What follows are personal musings as we enter public review 02 of OASIS Energy Interoperation. This part of the specification is not feature-complete nor approved by the technical committee.
Energy Interoperation is nearly complete. The OpenADR Alliance will build an industry around the event oriented profiles of Energy Interoperation. New business models and new interactions will spring from the transactive profile, TEMIX. We now have market interfaces for smart energy. The largest problem that remains is finding the market.
Energy Interoperation refines the Market Context, originating in EMIX, to name and define the agreements and interactions that end nodes of smart grids can participate in. We use a shallow definition for end nodes: an end node may front a micro-grid, a campus, or utility or co-op. The grid behind the end node may itself have its own internal markets of energy. The Virtual End Node (VEN), is one of the key participants, one of the essential roles of smart energy.
The top node is the VEN’s partner. Again, Energy Interoperation makes no assumptions about what is behind a Virtual Top Node (VTN). A VTN may be a market surface of an ISO, or of a utility. A VTN may represent the market gateway of a coop or of a commercial landlord. A VEN above may get its assets from a VTN below, and that VTN may have its own interactions with VENs not visible from the outside.
One could summarize the VTN as something that offers a variety of Market Contexts to a VEN. A Market Context may represent a particular tariff or DR program or even a 100 MW 10 hour power trading market. It may even happen that a VEN can find the same Market Context at more than one available VTN. Whether Market Contexts are tied to a single VTN or not is a market rule that is outside the scope of Energy Interoperation.
In the Energy Interoperation model, a Market is the sum of all Market Contexts available to a VEN. The first task of a newly booted, or newly installed VEN is to find the Market. In Energy Interoperation, this begins with Registration—and to register, a VEN must find a Registrar.
There will be many ways to find a Registrar. Because all markets are local, generic internet DNS services will be insufficient to find a registrar without additional information. The home or commercial system enter the URL of a local utility, or may sign up through a customer service page. The utility may confirm the VEN-related customer information as part of registration. They may borrow registration from OpenADE or they may need to know two of three facts: meter ID, customer number, and street address. In the English or Texas models, the meter provider or energy service provider may provide automatic registration.
In the micro-grid, or within a single building, we may need to use multi-cast DNS to use Service Discovery Protocol, as defined in ZeroConf (or as Apple calls it, Bonjour) to find the registrar. Equipment manufacturers and ESI developers may use up-to-date databases to provide a pointer to a registrar at the end of warranty registration. Perhaps a trade association, such as the OpenADR Alliance will maintain a list of registrars, or offer a registration service itself.
However it happens, finding a registrar it out of scope for Energy Interoperation. Different markets will make different choices.
The Energy Interoperation registrar provides the Registration Services. These are separate from the other services of Energy Interoperation, although they can coexist on a VTN. The registrar assigns the VEN a unique identifier for that market. A Registrar also can provide the VEN with a list of VTNs that it can enroll with. A Registrar may also be able to offer pre-enrollment services.
During enrollment, a VEN signs up with a VTN for one or more of the Market Contexts available through that VTN. Pre-enrollment services inform the VEN of what market contexts are available to it, and the VTNS that can provide them. A simple building-based environment may offer the building systems a single VTN and a single Market Context. A Utility-based Registrar may offer a suite of tariffs and programs, available from a single VTN. An open market may offer any number of VTNs. Those decisions are out of scope for the specification.
During enrolment, a VEN subscribes to one or more market contexts. For some markets, it may be necessary to enroll different resources, such as PEV, PV Generation, or a DR Asset inside the VENs account with that VTN. In others, those in which results are everything, the VEN may choose to only establish an Account with the VTN, but register no resources.
Each enrolment, whether Account or Resource, includes a schedule. It is possible to enroll in different programs for different times of day or days of the week. These schedules are described using Availability (vavailability) as defined in WS-Calendar.
There may be a substantial time in mid-enrollment between initiating enrollment and completing enrollment. Some markets may require that the VEN register a performance bond, or submit to a credit review. Some may even require physical inspection of assets. It may be impossible to exchange al enrollment information.
There may be a substantial time in mid-enrollment between initiating enrollment and completing enrollment. Some markets may require that the VEN register a performance bond, or submit to a credit review. Some may even require physical inspection of assets. It may be impossible to exchange al enrollment information.
However it happens, enrollment is complete when the information collected through on-line services and out-of-band practices is sufficient. When a VEN receives notification that enrollment is complete from the VTN, the VTN will begin to send Market signals, and the VEN can begin making tenders and accepting transactions.
Change adds some complexity to the service families above. My new Home EnergyMaster Plus™ may be recognized as a replacement registration for my old Home EnergyMaster™. The registrar must be able to direct the new system to the pre-existing enrollments. A VEN may choose to un-enroll from a Market Context.
But bootstrapping smart energy all begins with registration.