Abstract & Biography

Abstract: One of the primary challenges that has been identified in the development of smart electric grids is the achievement of effective interoperability - in this context, the term has a very broad definition, spanning from network communication interoperability through application model interoperability, business process interoperability, and even policy and regulatory interoperability across state and regional boundaries. This talk will introduce the interoperability challenge in smart grids through a discussion of the U.S. Dept. of Energy's GridWise Architecture Council's work over the past four years, it's impact on the 2007 Energy Information Security Act (EISA), and a description of the recently launched National Institute of Standards and Technology's Domain Expert Working Groups.

Details of the GridWise Architecture Council's Interoperability Framework will be described through an example project: the GridWise Olympic Peninsula Distributed Energy Demonstration Project.

Biography: Ron Ambrosio oversees IBM’s Energy & Utilities Industry activities in its eight Research Laboratories around the world. Ron began his career in 1981 at the T.J. Watson Research Center. After working in variety of areas that included embedded operating systems, distributed application frameworks and middleware, and pervasive computing environments, in 1998 he focused on networked embedded computing, with particular emphasis on what he coined “Internet-scale Control Systems†- the integration of sensor and control system environments with large-scale distributed Information Technology environments and Business Processes, and helped establish IBM’s activities in both Intelligent Utility Networks and Sensors & Actuators.

In 2000 Ron began working with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) on the planning, collaboration and workshops that led to the creation of the DoE’s GridWise initiative in late 2002, and then on the planning and launch of the GridWise Alliance industry consortium in 2003. In 2004 he was selected by the Department of Energy to sit on the 13-member DoE GridWise Architecture Council (which is a separate entity from the GridWise Alliance).

Ron is an active member of ISO/IEC JTC 1/SC 25 Working Group 1, which deals with residential and building automation technology, where he is the editor and Working Party leader for the Application Interoperability Standard (ISO/IEC 18012), and of IEC TC 8, which addresses System Aspects for Electrical Energy Supply. He is also a member of Southern California Edison’s (SCE) six person external Technical Advisory Board, which advises and provides feedback on SCE’s smart grid program activities, and is an external advisor to the U.S. Dept. of Energy’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory electric vehicle Smart Charger Project.