It’s hard to see a downside to implementing the smart grid. It is an architecture and societal enhancement that makes sense no matter what. And the faster we do it, the more sense it makes, not just for the environment, but for your business and the simple pleasure of not being so wasteful. And, it offers opportunities for telecom and B/OSS providers to collaborate with their utility brethren.
Sure, there are concerns, cyber-security being high on the list. Taking advantage of stimulus dollars before they dry up or are rescinded is another. But the argument for or against moving forward has pretty much been decided. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 has declared supporting smart grid a national policy, and the National Institute of Standards and Technology’s (NIST) has already published its “Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards, Release 1.0.”
Telecom folks have salivated over the smart grid from the start, but it’s only within the last year utilities have begun to change their tune on collaborating. Electric utilities are fiercely independent (well, as independent as regulated entities can be), and often prefer to go it alone, even with regards to their communications networking needs.
Their position on building and maintaining their own networks is driven largely by the rate-of-return structure under which they operate. Because the regulatory environment requires an assurance that those networks are well-utilized in order to recover their investment, utilities were predisposed not to work with telcos for network infrastructure. It’s a business model with which telcos were very familiar once upon a regulated time.
“They were pretty adamant that they did not want any involvement with telecom providers, but in the past few months that has really changed, and the operative term lately has been ‘hybrid,’” said Rilck Noel, managing director for Verizon Communications Inc.’s global energy and utility practice.
The change in tune is partly due to the monumental shift in scale that utilities are about to undergo. It also is due to strong suggestions by the Department of Energy and recommendations in the National Broadband Plan that utilities collaborate with telecom.
Study Time
To fully understand the needs of the utility sector, Verizon and the Utilities Telecom Council (UTC) began a study in June of the communications and IT requirements of utilities. The resulting report will provide recommendations on critical communications infrastructure for the smart grid.
The UTC is a global trade association representing entities that own, manage or provide critical telecommunications systems in support of core services like electricity. The new study with Verizon gets into the nitty-gritty of security, reliability, latency, backward compatibility and required coverage.
