MARCH 15, 2016
NAESB ANNOUNCEMENT CONCERNING THE OPEN FIELD MESSAGE BUS MODEL BUSINESS PRACTICES
The NAESB Open Field Message Bus (OpenFMB) Model Business Practices, designed to enhance interoperability between proprietary devices on the electric grid, were ratified by the NAESB membership on Monday, March 7, 2016. The OpenFMB project defines a framework that provides a specification for intelligent power systems field devices to leverage a nonproprietary and standards-based reference architecture, which consists of internet protocol (IP) networking and Internet of Things (IoT) messaging protocols and standardized semantic models, to enable communications and peer-to-peer information exchange. The primary focus of the OpenFMB Model Business Practices – which includes business practices, several models, and schemas – is to create a standard framework specification to guide the industry on how OpenFMB devices can be implemented to drive field device interoperability. This NAESB standards development effort was conducted with the support of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) along with several other groups committed to the successful creation of the OpenFMB architecture.
Driven by a standards development request from Duke Energy and co-chaired by Joe Zhou of Ernst & Young and Stuart Laval of Duke Energy, the NAESB OpenFMB Task Force held its kick off meeting on April 17, 2015 and voted out the OpenFMB recommendation eight months later on December 16, 2015. Numerous entities participated in the meetings and conference calls over the course of this development effort including: National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC), National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), SGIP, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Duke Energy Corp., Ernst & Young, Xtensible Solutions LLC, Omnetric Corp., OATI, Aclara, Olenick & Associates, Florida Power & Light, Big Data Energy, and Balch & Bingham. The approval of the OpenFMB Model Business Practices by the NAESB Retail Markets Quadrant Executive Committee occurred just in time for the OpenFMB live demo that was showcased during the DistribuTECH conference this February. Another successful live demo was presented to the industry at the SGIP Annual Conference at the close of last year.
The OpenFMB Model Business Practices will constitute a new book, RMQ.26, within the Version 3.1 publication of the NAESB Retail Markets Quadrant Model Business Practices. The Version 3.1 publication is scheduled to be published on March 31, 2016. The RMQ.26 OpenFMB Model Business Practices are now available as a final action at the following link: https://www.naesb.org//pdf/ordrform.pdf.
The North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB) serves as an industry forum for the development and promotion of standards which will lead to a seamless marketplace for wholesale and retail natural gas and electricity, as recognized by its customers, business community, participants, and regulatory entities. It is composed of over three hundred corporate members in the energy industry and many more non-member volunteers who contribute to the drafting and adopting of NAESB standards. To learn more about NAESB, go to www.naesb.org, contact Denise Rager ([email protected]) or call 713-356-0060.