Quick take: It's been a long time a'coming, but slowly, gradually the world of the plug-and-play smart grid is arriving. When it does, we'll owe a debt of thanks to IEEE and other organizations that have labored so long to put the necessary standards into place. – Jesse Berst

The latest news from the IEEE Standards Association (IEEE-SA) includes publication of a new OPGW standard and identification of three new smart grid standards projects. Below are highlights (see page 2 for the full press announcement).

·         IEEE-SA has published IEEE 1591.1™-2012 – This is a standard for testing and performance of hardware for Optical Ground Wire (OPGW), which is being used in the smart grid to provide both grounding capabilities for transmission lines and communications back to utility systems such as SCADA. You can purchase it at the IEEE Standards Store.

Smart-grid standards projects newly approved by IEEE-SA include:

·         Recommended practice for smart grid communication equipment – This one is intended to document testing and installation procedures that are geared specifically for communications equipment to be installed in various domains of the smart grid, such as generation, transmission and distribution.

·         Standard for LAN and WAN network node communication protocol – This would complement the utility industry end device data tables and is intended to improve the cost efficiency and flexibility of AMI deployments. The standard is being developed to define uniform, managed, adaptive and secure network data and message delivery for plug-and-play, multi-source utility meters, home appliances, communication technology and other ancillary devices.

·         Guide for smart distribution applications – The idea here is to categorize and describe important smart distribution applications and fill a gap for standardized definitions of such systems. It is intended to cover advanced automation and SCADA systems for reliability improvement, outage management, fault location and management, voltage and var management, distributed-resource and renewable-generation integration, demand response, advanced protection, equipment diagnostics and asset management, real-time simulation for system optimization, microgrids and many other applications.