Opportunities for standardization in utility customer-facing systems are no exception. This impetus has led the Customer Care Research Consortium (CCRC) to tackle the utility customer service standardization challenge head-on. The CCRC is a forum for 14 of the leading electric and gas utilities to conduct research and provide industry leadership on issues concerning customer strategy across operational, technological, and regulatory dimensions.
In 2006, CCRC member companies recognized a convergence of industry trends set to bring about an inevitable transformation in the utility customer experience -- and the need for a technology infrastructure to deliver it. Over a 17 month period, CCRC member companies studied these customer service standardization opportunities.
Supported by a team of consultants from Navigant Consulting, DEFG and Xanthus Consulting, the member companies – including AEP, Dominion, Duke Energy, Exelon, Hydro One, and Pepco Holdings, Inc. – formally launched the Utility Standards Board (USB) in late 2007.
The goal of the USB is to improve interoperability among the systems used in customer service, increase the efficiency of the customer service process and encourage innovation. This is accomplished through collaboration and information sharing, the discussion and creation of best practices related to potential standards, providing clarity around issues/areas that lend themselves to standardization, and the development and application of de facto standards.
"De facto" standards are standards developed and accepted by an industry, but not officially sanctioned by a recognized standards body. As a leading group of utilities, the USB has the ability to combine resources to quickly identify, develop and/or advocate de facto standards within the industry in order to encourage customer systems interoperability. The USB intends to promote these de facto standards and, where warranted, submit proposed standards for promulgation by official standard setting bodies, such as the International Electrotechnical Commission (ICE) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE).
Because of the near-term priority for all member companies, the USB’s 2008 focus is on Advanced Meter Infrastructure (AMI) data processing, with a particular emphasis on standardization opportunities for Meter Data Management (MDM) solution interfaces. With a growing number of utilities rapidly launching AMI initiatives across North America and Europe, there is increasing attention on the enormous data management challenges of MDM. While a number of MDM solutions are currently available on the market, various organizations – including the ICE, the GridWise Alliance, and the UCA International Users Group – are working on interface standards that impact AMI data management. However, the industry’s progress in establishing actionable integration and interface standards is moving slowly. The USB hopes to help accelerate the standards development process by focusing on:
- Utility-specific and practical MDM implementation solutions
- An enterprise MDM picture aligned with providing information and functionality for the entire customer service experience
- An MDM architecture that improves efficiency and integrates with the Smart Grid
When the USB began investigating opportunities for MDM standardization, it quickly realized that an MDM system is far more than a data base of interval usage data – future requirements for valid interval consumption information to support innovative product offerings, billing, planning, operations and the Smart Grid all positioned MDM as a critical enterprise solution. With this in mind, the USB established a set of principles to guide MDM investments:
- MDM is one of several mission-critical enterprise solutions required to enable business transformation made possible by Smart Grid concepts
- MDM must serve the needs of our customers, multiple business functions within the utility, and other external stakeholders
- Due to rapidly evolving business needs, technologies, and standards, the need for flexibility is paramount
- Ownership and operation of MDM should be considered at time of design
- There is both ”value” and “risk” associated with the volumes of data that MDM generates
- Changing business requirements/technologies requires a plan for possible obsolescence of the first generation MDM solution -- key in this regard will be data portability and “plug and play” flexibility
- MDM design standards should avoid discouraging innovation
- Because multiple data networks are likely, MDM must be designed to process data from diverse network feeds
USB member companies debated regarding the functionality that should be included in a MDM. After significant discussion amongst USB member companies, and with leading MDM providers, the USB developed a point of view on the core functionality that should be part of a mission-critical enterprise MDM. This is illustrated in Figure 1, and recognizes the need to interface with diverse networks as well as a multitude of mission critical systems.
Figure 1: USB Point of View on MDM Core Functionality
For 2008, the USB has a full agenda and will focus its MDM standardization efforts on four work streams:
1. Meter Event Codes
2. AMI Headend Data Acquisition
3. Outage Detection and Restoration
4. Remote Connect Disconnect Functionality
These work streams represent a mix of de facto standards development and functional requirements that can be used to develop standards. A schedule for the USB 2008 standardization activities is shown in Figure 2.
Figure 2: USB 2008 MDM Standardization Activities
Meter Event Codes Work Stream – will develop proposed standards for how AMI headend and MDM solutions should name, define and enable automated processing of meter error and event codes—irrespective of the meters and networks in use.
AMI Headend Data Acquisition Work Stream – responds to the fact that data will have to be acquired from a diverse number of network headends for an AMI system. This diversity is required to meet differing customer requirements, utility strategic decisions, and regulatory constraints, as well as the variety of vendors implementing these AMI systems. In addition, utilities will need to acquire AMI data from different entities, including other utilities, Meter Data Management Agencies (MDMAs) and other third parties.
The acquisition of data from different headend networks is a core functional requirement of the MDM system. This effort will focus on developing the functional requirements involving acquisition of interval metering and meter registers from AMI headends. Based on these requirements, a standardized information model and format will be developed that will serve as a basis for establishing a standard approach to acquiring information from the headend.
Outage Detection and Restoration Work Stream – cuts across many systems, making it a function that critically relies on the interoperability of these many systems, and making standardization of the various interfaces more challenging. This is an area where significant work has been undertaken by other groups, but is far from complete. The ongoing efforts include:
- The standardization work of the IEC in IEC 61968-9 and in the CIM covers some aspects of outage detection
- The AMI-oriented Use Cases developed by Southern California Edison (SCE) address the functional requirements for AMI systems
- MultiSpeak, developed on behalf of the NRECA cooperatives, provides some basic interfaces
- Other industry driven standards consortiums do not directly address outage management.
These efforts have made significant contributions, but additional details are required in order to develop standards for implementation in an MDM system. In keeping with the USB’s objective of focusing on efforts that can deliver value to its members in a reasonable timeframe, this effort will focus on developing functional requirements and the assessment of the work by other organizations. The functional requirements will be assessed in light of those other efforts, in order to determine which interfaces best represent opportunities for standardization.
Remote Connect/Disconnect Work Stream – like outage detection, cuts across utility systems, requiring both system interoperability and presenting challenges to interface standardization.
Additional detail is required to develop a standard for implementation in an MDM system. Like the Outage Detection and Restoration work stream, this effort will focus primarily on developing functional requirements and the assessment of the work of other organizations. These functional requirements can then be assessed in light of those efforts, to determine which interfaces best represent opportunities for standardization.
While the USB is a relatively young organization, it has made significant strides with regards to investigating the valuable opportunities for standardization in the customer service area. And, the USB has identified a significant opportunity for standardizing the interfaces associated with MDM systems.
Finding standard solutions to capitalize on these opportunities will not be easy because of the diversity in customer needs, business strategies and industry regulations. As an industry-based organization, the Utility Standards Board provides a nimble, inclusive forum that enables utilities and solution providers to accelerate the process of bringing the benefits of MDM interoperability standards to market, helping to avoid the escalating costs and risks associated with proprietary system interfaces.
The USB member companies invite all interested parties to join them in this collaborative enterprise. For more information about the USB, or to become a member company, please contact: Tom Brunetto of DEFG, LLC at tbrunetto@defgllc.com or Peter Shaw of Navigant Consulting at pshaw@navigantconsulting.com.
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