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In SGN's Tech Take articles, power engineer and architect Erich Gunther evaluates actual products and services against the SGN Smart Grid Scorecard. Unless disclosed explicitly at the beginning of the article, neither SGN nor Erich Gunther has received any compensation from the vendor nor do they own stock in the company.
The role and importance of the SGN Scorecard
The SGN Scorecard was developed for a very important reason: most of today's products do not adhere to Smart Grid principles. They do not support the requirements envisioned by Smart Grid researchers such as EPRI, the California Energy Commission's Public Interest Energy Research program, the Modern Grid Initiative and DOE's GridWise program. Nor do they adhere to the mandates in the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007.
In particular, several elements of the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture are critical to implementing a Smart Grid:
As a result of their failure to meet the basic principles, most of today's communication networks —whether for automatic meter reading (AMR) or for advanced meter infrastructure (AMI) —are inadequate. They may support “least common denominator” Smart Grid applications, such as meter reading. But they are not adequate for distribution automation, plug-in hybrid electric vehicle management, microgrids, demand response, and many other future applications.
SGN Warning: To avoid buying dead-end products, utilities must provide their vendors with a comprehensive and prioritized list of requirements covering current and future functionality. And then they must get written assurances from vendors that their products meet those requirements.
The SGN Scorecard is a checklist that measures whether products meet minimum standards for a Smart Grid. We will use it as the benchmark for all Tech Talk reviews. You are invited to use it free of charge for your own evaluations. For a further explanation and a blank version you can copy freely, download the PDF version of the Scorecard. (See link below.)
The purpose of a Router in the Smart Grid
Power system information is critical for today's utility, and the devices that are being deployed to monitor, control, and protect the grid contain vast amounts of valuable data. Getting to this data is one of the utilities’ biggest challenges, however, and the network router has become one of the key components in the utilities’ process control networks.
The router's role in any network is typically to perform the tasks of routing and forwarding information by connecting two or more logical subnets, which do not necessarily map one-to-one to the physical interfaces of the router. In addition, routers have become one of the mainstays of network perimeter defense by supporting advanced security features such as Stateful Packet Inspection (SPI) firewall and Intrusion Detection System (IDS) functionality.
The role of a router deployed within the substation environment to support the Smart Grid is no different. However, the needs for these deployments are significantly different than their corporate/business network counterparts. While most any commercially available network device can be deployed within the substation, utilities are increasingly requiring "substation hardened" solutions meeting requirements outlined by the IEC 61850-3 and IEEE 1613 standards to support critical monitoring, control, and protection applications.
ICI Networks Product Lineup
ICI Networks is one of Cisco's Technology Development Partners. Although their traditional focus has been on the wireless and mobile market, they now offer a version of their platform that uses the Cisco Systems 3200 Series Mobile Access Router (MAR) product family called the Modular Infrastructure Scalable Utility Router or MISUR™. According to the ICI Datasheet, the MISUR™ is a "rugged integrated services router designed to meet the harsh demands of the utility industry."
Evaluating the components
To start our evaluation, let’s state the obvious: Cisco is considered by most to be the "gold standard" when it comes to measuring the functionality of network infrastructure solutions. The substation environment is no exception. However, Cisco historically has not provided substation-hardened products into the utility market. The result was that utilities could choose either feature rich CISCO functionality or substation hardened hardware, but not both.
In our experience, three common shortcomings are evident when it comes to router use within the substation network environment:
The ICI Networks MISUR™ utilizes a Cisco 3270 rugged ISR standalone router card and accompanying Cisco IOS software installed in a hardened hardware platform aimed at the utility market. This product was commercially released in October 2008, and ICI has done a good job in addressing the basic hardened hardware needs for the utility. The hardware stats on the unit are as follows:
Base Configuration
Common Features
The real punch of the ICI Networks MISUR™ comes from the feature set we have all come to expect from a Cisco IOS, which includes the following:
Support for the software side of things is standard Cisco. Cisco Technical Assistance Center (TAC) is the first line support for the end user and Cisco SMARTnet™ covers IOS upgrades and general software support.
