NIST Smart Grid and CPS Newsletter - August 2017

Table of Contents

• Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Expo Is Next Week (August 28-29, 2017)
• Upcoming Workshop: “IoT Sensors Challenges” (August 30, 2017)
• Upcoming Workshop: “CPS Framework Open Source Workshop” (September 19, 2017)
• NIST Smart Grid Advisory Committee Meets (August 17-18, 2017)
• Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) Update (Formerly SGIP Update)

Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Expo Is Next Week (August 28-29, 2017)

The 2017 Global City Teams Challenge (GCTC) Expo will bring together 100+ cities and communities from around the world—in partnership with more than 300 companies, universities, non-profits, and federal government agencies—to share and exhibit their smart city projects and the benefits and impacts to their communities. The free event will be held August 28-29, 2017, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.

The agenda and registration details are available online. Onsite registration will be available, but pre-registration is encouraged. Pre-registration will close on Wednesday, August 23, 2017, at 5:00 p.m.

A keynote panel on August 29 will feature the Federal Smart Cities and Communities Task Force. This task force, comprising senior representatives from more than a dozen U.S. federal agencies with programs relevant to smart cities and communities, is the Federal Government’s inter-agency coordination group. Chris Greer, Director of NIST’s Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program, serves as a co-chair, along with Ken Calvert and Meghan Houghton, National Science Foundation, and Ken Leonard, Department of Transportation.

The GCTC Expo will also feature a keynote panel of mayors and county executives, four partner workshops, and over 90 live demonstrations of smart city projects, representing more than 120 cities and communities worldwide. International participants will include cities from 13 countries, including Italy, Japan, Korea, Portugal, Taiwan, and the United Kingdom.

Five SuperClusters—on transportation, public safety, utilities, city data platform, and public WiFi/broadband—will host pavilions and will present smart city blueprints/playbooks that document real-world examples and best practices among smart city plans and solutions gleaned from cities around the world.

According to Sokwoo Rhee, GCTC lead for NIST, “The GCTC Expo is the largest smart city and community event hosted by the U.S. federal government. We expect the 2017 Expo to be the biggest and best one yet.”

Previous GCTC Expos (in June 2016 and June 2015) have each attracted over a thousand attendees as well as significant media coverage. A special publication, summarizing the 2016 Expo and GCTC impacts since its launch in 2014, was recently released and is available online. 

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Upcoming Workshop: “IoT Sensors Challenges” (August 30, 2017)

NIST and the Sensors Council of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE Sensors Council) will host a free, one-day workshop on Internet of Things (IoT) standards, harmonization, interoperability, policy, sensors, and cybersecurity. The agenda includes invited speakers, panels, and breakout sessions to discuss the intersection of these issues and identify gaps with opportunities for collaboration through NIST and IEEE.

The breakout sessions will dive deeper into specific topics including security and privacy, interoperability and standardization, smart grid, and smart city applications. The output will be a workshop report that captures the presentations, panels, and recommended action items related to IoT security and sensors.

Registration and agenda information are available online. The workshop will be held at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. Registration closes on Wednesday, August 23, 2017.

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Upcoming Workshop: “CPS Framework Open Source Workshop” (September 19, 2017)

The CPS Framework Open Source Workshop on September 19 aims to contribute to the creation of a community of experts interested in cyber-physical systems (CPS) and systems engineering. The workshop will be useful for those focused on enhancing their systems engineering practices to include the distinct methods and tools associated with the logical and physical elements of CPS. 

The workshop will draw on the CPS Public Working Group’s “Framework for Cyber-Physical Systems, Volume 1 and Volume 2.” The vision of the CPS Framework and the CPS Open Source Project is to enable a systematic, comprehensive, concern-based methodology for analyzing and developing CPS.

The purpose of this workshop is to orient the participants as to the CPS Framework, to release the results of early efforts to model the framework in UML/XML/XSLT, to acquire feedback from stakeholders on how the CPS Framework concepts can complement existing system’s engineering processes, and to demonstrate the use of the CPS Framework models in system development.

The workshop is free and will be held at the National Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (NCCOE) in Rockville, Maryland. Registration details are available online. Registration closes on September 12, 2017.

Those interested in CPS may also be interested in the recent workshop, held July 27 at NIST, “Universal CPS Environment for Federation Workshop.”

