EXECUTIVE OVERVIEW. Smart Grid Standards

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1 Smart Grid Standards

2 Pioneering Standards for the Smart Grid Utilities are making great strides in modernizing the global energy infrastructure, to the benefit of economies worldwide. Smart energy networks are providing measureable results today, including greater energy efficiency, simpler integration of renewable energy sources such as wind and solar, increased operational efficiency, and higher consumer satisfaction. These intelligent networks, essential to the smart grid effort, deliver their full potential benefits when built on a set of common, open technology standards. For decades, network and related technology standards have provided vendor choice and innovation to numerous industries, from banking to telecommunications. Standards enable interoperability. Consequently, customers can purchase a network platform, end devices, and applications separately, based on their business needs, with the assurance that all the products will readily work together. Standards also open a market to new players and speed the pace of innovation as multiple vendors compete to develop the best offering. Customers benefit from greater choice, higher-quality solutions, lower pricing, and reduced risk by avoiding vendor lock in. BGE is pleased to partner with Silver Spring Networks in delivering the significant transformational benefits of the smart grid to each of our 1.2 million customers. We look forward to benefiting from Silver Spring s proven technology technology that is the backbone of smart grid implementations by leading utilities throughout the U.S. and abroad. KENNETH W. DEFONTES, JR. PRESIDENT AND CEO From our inception, Silver Spring Networks has been a leading advocate for the adoption of relevant standards in the energy industry. Such standards are needed to unlock the benefits of choice and innovation for utilities and their customers and to enable migration away from costly, inflexible singlefunction solutions. Silver Spring has been deploying standards-based smart grid communications and software platforms for more than a decade, solving pressing problems and delivering real business benefits for utilities worldwide. Today, more than 12 million homes and businesses globally are connected over our Smart Energy Platform. Working with customers to implement smart grid solutions has given us a realworld understanding of utility business and technology needs, along with tremendous field experience. We continually incorporate this information into our products and services and use it to help drive the creation of standards relevant to the industry. Silver Spring Smart Energy Platform 2

3 As a result, Silver Spring has the industry s most widely adopted smart grid platform. Proven at scale, our Smart Energy Platform can run multiple applications over a single open network. We have also cultivated the industry s broadest ecosystem of partners, extending the value of our platform by offering customers an unparalleled choice of interoperable, bestin-breed solutions from more than 65 providers. Many vendors subsequently followed our lead and now share a similar perspective on the importance of smart grid standards. But we remain unique in our focus on the energy industry combined with our depth of experience delivering millions of standardsbased systems. Silver Spring s Standards Leadership With a decade of real-world experience in the utility industry to draw on, Silver Spring has helped spearhead the adoption and creation, where necessary, of standards relevant to the utility industry, along with interoperability testing and certification. These efforts include: Pioneering the use of IPv6 as a networking protocol for the smart grid, from the back office to the endpoint Forming OpenAMI, a forum for adapting IP to meet smart grid networking requirements Leading the development of g for RF mesh communications, including compliance of current installations Leveraging standard web services to simplify software integration Standardizing in-home device communications, including leadership on SEP 2.0 development»» Working to define interoperability testing and certification frameworks to ensure standards compliance and interoperability The Need for Smart Grid Standards When Silver Spring entered the energy market in 2002, we found that utilities were eager to move to a smart grid but were limited by the proprietary, single-function solutions offered by incumbent vendors. If a utility wanted to purchase a metering solution, for example, all the components the endpoint, network, and software were tied together and came from a single vendor. This vertically integrated model did not support separating out the network or other components, so utilities could not purchase pieces from different providers to optimize price, performance, and functionality. Utilities had limited choice and were forced to purchase and deploy multiple communications systems, each tied to one application. In contrast, Silver Spring pioneered the use of standards-based technology in our Smart Energy Platform and has been a leading promoter of interoperable open standards for energy networks. In particular, Silver Spring has advocated an open network for machine-to-machine communications based on the layered approach to networking defined in the Open Systems Interconnect (OSI) model, which has been in use for decades. 3

4 The following protocol stack highlights the standards Silver Spring is supporting for smart grid networks. SEP 1.x ZigBee Cluster Libraries REST Web Services CIM IEC EXI CoAP/ HTTP 2616 C12.18/ C12.19 TLS/ 5246 DTLS 6347 DLMS/ COSEM IEC PANA 5193 SNMP 1157 NTP 5905 SSH 4251 DNS 1085 DNP SunSpec TCP 793/UDP 768 RPL 6553 ICMP 4443 ZigBee Pro IPsec 2401 IPv6 2460, IPv6 Addressing 4291 IPv4 791 DSCP MACs DSSS 6LoWPAN 4944 L2R g FHSS PPP G GPRS GPRS 3G Satellite 4G LTE 3GPP TF WiMAX MODBUS Layers allow for a clean separation of technologies. Standards at each layer ensure open communications and interoperability end to end across a network. As a result of this approach, IP-based applications can operate over multiple physical media, including wired, wireless, and cellular, with no change. Likewise, higherlayer software and applications function properly regardless of the underlying network. However, not all standards are equally effective. Simply appropriating technologies and standards from other environments, such as enterprise or mobile deployments, won t address the unique requirements of the smart grid, which include support for massive scale, geographic reach across diverse topology, high reliability, and long lifecycle. The utility market also presents unique challenges, including an unpredictable operating environment and difficult physical access to meters and other smart grid devices. Pioneering an Open Platform Silver Spring s single-minded focus has been to bring the power of open standards to the energy market. Our commitment is reflected in our Smart Energy Platform, which is built on an open network optimized for machine-to-machine communications and an open software architecture. Cost, performance, and the ability to build atop a single, standardized platform are critical for WEL Networks next-generation utility grid. Silver Spring gave us the ability to deliver multiple smart grid applications over a single, open platform and utilize its advanced technology to meet the performance needs of our network, all with a cost profile that helps WEL effectively invest in modernization improvements for the benefit of our customers. JULIAN ELDER, CEO We chose a platform-based approach so our customers could leverage a common set of technologies, including networking and security, to support multiple smart grid applications, with choice throughout. 4