ICI appears to be fairly new to the substation/power system network equipment market space so our advice to them, or any other newcomer, is to spend some time to understand the utility industry’s goals and the applications which they use to achieve them. This goes well beyond building hardware to meet IEEE 1613 and IEC 61850-3 requirements. Utilities and integrators rely heavily on equipment suppliers for technical advice and the occasional sanity check. The effectiveness of this advice in many cases relates to the suppliers level of understanding of the power grid as well as the applications and systems deployed to monitor, control, and protect it. End users may not always be IT experts or even IT "savvy" as these networks are often supported by the utility groups responsible for the substation and process control systems and not the traditional corporate IT staff. In some cases, you may need to communicate to the process control and power system personnel using a different vocabulary that you would with the traditional IT staff.
The ICI Networks MISUR™ compared to competitors
Overall, the ICI Networks MISUR™ scores well against the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture elements and SGN's Smart Grid Scorecard. (Scroll down for the final score.) ICI Network's primary competitors for the MISUR™ are Garrettcom and Ruggedcom.
If we look at the core router functionality and support, the MISUR™ stacks up well against the competition primarily due to the CISCO IOS. Despite this, most competitors in this market space don't usually charge for software releases, so the necessity of the end user carrying an active Cisco SMARTnet™ contract on the MISUR™ in order to receive IOS upgrades might be a sticking point for some.
Looking at other aspects of the product however, the competition does support additional features aimed at the utility market such as integrated GPS, 10Mb and 100Mb fiber optic interfaces, panel/DIN mounting option. Some products which compete with the MISUR™ do allow the end user more flexibility in the hardware configuration as well.
One emerging application in the substation environment involves wide-area protection and remedial action schemes. These applications require substation-to-substation layer 2 communications using IEC 61850 Generic Object Oriented Substation Event (GOOSE) messages. GOOSE messages use Layer 2 multicast frames to distribute its messages and is hence incapable of operating outside of a switched Ethernet Network. The GOOSE tunnel feature provides a capability to bridge GOOSE frames over a WAN, and one competing product to the MISUR™ currently supports this feature.
Where the ICI Networks MISUR™ still falls short
One area where we feel the MISUR™ still falls short is IEEE 1613 and IEC 61850-3 certification. As mentioned earlier in this evaluation, network devices certified to these requirements are quickly becoming mandatory in many utilities' substation network deployment. As utilities migrate from the traditional serial-based infrastructure to IP-based technology for process control and substation automation systems, network infrastructure can be perceived as the "weak link" if not built to the same standards as the other system components. The MISUR™ was commercially released in October 2008 but has not yet been certified to meet IEEE 1613 and IEC 61850-3 requirements. According to ICI, the IEEE 1613 certification program is ongoing for the MISUR™, and IEC 61850-3 certification will be considered at a later date.
Another shortcoming is available documentation. If you have already tried to find the literature for this device via the ICI Networks Web site, Cisco Web site, or internet search engine, then you more than likely have found yourself lacking as did we. We acquired our information on the product the old-fashioned way, from a hard copy of a presentation given to one of our clients and by getting in touch with the folks at ICI (via our Cisco contacts). The MISUR™ will turn some heads as a viable option, but it is going to take exposure to the electric utility market first. The best place to start is easy-to-find documentation.
SGN’s Smart Grid Checklist:
ICI Networks claims that the MISUR™ is designed to meet the harsh conditions and demands of the utility industry. Our analysis based on our metrics generally confirms this claim. In general, the ICI Networks MISUR™ embodies key elements of the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture, which we believe are key to implementing the Smart Grid through well-integrated applications such as the following:
ICI Networks MISUR™ Smart Grid Checklist scores — total score of 80 (out of 100)
.
Overall, we think this product is a good addition to the substation network equipment market space. One of the biggest challenges affecting utility efforts in deploying substation network infrastructure has been choice. With ICI/Cisco's entry into this market space, we see a positive impact for the utilities facilitated by the enhanced competition among the equipment suppliers. Competition in the market space equals utilities having more control over costs and more functionality in the products they choose.
Erich W. Gunther is Chairman of EnerNex Corporation. He chairs the UtilityAMI / OpenHAN standards group and serves on the GridWise Architecture Council.
Research Credit: Brian P. Smith
Brian is a Utility Communications Systems Engineer on the Smart Grid Engineering team at EnerNex Corporation. He has extensive experience in utility communications having spent more than 17 years with the Tennessee Valley Authority prior to joining EnerNex in 2008.
EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture Web site
Cisco 3270 rugged ISR standalone router card (PDF)
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