Wanted: Inputs on NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards 4.0 - October 2020

NIST invites you to download and review its Draft Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 4.0. Instructions for public comment were published in the Federal Register on September 18, 2020, and input can be provided to smartgridframework [at] nist.gov (smartgridframework[at]nist[dot]gov). Your comments will assist NIST in preparing a final published version of Framework 4.0, helping address the needs of the smart grid community and promoting progress in meeting America’s energy needs.

This effort will produce NIST’s fourth framework informing America’s development of the smart grid under the provisions of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. Draft Framework 4.0 offers new strategies for improving smart grid interoperability and describes its potential economic and technical values across the power system. Key sections of the Draft Framework include:

• Smart Grid Conceptual Model: Features emerging capabilities in the customer domain, increasing distributed energy resources, and interactions among distribution, transmission, operations, and market domains.
• Communication Pathways Scenarios: Depicts communications interactions among grid elements in different scenarios to quickly visualize system interoperability requirements.
• A Common Language for the Smart Grid: Provides common terminology to help stakeholder groups effectively communicate regarding grid modernization.
• Cybersecurity: Provides two approaches to managing cybersecurity risk across the grid, one focused on organizational strategies to ensure cybersecure outcomes, the other focused on identifying and protecting individual communications interfaces.
• Testing and Certification for Smart Grid Standards: Documents the benefits of testing and certification and identifies existing gaps and opportunities to improve interoperability.
• Interoperability Profiles: Provides an approach for reducing testing and implementation complexity by clarifying the range of interoperability requirements available through standards.

This draft version of Framework 4.0 was developed with input from smart grid stakeholders including utilities, vendors, equipment manufacturers, renewable power producers, retail service providers, regulators, and more. Insights from community stakeholders and technical experts were gathered through a series of national and regional workshops.  Framework 4.0 also includes insights developed through NIST's smart grid research program.