Integration and adoption of open data standards for online and offline power system analysis

The scalable communication, processing and storage of data within a power network is becoming more and more necessary to ensure the reliability of the grid and maintain the security of supply to consumers. Not all communications are performed in the same timeframe, at the same frequency, or at the same time of day; this results in problems when trying to coordinate a power network and the necessary data exchange. Different open or proprietary standards are often incompatible with each other both in terms of their communication protocols and data models. This causes electricity companies and standards groups to develop their own method of data exchange thus resulting in problems for exchanging and integrating this data, both internally and externally. Overcoming the challenges with incompatible data structure, serialisation formats and communication protocols will make it easier to integrate systems and realise the potential of being able to integrate data across domains. These include the ability to integrate real-time data into offline analysis tools; or utilising smart-meter data to enable true real-time pricing for electricity markets.