UML-based modeling of OPC UA address spaces for power systems

Automation technologies are a key enabler to realize the vision of so called Smart Grids. They realize the interface between the power system infrastructure that is used to reliably deliver electric power and the information- and communication infrastructure that is utilized to exchange digital information. Thus, analyzing if and how existing automation technologies can be adopted for the energy domain is of key importance. Furthermore, Smart Grids will be highly heterogeneous systems having to address various interoperability issues and thus have to deal with standardization. Therefore, this paper proposes the integration of the established IT-modeling language UML with the OPC Unified Architecture, which is a future-oriented automation standard (and already established in industry automation). It will be explained how UML-models can be used to generate Address Spaces in general and examples will be given introducing the generation of Address Spaces based on Smart Grid semantics in particular.