Just started: Grid 3.0

Have you heard about “Grid 3.0”? This seems to be the next phase of the power delivery system. Recently several U.S. organizations have discussed the future of the power delivery system. According to their view there are 3 phases so far:

• “Grid 1.0” can be thought of as the legacy grid of the 20th century
• “Grid 2.0” is the emergence of the smart grid with automation and information technology improvements, and
• “Grid 3.0” is what comes next: for example, a future grid with advanced grid operations and greater interactions with consumers and other infrastructures.

Click HERE to access a list of presentations from the

Grid 3.0 Workshop
March 26 to March 27
at NIST, Gaithersburg, MD

Click HERE for a workshop summary.

We are currently in all three phases at the same time. Most of the systems are still legacy (for the next 20+ years), a few start to use automation and information technology, and some start to think about the future … power engineers have always thought about the future (even 130 years ago). One of the big issues in Grid 2.0 and Grid 3.0 is the need for interoperable of systems. We can reach a high level of interoperability – if we want! This is less a technical issue. It all depends on decisions to be made by humans. If we decide to get it, we can get it. Some may not like interoperability at all. Or?

Anyway, let’s assume we get there: Would we then generate Data Tsunamis all over? It is likely that people start to push every data into the cloud – expecting that somebody may use it.

Make sure that you understand your needs – before you look for a protocol or a data model. We have a single protocol for most near-real-time data (IEC 61850-8-1) and data models for almost everything. But does everybody need everything? No!

The big question is: What do you need? To answer this: You need to understand your application.