Smart Grid: Communicating with the Smart Grid – the Role of Automated Demand Response Communications Systems

In 2002 researchers in California began to develop a low-cost demand response (DR) communication and automation system that would send electricity price and grid reliability signals and that could easily be connected to existing industrial control systems. The technology was called Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR) — open to distinguish it from other, proprietary automated DR efforts. The system uses a client-server communication architecture with an open application-programming interface (API) and a web server that communicates with remote software clients. In OpenADR, the client side of DR automation is deployed via software clients embedded in control systems or deployed with gateways. The DR Automation Server (DRAS) publishes signals from the utility, grid operator, or DRAS operator to communicate with the remote client, and the client uses pull technology to request event data from the DRAS every minute. In 2009 the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) lead the activity in the U.S. to identify, develop, and implement Smart Grid interoperability standards. OpenADR 2.0 was a result of a set of profile specifications developed from the formal standardization of OpenADR.