[smartpower-interest] IP based metering project in Victoria, Australia

["Greg Daley" <[e-mail]>]

Hi Paul, 

I wasn't on list when you posted, so please excuse the broken threading.

> Fred,
>
>
>I haven't been following the smartpower stuff, so this might be a naive
question:
>
>What is the primary perceived relation between smart power and
ietf/networks/routing/etc.?
>
>- is it the use of networking technology for communication of
>  control and management of the power grid?
>
>- or is it going further and thinking of a "power plane" as
>  analogous to a "data plane", so that we might end up using
>  routing protocols to route electrons rather than just data?
>
> - or is the it a purpose of this list to figure that out?
>
>	Thanks,
>	Paul


At the moment, I guess there are at least two components of the
power network which make use of IP data networking:

The SCADA systems which manage the generation and distribution
infrastructure.

The "Advanced Metering" systems which are part of a trend to
provide customer billing, interval monitoring and adaptive load
shedding (in case of power shortage).

>From what I can tell, power utilization and load shedding control
is being rolled out to the meter box in a number of regions,
including mine:

www.dpi.vic.gov.au/smartmeters/


Within a home or business environment though, load shedding can have
adverse impacts where equipment is powered down precipitately, or if
power is switched off to all devices within a premises.

One of the more advanced capabilities which is available with smart
metering initiatives is to extend the reach of the control and 
informative communications from the meter point to the rest of the site.

This may allow devices to report individual usage within the network, 
and participate in preferential load reduction operations.

A series of public documents relating to some of these issues are
available at:

http://new.dpi.vic.gov.au/energy/projects,-research--and--development2/s
mart-meters/ami-consultation

Please note that PDF links are broken, but HTML conversions are
available.

There are Zigbee Power management (Smart Power) profiles which are
proposed for use with the Victorian system.  I would guess that there
may be architectural IP or security implications across various
power management profiles or protocols, which may be useful for
the IETF to contribure to.

Perhaps this is the focus of the list?

Please note that my interest here is from the IETF side only,
I am not participating directly in the work on metering in Victoria.

As an aside, routing electrons using any other protocol than 
Physics, is probably out of scope.

Sincerely,

Greg Daley