CEN/TC 287 Geographic information

PRESENTATION PACK 

 CEN/TC 287 Geographic information and the Open Geospatial Consortium

Smart Grid and Spatial Data Infrastructure

Interoperability Challenges Now and in the Future

 DG-JRC Ispra Italy 2011-10-6/7 

ABOUT THE WORKSHOP

The European energy and climate change targets for 2020 and beyond require a major acceleration of the development and deployment of cost-effective low-carbon energy technologies (...). A single, stronger and smarter European electricity grid will have a central role to accommodate the resulting massive deployment of renewable and decentralised energy sources.“ (from: The European Electricity Grid Initiative (EEGI) , Roadmap 2010-18 and Detailed Implementation Plan 2010-12 ).

The European Community's Infrastructure for Spatial Information (INSPIRE) defines a general framework for Spatial Data Infrastructures (SDI) for the purpose to support European Community's environmental policies, and policies or activities which may have an impact on the environment. INSPIRE addresses various spatial data themes needed for environmental applications.

Now, every Smart Grid component – transformer, meter, air conditioner, power plant, electric car, solar panel, etc. - has a location on Earth. Every grid event or phenomenon — brown-out, demand variability, power surge, regulation, transmission loss, etc. — occurs within some time interval and most importantly at some location in space along the grid’s physical network. The same is true for every external event or phenomenon that affects the grid, such as weather alerts. Spatial parameters have significant impact in every scenario affecting the grid – geospatial is thus a cross-cutting issue.

To drive additionally, interoperability between various systems and grids, the industry is largely focused on standards from the International Electronic Commission (IEC) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), which support the definition(s) of power distribution technologies. However the spatial information is not standardized. This is where spatial standards such as standards from the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), the European Committee for Standardization (CEN) and the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC) would add value.

Within INSPIRE, great progress has been achieved in harmonizing not only the spatial aspects of environmental data, but also the additional thematic data related to these spatial objects. This goes far past the provision of descriptive attributes for spatial objects; it also encompasses the provision of data ranging from primary measurement data from environmental monitoring stations over aggregated coverage data interpolating the point measurements to a continuum to multidimensional coverages to simulated forecast data. Integrating this data with Smart Grid would be a great asset in assuring that the full potential of environmentally friendly energy production and consumption can be fulfilled in Europe.

  CHALLENGE

The mix of legacy systems and emerging modules in distributed environments, using geospatial standards are key to a successful integration and interoperability strategy. Consequently, standards developing organizations like CEN and the OGC can play a key role by working with other standards organizations to ensure that the Smart Grid standards framework includes a single set of standards for geospatial interfaces and encodings. Keeping the extensions of these standards as developed through INSPIRE aligned with Smart Grid development will assure future interoperability.

This workshop is the first of two, challenging us to explore the added value to Smart Grid through location and SDI communities. This will help to make better use of interoperability aspects between systems and identify tomorrow’s opportunities.

Speaker biographies