GridOPTICS(TM) A Novel Software Framework for Integrating Power Grid Data Storage, Management and Analysis

This paper describes the architecture and design of GridOPTICS^TM, a novel software framework for integrating a collection of software tools developed by NPNNL´s Future Power Grid Initiative (FPGI) into a coherent, powerful operations and planning tool for the power grid of the future. GridOPTICS^TM enables plug-and-play of various analysis, modeling and visualization software tools to improve the efficiency and reliability of power grid. To bridge the data access for different control purposes, GridOPTICS^TM provides a scalable, lightweight event processing layer that hides the complexity of data collection, storage, delivery and management. A significant challenge is the requirement to access large amount of data in real time. We address this challenge though a scalable system architecture that balances system performance and ease of integration. The initial prototype of GridOPTICS^TM was demonstrated with several use cases from PNNL´s FPGI and show that our system can provide real time data access to a diverse set of applications with easy to use APIs.