Here are two recommendations to help small utilities implement the Smart Grid. First -- testing labs must expand their testing of vendor solutions (hardware and software) to other system-required solutions (example: meter software to SCADA and OMS software) instead of confining testing to a single test system, as done currently. Second -- when these solutions are tested against all other solutions in the interoperable community, testing labs and the vendor of the solution must provide a simple roadmap outlining configuration options. These two steps will ease small utility installation of solutions and advance implementation of the Smart Grid.

Interoperability for the real world

Testing labs normally just perform functional and regression testing, not interoperability testing. Further, when focusing on interoperability, they almost never test real world applications, such as the Internet. Nor do they take into consideration how Smart Grid solutions will work with legacy solutions and other systems that need to be connected.

Technical software components (the transfer protocols, the semantics, the syntax, the choreographies and the end applications) may be interoperable. However, the solution must also be configured to exchange information with legacy systems. Often, integration with other software can challenging for a small utility. (Think about how hard it is to configure your email when it asks for outbound and inbound email server name or if you need SSL security, which is very simple compared to what we are discussing.)

Small utilities need help with interoperability

We all know that the largest utilities have the resources to install and integrate Smart Grid solutions. The industry faces the risk of Smart Grid implementation being slowed as smaller utilities start digitizing and automating their operations and become stalled on interoperability configuration.

Interconnecting Smart Grid solutions is hard. The two primary areas of difficulty are technical software testing and software configuration. Most current software interoperability testing efforts only focus on the technical software and not the end user configuration aspects. Testing which focuses on how real world software implementations should be configured has significant value for small utilities – the group that needs it the most.

Getting small and medium businesses to implement interoperable software in any industry is a challenge and often the bottleneck for achieving wide scale automation as smaller businesses (here utilities) compose 80% or more of any industry. The Electronic Data Interchange (EDI) community identified almost 20 years ago that the real problem in industry-wide implementation was not large companies but small companies. While larger utilities will be able to show return on investment (ROI) for implementing the Smart Grid, smaller utilities, who cannot integrate Smart Grid solutions as cost-efficiently as large utilities, may not be able to show an ROI as soon. As a result, small utilities may be reluctant to advance the Smart Grid. Absent small utility participation, Smart Grid implementation will stall.

Industry focus on real world interoperability

The Smart Grid will advance quickly if large utilities and small utilities are able to interconnect and small utilities are able to connect Smart Grid solutions with their existing back office systems.

These two recommendations will go a long way in solving the problems first identified twenty years ago which had inhibited small businesses in industry wide automation. We must expand how we think as an industry about interoperability. It is not only about the software development or technical aspects but also about the ease of configuration in the field.

Rik Drummond is the past chair of GridWise Architecture Council and the CEO of Drummond Group Inc, an international consulting and interoperability testing certification corporation. www.drummondgroup.com