Distribution Reliability Indices – defines the distribution reliability nomenclature and indices that utilities and regulators can use to characterize the reliability of distribution systems, substations, circuits and grid sections. It also defines the factors affecting the calculation of the indices. The standard revises the earlier standard, IEEE 1366-2003, by including new indices that can be used today and in the future on smart grid and other distribution systems. It also updates several definitions that were used in the previous standard. 

IEEE 1377-2012 – IEEE Standard for Utility Industry Metering Communication Protocol Application Layer (End Device Data Tables) – provides common structures for encoding data that is transmitted over advanced metering infrastructure and smart grids. It can be used to transmit data between smart meters, home appliances, network nodes that use the IEEE 1703 LAN/WAN messaging standard, and utility enterprise collection and control systems. The standard revises IEEE-1377-1977. It is co-published as ANSI C12.19 and MC12.19.

IEEE C37.104-2012 – IEEE Guide for Automatic Reclosing of Circuit Breakers for AC Distribution and Transmission lines – describes automatic reclosing practices for transmission and distribution line circuit breakers, establishes the benefits of automatic reclosing, and details the considerations utilities must use when applying automatic reclosing technologies for proper coordination with other transmission and distribution system controls. It revises the IEEE C37.104-2002 standard by incorporating new smart grid communications technologies that may affect utility automatic reclosing practices.

Additionally, IEEE-SA has approved a new standards development project to categorize and describe applications that are being considered as part of smart distribution system development and distribution management systems for smart grids. The IEEE P1854 – Guide for Smart Distribution Applications will categorize the applications, describe their critical functions, define their most important components and provide examples. The terminology and descriptions used for these systems have previously not been standardized, which makes it difficult to develop specifications for these functions as part of planning and developing smart distribution systems. IEEE P1854 will fill that standards gap. The guide will be a living document that will expand and grow as smart distribution technologies and applications change over time.