Industrial Integration with the Smart Grid and Architecture

The focus of this project is to develop the measurement science and standards needed to enable smart manufacturing systems to cost-effectively and securely interact with and make use of the full spectrum of actionable energy information available from the new smart grid. Industrial facilities are evolving toward information-enabled manufacturing, using modeling and simulation with real-time data, as key methods to improve quality and efficiency.  A national effort has been undertaken to modernize the electricity generation, transmission, and distribution system creating an electric grid that is more robust and reliable, includes distributed renewable energy sources, and provides energy information to users. Linking these two efforts is important to the grid because information about forecasted load and the ability to moderate loads through shedding or utilizing local generation capacity is important for maintaining grid stability and reliability. It is important to industrial users because energy cost and reliability are significant factors in managing the quality and efficiency of the process.

Objective:  To develop the technical basis for industry standards that will enable secure interconnection of industrial facilities with a future smart electric grid and support industry efforts to develop the needed standards, by 2015.

What is the new technical idea?  The new technical idea is to develop information modeling standards and an interoperability framework for the industrial sector that will enable the secure use of the full spectrum of actionable energy information available from the smart grid.  This project will develop information models, data representation methods, and cyber security requirements, working with industry stakeholders to analyze use cases and develop approaches that can be adopted through consensus standards. This project will perform research into industrial facility control methodologies based on distributed energy resources (DER) availability, electricity price, and local markets, with testing in a simulation environment and in the NIST Smart Manufacturing Testbed.  In addition, this project will develop performance metrics to determine the impact of implementing smart grid cyber security requirements in industrial environments.

What is the research plan?  This project addresses communications, interoperability, and cyber security needs for integrating industrial facilities with a smart grid via two research components:

1. Industrial to smart grid connectivity focused on priority facility interface standards needs identified in the NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Gird Interoperability Standards. These include price, demand response, energy usage and load, and communications for distributed energy resources (generation and storage) including load forecasting.  This work will result in information modeling standards (industrial aspect of ASHRAE/NEMA 201 Facility Smart Grid Information Model) and an interoperability framework for the industrial sector.  The project will develop specifications for industrial protocols (e.g. MTConnect, OPC-UA) to support the ASHRAE/NEMA 201 Facility Smart Grid Information Model.  The project will also develop load and generation prediction algorithms, and DER optimization strategies for industrial facility interaction with the smart grid taking into account key variables: electricity price, DR signals, availability of local generation and storage, weather, and user inputs.  Proposed NIST laboratory facilities (e.g., Smart Manufacturing Testbed, Smart Microgrids Testbed) will be leveraged to test and demonstrate information models and control strategies.
2. Assessment of industrial cyber security standards and identification of gaps in the standards to ensure that cyber security practices and standards for industrial systems meet smart grid requirements.  This work will result in mappings between existing industrial cyber security standards and NISTIR 7628 smart grid cyber security requirements.  The project will also develop performance metrics to determine the impact of implementing the NISTIR 7628 cyber security requirements within industrial environments and leverage proposed NIST laboratory facilities (e.g., Smart Manufacturing Testbed, Smart Microgrids Testbed) to implement, test and demonstrate NIST 7628 cyber security requirements.

Project investigators will also support the broader NIST Smart Grid Program, providing technical direction on issues related to industrial interaction in the smart grid.

Recent Results:

Outputs:

• Industry-to-Grid Roadmap developed to define the Smart Grid objectives for the industrial sector and define the barriers to interoperability for these objectives [2010]
• Smart Grid Industry-to-Grid Summit at the 2011 ARC World Industry Forum
  The Industry-to-Grid Summit gathered industry experts to discuss how Smart Grid deployments impact the industrial consumer. Discussions included topics from time-based pricing, to automated demand response and how smarter energy decisions help industrial consumers save money and even generate revenue [2011]
• Published mappings of NERC CIP cyber security standards to NISTIR 7628 cyber security requirements to harmonize the cyber security standards being developed for the bulk electric system (NERC CIPs) and the Smart Grid as a whole (NISTIR 7628) [2012]
• Customer Energy Services Interface White Paper that defines the requirements an ESI-based industrial gateway [2012]
• Industry-to-Grid Roadmap revised to address issues raised during the Industry-to-Grid Summit, including how the industrial sector will implement demand response [2012]
  

Outcomes:

• Real-time Price to Energy Regional Pilot Program was successfully demonstrated at 2011 Connectivity Week showing industrial actions based on real-time energy prices [2011]
• NERC CIP standards drafting team reference NISTIR 7628 mappings to develop Version 5 of the CIP standards [2012]

Standards and Codes:

This project will contribute industrial information models to the Facility Smart Grid Information Model specification from the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), energy specification information to the OPC standard from the OPC Foundation and the MTConnect specification from the Association for Manufacturing Technology (AMT), and cyber security information to the Critical Infrastructure Protection (CIP) standards from the North American Electric Reliability Corporation (NERC) in 2013.