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NIST Smart Grid Advisory Committee Meets (August 17-18, 2017)

The NIST Smart Grid Advisory Committee met in open session on Thursday and Friday, August 17-18, 2017, at the NIST campus in Gaithersburg, Maryland. This meeting, which was the annual in-person meeting of the committee, featured a new roster of committee members.

The meeting focused on updates of NIST’s smart grid activities and the intersections with NIST’s cyber-physical systems activities. The meeting included a tour of NIST’s Smart Grid Interoperability Testbed, as well as discussions about the NIST smart grid research program.

The committee discussed plans for revising the NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards—a process that will include significant stakeholder coordination and consultation. The committee also discussed changes in the smart grid ecosystem and technology over the past several years, as well as anticipated changes and trends going forward. Topics included architecture, cybersecurity, operations and economics, and testing and certification.

This committee was established to assist NIST in fulfilling its responsibilities under the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA). The committee provides input to NIST on smart grid standards, priorities, and gaps, and on the overall direction, status, and health of the smart grid sector.  

The members, who represent a diverse cross-section of smart grid thought leaders, are:

Paul Centolella, Chair
President
Paul Centolella & Associates

Kevin Cosgriff 
President and CEO
National Electrical Manufacturers Association (NEMA)

James Fine, Ph.D. 
Director of Energy Research and Senior Economist
Environmental Defense Fund

Deborah K. Gracio 
Director, National Security Program Development Office
Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Santiago Grijalva, Ph.D. 
Georgia Power Distinguished Professor of Electrical and Computer Engineering
Director, Advanced Computational Electricity Systems (ACES) Laboratory
Georgia Institute of Technology

Jason P. Handley, P.E. 
Director – Smart Grid Emerging Technology and Operations
Emerging Technology Office
Duke Energy

Michael J. Holland, Ph.D. 
Executive Director
NYU Center for Urban Science and Progress

Janet Joseph 
Vice President for Innovation and Strategy
New York State Energy Research and Development Authority

Lynne Kiesling, Ph.D. 
Associate Professor
Department of Economics
Krannert School of Management
Purdue University

Audrey Lee, Ph.D. 
Vice President, Grid Services
Sunrun, Inc.

John D. McDonald, P.E. 
SmartGrid Business Dev. Leader North America
Global SmartGrid Strategy Group
GE Grid Solutions 

Heather Sanders 
Principal Manager of Integrated Grid Strategy and Engagement
Southern California Edison
(As of August 21, 2017, Sanders has transitioned to a new position, as Special Advisor to the California Public Utilities Commission.)

More information about this Federal Advisory Committee, including biographical sketches of the members, is available online. 

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Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) Update (Formerly SGIP Update)

A number of NIST staff members participated in SEPA’s Grid Evolution Summit: A National Town Meeting, held July 25-27, 2017, in Washington, D.C. In addition to various keynotes, panels, and roundtables, the meeting included both pre-summit and post-summit technical group meetings. The agenda and copies of many of the presentations are available online.

Speakers and meeting leaders from NIST included the following:

• Chris Greer, Director of the Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Program Office, discussed cybersecurity issues with Julia Hamm, SEPA’s President and CEO (“Preparing a Strong Defense: Cybersecurity and Utilities“).
• Suzanne Lightman and Nelson Hastings, cybersecurity experts in NIST’s Information Technology Laboratory, chaired a technical group meeting of the Smart Grid Cybersecurity Working Group.
• Cuong Nguyen, lead for NIST’s Smart Grid Testing and Certification Program, chaired a technical group meeting of the Smart Grid Testing and Certification Working Group.
• David Holmberg, lead for NIST’s Transactive Energy Challenge, announced at the Transactive Energy Working Group meeting that the simulation stage of the challenge officially started on July 25. Eight teams will use a common scenario to perform a series of simulations that measure—using common metrics—what happens under baseline conditions, in a non-TE environment, and in a TE environment.

Earlier this year, the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) merged with the Smart Electric Power Alliance (SEPA) to create an industry-led organization that combines the portfolios of the two organizations. NIST continues to support the technical work of this organization through NIST staff participation on key committees and priority action plans (PAPs) and through the ongoing cooperative agreement grant, now with SEPA. For more details about the merger, please see SEPA’s April 4 news release  and SGIP’s January 31 news release.

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