5 This approach ensures our Smart Energy Platform is extensible and cost effective, providing utilities with a flexible solution at a very reasonable price per home and business connected. Silver Spring Partner Ecosystem ADVANCED METERING DISTRIBUTION AUTOMATION In addition, Silver Spring has a large ecosystem of partners DEMAND-SIDE MANAGEMENT whose products plug into our network or integrate with our software. Our more than 65 partners include providers of SOFTWARE meters, distribution automation devices, in-home devices, electric vehicle charging stations and other devices as well as back-office applications such as Meter Data Management Systems, Customer Information Systems, and Outage Management Systems. Silver Spring works extensively with our ecosystem partners to thoroughly test that each product works with the others and is interoperable with our platform. Our focus on and incorporation of standards-based technologies within our Smart Energy Platform ensures that our customers investments are protected. We can incorporate future networking and software standards into existing smart grid installations without hardware changes, using over-the-air firmware upgrades. Real Customers Reaping Real Benefits Silver Spring s focus on supporting open standards and nurturing an open ecosystem of partners has yielded significant benefits for our utility customers, including: Broad product choice: Our open, layered approach to networking and other platform services provides customers a choice of products at different layers of the OSI stack, which yields significant price and quality advantages and avoids vendor lock in. A flourishing partner ecosystem: Silver Spring s ecosystem partners offer a wide array of products that interoperate with our Smart Energy Platform, enabling customers to build a smart grid system that best meets their business needs, budget, operational model, and other considerations. We are very pleased to have Silver Spring Networks partner with us to bring an open, standards-based smart grid to Brazil. CPFL is adopting a Telecom infrastructure technology which will allow introduction of smart grids in Brazil and, for that, we are counting on Silver Spring to set a global benchmark in how we provide our clients with power and information. MAURO CARMELLO MANAGER OF OPERATIONS AND AUTOMATION 5

6 Greater innovation: Silver Spring and its ecosystem partners can innovate at a given layer and quickly deliver new features and functionality to customers, independent of each other. Our Customers No integration hassles: Silver Spring s strong commitment to interoperability testing and certification with our partners means the products all work together and customers don t have to commit time and resources toward integration. Top 10 Questions to Consider As you investigate potential suppliers for your smart grid deployment, getting answers to the following questions will help you discern the newcomers from the proven leader in smart grid standards: 1. How long has this solution provider offered a standards-based smart grid network? 2. At what scale has this provider connected standards-based devices, operating in full production mode? 3. How many customers can this solution provider offer as references running the standards-based system? 4. How are this provider s customers leveraging the standards-based network to support multiple applications? 5. How much of this solution provider s product focus is on the energy industry? 6. What leadership can this provider demonstrate in driving standards for the energy industry? 7. How many meters from different suppliers has this solution provider integrated onto its standards-based network? 8. How many back-office systems has this provider interoperated with in proven deployments? 9. How many solutions areas does this solution provider support, with interoperating products from other partners? 10. What certification and interoperability testing bodies has this provider helped create? 6

7 At Silver Spring, we are proud of our answers to all these questions and our decade of real-world experience and track record of field-proven smart grid deployments. As new industry standards and technologies evolve, we will support them through firmware upgrades, so customers are never at risk of stranded assets. You can read a detailed whitepaper on Smart Grid Standards for the latest information. We welcome the opportunity to share with you our perspective on which standards are relevant to the smart grid and how open, standards-based solutions can help you meet your business objectives today. About Silver Spring Networks Silver Spring Networks is a leading networking platform and solutions provider for smart energy networks. With its pioneering IPv6 platform, Silver Spring has networked over 12 million homes and businesses throughout the world with the goal of achieving greater energy efficiency for the planet. Silver Spring s innovative products enable utilities to gain efficiencies, integrate renewable energy sources and empower customers to monitor and manage energy consumption. Silver Spring Networks is used by major utilities around the globe including Baltimore Gas & Electric, CitiPower & Powercor, Commonwealth Edison, Florida Power & Light, Jemena Electricity Networks Limited, Pacific Gas & Electric and Pepco Holdings, Inc. among others. For more information please visit Copyright 2012 Silver Spring Networks. All Rights Reserved. All trademarks are the properties of their respective owners. REV. 9/17/2012 Corporate Headquarters 555 Broadway Street Redwood City, CA O Toll Free