Information standards to support application and enterprise interoperability for the smart grid

Copyright @ 2012 IEEE.Current changes in the European electricity industry are driven by regulatory directives to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, at the same time as replacing aged infrastructure and maintaining energy security. There is a wide acceptance of the requirement for smarter grids to support such changes and accommodate variable injections from renewable energy sources. However the design templates are still emerging to manage the level of information required to meet challenges such as balancing, planning and market dynamics under this new paradigm. While secure and scalable cloud computing architectures may contribute to supporting the informatics challenges of the smart grid, this paper focuses on the essential need for business alignment with standardised information models such as the IEC Common Information Model (CIM), to leverage data value and control system interoperability. In this paper we present details of use cases being considered by National Grid, the GB transmission system operator for information interoperability in pan-network system management and planning.This study is financially supported by the National Grid, UK

Deliverable JRA1.1: Evaluation of current network control and management planes for multi-domain network infrastructure

This deliverable includes a compilation and evaluation of available control and management architectures and protocols applicable to a multilayer infrastructure in a multi-domain Virtual Network environment.The scope of this deliverable is mainly focused on the virtualisation of the resources within a network and at processing nodes. The virtualization of the FEDERICA infrastructure allows the provisioning of its available resources to users by means of FEDERICA slices. A slice is seen by the user as a real physical network under his/her domain, however it maps to a logical partition (a virtual instance) of the physical FEDERICA resources. A slice is built to exhibit to the highest degree all the principles applicable to a physical network (isolation, reproducibility, manageability, ...). Currently, there are no standard definitions available for network virtualization or its associated architectures. Therefore, this deliverable proposes the Virtual Network layer architecture and evaluates a set of Management- and Control Planes that can be used for the partitioning and virtualization of the FEDERICA network resources. This evaluation has been performed taking into account an initial set of FEDERICA requirements; a possible extension of the selected tools will be evaluated in future deliverables. The studies described in this deliverable define the virtual architecture of the FEDERICA infrastructure. During this activity, the need has been recognised to establish a new set of basic definitions (taxonomy) for the building blocks that compose the so-called slice, i.e. the virtual network instantiation (which is virtual with regard to the abstracted view made of the building blocks of the FEDERICA infrastructure) and its architectural plane representation. These definitions will be established as a common nomenclature for the FEDERICA project. Other important aspects when defining a new architecture are the user requirements. It is crucial that the resulting architecture fits the demands that users may have. Since this deliverable has been produced at the same time as the contact process with users, made by the project activities related to the Use Case definitions, JRA1 has proposed a set of basic Use Cases to be considered as starting point for its internal studies. When researchers want to experiment with their developments, they need not only network resources on their slices, but also a slice of the processing resources. These processing slice resources are understood as virtual machine instances that users can use to make them behave as software routers or end nodes, on which to download the software protocols or applications they have produced and want to assess in a realistic environment. Hence, this deliverable also studies the APIs of several virtual machine management software products in order to identify which best suits FEDERICA’s needs.Postprint (published version

A critical comparison of approaches to resource name management within the IEC common information model

Copyright @ 2012 IEEEElectricity network resources are frequently identified within different power systems by inhomogeneous names and identities due to the legacy of their administration by different utility business domains. The IEC 61970 Common Information Model (CIM) enables network modeling to reflect the reality of multiple names for unique network resources. However this issue presents a serious challenge to the integrity of a shared CIM repository that has the task of maintaining a resource manifest, linking network resources to master identities, when unique network resources may have multiple names and identities derived from different power system models and other power system applications. The current approach, using CIM 15, is to manage multiple resource names within a singular CIM namespace utilizing the CIM “IdentifiedObject” and “Name” classes. We compare this approach to one using additional namespaces relating to different power systems, similar to the practice used in CIM extensions, in order to more clearly identify the genealogy of a network resource, provide faster model import times and a simpler means of supporting the relationship between multiple resource names and identities and a master resource identity.This study is supported by the UK National Grid and Brunel University

Dynamic Model-based Management of Service-Oriented Infrastructure.

Models are an effective tool for systems and software design. They allow software architects to abstract from the non-relevant details. Those qualities are also useful for the technical management of networks, systems and software, such as those that compose service oriented architectures. Models can provide a set of well-defined abstractions over the distributed heterogeneous service infrastructure that enable its automated management. We propose to use the managed system as a source of dynamically generated runtime models, and decompose management processes into a composition of model transformations. We have created an autonomic service deployment and configuration architecture that obtains, analyzes, and transforms system models to apply the required actions, while being oblivious to the low-level details. An instrumentation layer automatically builds these models and interprets the planned management actions to the system. We illustrate these concepts with a distributed service update operation

Communication and control in small batch part manufacturing

This paper reports on the development of a real-time control network as an integrated part of a shop floor control system for small batch part manufacturing. The shop floor control system is called the production control system (PCS). The PCS aims at an improved control of small batch part manufacturing systems, enabling both a more flexible use of resources and a decrease in the economical batch size. For this, the PCS integrates various control functions such as scheduling, dispatching, workstation control and monitoring, whilst being connected on-line to the production equipment on the shop floor. The PCS can be applied irrespective of the level of automation on the shop floor. The control network is an essential part of the PCS, as it provides a real-time connection between the different modules (computers) of the PCS, which are geographically distributed over the shop floor. An overview of the requirements of such a control network is given. The description of the design includes the services developed, the protocols used and the physical layout of the network. A prototype of the PCS, including the control network, has been installed and tested in a pilot plant. The control network has proven that it can supply a manufacturing environment, consisting of equipment from different vendors with different levels of automation, with a reliable, low cost, real-time communication facility

Multi-agent systems for power engineering applications - part 2 : Technologies, standards and tools for building multi-agent systems

This is the second part of a 2-part paper that has arisen from the work of the IEEE Power Engineering Society's Multi-Agent Systems (MAS) Working Group. Part 1 of the paper examined the potential value of MAS technology to the power industry, described fundamental concepts and approaches within the field of multi-agent systems that are appropriate to power engineering applications, and presented a comprehensive review of the power engineering applications for which MAS are being investigated. It also defined the technical issues which must be addressed in order to accelerate and facilitate the uptake of the technology within the power and energy sector. Part 2 of the paper explores the decisions inherent in engineering multi-agent systems for applications in the power and energy sector and offers guidance and recommendations on how MAS can be designed and implemented. Given the significant and growing interest in this field, it is imperative that the power engineering community considers the standards, tools, supporting technologies and design methodologies available to those wishing to implement a MAS solution for a power engineering problem. The paper describes the various options available and makes recommendations on best practice. It also describes the problem of interoperability between different multi-agent systems and proposes how this may be tackled

A New Approach for Quality Management in Pervasive Computing Environments

This paper provides an extension of MDA called Context-aware Quality Model Driven Architecture (CQ-MDA) which can be used for quality control in pervasive computing environments. The proposed CQ-MDA approach based on ContextualArchRQMM (Contextual ARCHitecture Quality Requirement MetaModel), being an extension to the MDA, allows for considering quality and resources-awareness while conducting the design process. The contributions of this paper are a meta-model for architecture quality control of context-aware applications and a model driven approach to separate architecture concerns from context and quality concerns and to configure reconfigurable software architectures of distributed systems. To demonstrate the utility of our approach, we use a videoconference system.Comment: 10 pages, 10 Figures, Oral Presentation in ECSA 201