This LF Energy webinar took place June 20, 2024. It featured:
-Alex Thornton, LF Energy
-Hallie Cramer, Google
-Daniel Roesler, UtilityAPI
-Henry Richardson, WattTime
In response to the urgency and scale required to effectively address climate change, open source solutions offer significant potential for driving innovation and progress. Currently, there is a growing demand for standardization and interoperability in energy data and modeling. Open source standards and specifications within the energy sector can also alleviate challenges associated with data fragmentation, transparency, and accessibility. At the same time, it is crucial to consider privacy and security concerns throughout the development of open source platforms.
This webinar will delve into the motivations behind establishing LF Energy’s Carbon Data Specification Consortium. It will provide an overview of the draft specifications and the ongoing progress made by the respective working groups.
Three primary specifications will be discussed:
-Discovery and client registration, emphasizing transparent processes and secure and private access
-Customer data, centering around customer tariffs, bills, energy usage, and full consumption disclosure
-Power systems data, focusing on grid data, inclusive of transmission and distribution networks, generation, intergrid power flows, and market settlement data
2. Antitrust Policy Notice
Linux Foundation meetings involve participation by industry competitors, and it is the
intention of the Linux Foundation to conduct all of its activities in accordance with
applicable antitrust and competition laws. It is therefore extremely important that
attendees adhere to meeting agendas, and be aware of, and not participate in, any
activities that are prohibited under applicable US state, federal or foreign antitrust and
competition laws.
Examples of types of actions that are prohibited at Linux Foundation meetings and in
connection with Linux Foundation activities are described in the Linux Foundation
Antitrust Policy available at linuxfoundation.org/antitrust-policy. If you have questions
about these matters, please contact your company counsel, or if you are a member of
the Linux Foundation, feel free to contact Andrew Updegrove of the firm of Gesmer
Updegrove LLP, which provides legal counsel to the Linux Foundation.
3. The importance of
open standards in the
energy sector
Alex Thornton, Executive Director at LF Energy
4. LF Energy accelerates the energy transition by
building communities to develop open
technologies and standards.
5. • CI/CD technical architecture design
• CI environment delivery
• Release engineering services
• Project planning, build & system go-live
• Delivery of project collaboration solutions, domain
registrations & websites
Building large, thriving, sustainable ecosystems
Value
Neutral Management
Developer Recruitment and Relations
Training
Content
IT Beyond Version
Control
Community Programs
Support and Resources
• Define problem project/code solving
• Recruit widely deployed projects/communities
• Curate projects with natural adjacency to existing project
• Demonstrate where project fits in to broader tech innovation
• Provide home for IP assets
• Define a governance structure for decisions
• Separate business decisions from technical
• Curate sense of identity superseding individuals
or firms
• Maintain IT infrastructure
In person
• Meetups
• Events
• Hackathons
• 3rd Party Events
• Evangelism
Online
• Email lists and calls/meetings
• IRC/Slack
• Github, Gitlab, etc.
• Stackoverflow
• 3rd party repos
Technical
• Code samples
• Getting started guides
• How to’s/FAQ
• API/SDK
Research & Comms
• Case Studies
• Whitepapers
• Empirical studies
• Webinars
• Social & blogs
Engage
• Massive Open Online
Course (EdX)
• Webinars
• Snackable learning
Train
• eLearning
• Classroom learning
• Subscription learning
Certify
• Skills based testing
• Ongoing engagement
• Advocate/Influence Programs
• Rewards/Recognition
• Startup/Incubator Engagement
• Student programs
• PR/AR
Self Service
• FAQ
• Forum
• Knowledgebase
• Onboarding
Community/Responsive
• Slack/IRC
• Email
• Stackoverflow
• IT operations/Release
Mgmt
Standards
• IPR Monitoring
• Document prep &
advancement
• Liaison programs
• Conformance programs
8. Why do we need standards?
Standards facilitate interoperability and
safety.
Without consistent, international standards,
interoperability and scalability are hard!
Source: https://www.gearpatrol.com/archive/a118234/guide-to-plugs-and-sockets-by-
country/
9. Why do we need standards?
The electric grid is the largest and most
complex machine ever made. It’s a system of
systems.
We operate in a global economy with multi-
national companies and trade across borders.
Standards ensure these technical and
economic systems function and thrive.
10. Traditional approach to standards
Deliberate, consensus-driven approach
ensures participants are comfortable with
resulting standards and will adopt them.
This approach works quite well, especially
with relatively stable hardware ecosystems.
11. Why do we need open standards?
Driven by digitalization and decarbonization
goals, the electric grid is changing fast.
Conservatively slow and closed standards
process sometimes isn’t fast enough to keep
up with the pace of change and incorporate
all necessary expertise.
Open standards are fast, agile, facilitate
widespread contribution and adoption, and
meet the pace demanded of the digital
energy transition.
Graphic: DOE 2020 Smart Grid System Report https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-
05/2020%20Smart%20Grid%20System%20Report_0.pdf
12. Open approach to standards
Community specification process increases speed,
agility, and pool of expertise available to contribute.
Specification is eventually submitted to standard
body to become formally recognized.
Software reference implementations of the
standard reduce variance of interpretations
and duplication of effort in implementation.
13. Governance of open standards
● Project charter defines the scope for collaboration, legal structure and
governance model
● A license determines how the specification can be used
● Defined governance framework provides long-term, structured decision-
making
14. Linux Foundation and open standards
● The Linux Foundation has tools to make setting up well-structured
standards projects easier:
○ Community Specification: provides a “standards-organization-in-a-repo.” All you have to
do is clone or copy the Community Specifications repository, fill in a few details, and get
started.
