Abstract :
International standards are playing a crucially important role in all industries for rational
production, international terminologies, safety and health protection, measurement, analysis,
quality control and environmental protection, particularly in the energy field, where standards
for the interfaces in energy flows are indispensable, such as electric connectors, fuelling devices,
calibration methods and electrical safety. Of particular significance is the SI system of units and
the OSI standards which allow the world-wide harmonization of data exchanges and computers.
International standardization is shared between the International Organization for Standardization
(ISO) for all non-electric matters, founded just afterWorld War II as the successor to ISA
and the much older International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) both based in Geneva,
Switzerland, in the same building. Besides the specific standards for petroleum, coal, nuclear and
hydro-power, solar energy, wind-power, hydrogen and the vast field of electricity, the energy
standards series ISO13600 allows the characterization, analysis and comparison of all energy systems
and soon will issue a global energy statistics and planning matrix for the transition to environmentally-
sound sustainable economics. These standards allow integrated resource planning,
including all new renewable options, such as the increasingly important direct and indirect solar
energy, co-generation, hybrid systems, small decentralized units, bio-energy, ambient temperature
use by heat pumps and substitutions of muscle-powered systems or vice versa, besides the more
efficient production and use of conventional finite and renewable energy-sources.
