The energy industry is absolutely full of things that almost no one thinks about until they break. Until a high profile blackout or a price spike, the complex and technical questions that determine the outcomes of fundamental sector responsibilities like reliability and data security are often ignored by the broader public and even by industry analysts.
That makes it comforting to think that the experts, the people who know best and care most, are already working on some of the thorniest problems technology innovation can throw at the energy sector. Many of the best and brightest minds in the industry are working behind the scenes (but in an atmosphere of remarkable transparency) at the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a Massachusetts-based but globally oriented organization set up in 2009 under the oversight of the Department of Commerce.
Workgroups run by volunteer members of the SGIP “operate like think tanks on longer-term issues” surrounding the multiple and proliferating issues of smart grid deployment in the country’s power sector, SGIP Board Member and smart grid consultant Mike Coop told Breaking Energy in a recent discussion about the organization.
In a sector where information and change, like the electricity itself, has customarily flowed from central organizations to individuals, the stakeholder approach adopted by SGIP marks a change analogous to the physical changes wrought by smart grid itself. SGIP has a distributed model of output as well as input, Coop explained, with workgroups setting up their own deliverables and priorities and relying on their own members for information and review.
The panel’s deep bench of expertise and broad participation guidelines mean that its recommendations and ideas have already begun to impact the deployment and integration of smart grid technologies not only in the US but around the world. A cybersecurity committee that brought together the best of the “power guys” with the best of the “IT guys” resulted in guidance and benchmarks on vulnerabilities and fixes for power sector IT, Coop said. The resulting report – under the somewhat oblique name of the NISTIR 7628 – is a three-part document that has become the benchmark that the worldwide industry has looked to for guiding smart grid security programs, Coop said. For much more on NISTIR and smart gird cybersecurity, click here.
To find out more about SGIP, visit their website here.
