U.S.A. --- (METERING.COM) --- December 17 - The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), a division of the United States Department of Commerce, has selected R. W. Beck company Plexus Research Inc., to support its activities on smart grid standards of interoperability.

In terms of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA 2007) the NIST is directed to identify existing and developing standards related to smart grid technologies, assess their current functional and technical interoperability, and prioritize actions to achieve a higher level of interoperability that would benefit utilities, businesses and consumers. Plexus Research and R. W. Beck will provide the smart grid domain expertise to fulfill this mandate.

The effort comprises three key deliverables to NIST:
A smart grid standards knowledge base (SKB) that will serve as a central repository describing standards that support operation and integration of smart grid applications.
A smart grid standards interoperability assessment (SIA) that will identify alignment, overlaps, and gaps among smart grid standards.
A smart grid standards landscape map (SLM) that provides an interface for user access to the SKB and SIA. The SLM will enable a broad base of users to view and understand the elements, structure, status, and development of the smart grid standards landscape. The expected users of the SLM will be the smart grid standards development community, smart grid stakeholders, various media, and political leaders who want to monitor, enable, and encourage smart grid progress.

“This work for NIST dovetails very well with several other smart grid-related projects Plexus Research and R.W. Beck are engaged in,” said Tim Wolf, vice president at Plexus Research. “Achieving a high level of interoperability is essential to achieving the smart grid vision, and we look forward to helping NIST provide the tools, processes and data necessary to support ‘harmonization’ of standards in the smart grid sector.”

R. W. Beck is a group of technically based business consultants serving public and private infrastructure organizations worldwide. Plexus Research provides utility industry consulting services in the technologies, applications and economics of advanced energy systems, especially in the areas of AMI and AMR among others.