○ Joint Development Foundation: provides the corporate and legal infrastructure to enable
groups to quickly establish and operate lightweight collaborations to develop technical
specifications, standards, and source code.
● We’re an approved submitter to ISO, with success submitting standards
such as OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230:2020.
● We’re also formal partner of ETSI.
15. Summary
● Standards ensure technical and economics systems function and thrive.
● Open standards are fast, agile, and transparent.
● Open standards have clearly defined governance structures.
● The Linux Foundation has success partnering with standards bodies
such as ISO and ETSI.
24. What's hard about getting utility customer data at scale?
● Need way more data nowadays than just the customer's bills or monthly kwh
● Most customers have no idea how to get their data needed for analysis
● Individual customer data is private and sensitive and requires consent to get
● Fragmented across many utilities and other central authorities
● Data formats are mostly ad-hoc or proprietary with little documentation
● Hard to find what utilities offer what methods of access and what vendors can qualify
● Many don't offer digital methods of access (paper forms or manual processes only)
● For those that do have digital access, vendor registration is often slow, complex, and expensive
● Existing standards for digital access are proprietary, complex, and have major gaps
● Regulatory oversight is highly complex because current specifications require expert knowledge
25. Soooo… what are the
components of a scalable
connectivity standard?
26. What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?
27. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?
28. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?
29. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?
30. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?
31. CDSC-WG1's Connectivity Specifications:
CDSC-WG1-01 ("Server Metadata")
How utilities and other centralized entities can disclose what data and capabilities they offer.
CDSC-WG1-02 ("Client Registration")
How vendors can register, onboard, and manage their connectivity with utilities and other centralized entities.
32. CDSC-WG1's Connectivity Specifications:
CDSC-WG1-01 ("Server Metadata")
How utilities and other centralized entities can disclose what data and capabilities they offer.
CDSC-WG1-02 ("Client Registration")
How vendors can register, onboard, and manage their connectivity with utilities and other centralized entities.
From: https://daniel-utilityapi.github.io/Customer-Data/specs/cdsc-wg1-02/overview
From: https://daniel-utilityapi.github.io/Customer-Data/specs/cdsc-wg1-01/overview
34. Other specifications!
Our first two specifications (CDSC-WG1-01/02) can be used by
other standards to streamline third party service provider
registration and onboarding (DER, EE, EV, DR, etc.).
For example, our Customer Data specification (CDSC-WG1-03)
uses these connectivity specs as its base.
By unblocking service provider registration and onboarding, we
accelerate adoption of new innovative programs, grid flexibility,
and deployment of clean energy technologies.
36. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
37. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
Authorization
Get individual customer consent to access their data.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
38. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
Authorization
Get individual customer consent to access their data.
Data Access
Retrieve authorized customer data in a standardized format.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
39. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
Authorization
Get individual customer consent to access their data.
Data Access
Retrieve authorized customer data in a standardized format.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
CDSC-WG1-03
("Customer Data")
40. CDSC-WG1's Customer Data Specifications:
CDSC-WG1-03 ("Customer Data")
How vendors can obtain customer authorization
and how the authorized customer data should be
formatted.
Target use cases:
● Carbon Accounting
● Decarbonization Projects
● Distributed Grid Flexibility
● Building Benchmarking
From: https://daniel-utilityapi.github.io/Customer-Data/specs/cdsc-wg1-03/overview
42. How to get involved:
1. Visit our website:
https://customerdata.carbondataspec.org/
2. Join the mailing list.
3. Attend the working group meetings.
4. Give feedback on the specification drafts.
44. Power System Data Spec Intent
“Define an open specification for raw electric power system data to facilitate a
systematic and more accurate approach to report grid emissions.”
Creating a unified specification for data retrieved from power system operators,
including:
● Generation mix
● Power imports and exports
● Power market data
● Delivery capacities and/or constraints
● Power generation emissions
45. Key Concepts
Topology levels: The hierarchy of resource levels in relation to the other
resource types. (ex. Interconnection, Balancing Authority Area, Zone,
Transmission Node/Substation, Generating Plant, Meter, et).
PowerSystemResource (PSR): A specific resource within the power system,
which could range from the balancing authority to individual power plants
46. Power System Data Spec Structure
System Level Information:
● /power-system-resources/list-topology-levels
● /power-system-resources/list-resources
● /power-system-resources/list-prices
Power System Resource ‘Static’ Information:
● /power-system-resource/{id}/topology (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/describe (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/capacity (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/transmission-capacity (GET)
Power System Resource Timeseries Information:
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/emissions (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/generation (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/demand (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/imports (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/exports (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/price (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/curtailment (GET)
47. Open Questions
Is price definition sufficient? Is the spec’s treatment of prices, using a defined price set, sufficient to
address different wholesale prices that may arise?
https://github.com/carbon-data-specification/Power-Systems-Data/issues/112
Should imports and exports be combined for a given PSR? How should imports and exports be
treated?
https://github.com/carbon-data-specification/Power-Systems-Data/issues/111
Is the solution to transmission robust? Can the transmission capacity endpoint be merged with the
sibling hierarchy endpoint? How is transmission discoverable? Should transmission be a PSR?
https://github.com/carbon-data-specification/Power-Systems-Data/issues/111
