Smart Grid Standard and User’s Manual Developed by NEMA and ASHRAE

The National Electrical Manufacturers Association (Rosslyn, Va.) and the American Society for Heating Refrigeration and the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) introduced an important document to support the continued growth of smart grid technologies.

ANSI/ASHRAE/NEMA Standard 201-2016, Facility Smart Grid Information Model, provides a common basis for electrical energy consumers to describe, manage and communicate about electrical energy consumption and forecasts. The standard is packaged with a user's manual, NEMA said in a release.

The standard is part of ASHRAE's supporting efforts for the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), a private-public partnership initiated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to speed development of interoperability and cyber security standards for a nationwide smart electric power grid.

"The technologies that are enabling high performance buildings are evolving at a fever pitch and the need for a common model for communication of energy data is essential," Robert Hick, vice president engineering for Leviton Manufacturing and co-vice chair of the Standard 201P committee representing NEMA, said. "Adherence to this standard will insure interoperability of energy systems within all types of buildings and compatibility with the smart grid for current and future technologies. The contributors to this publication come from a broad collection of stakeholders in all the related industries and their dedicated efforts to developing and publishing this standard could not be more timely."

The standard provides a way to model real building systems as a combination of four abstract components: loads, generators, meters and energy managers. The associations have started a ballot initiative to approve Standard 201 as an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) standard. If approved, the ballot, which is expected to take several months to complete, would move the standard to publication as an ISO standard.

Read: Smart Grid Standard and User’s Manual Developed by NEMA and ASHRAE