UTC's Smart Networks Council Kicks Into Gear On Cutting Edge Issues

UTC’s Smart Networks Council (SNC), following a brief organizational period, has launched several key projects to help UTC members and the industry accelerate the development and deployment of intelligent utility applications.

SNC Leadership Elected:  At its meeting earlier this month, the Smart Networks Council Board of Directors elected Fredric Fletcher, Assistant General Manager of Burbank Water and Power as its Chairman.  The Board also elected Doug McGinnis, Principal Network Architect at Exelon Corporation, and Jeff Nichols, Director of Network & Communications Services at Sempra Energy Utilities, as Vice Chairmen of the SNC Board.  Additional, the Board approved the creation of one Work Group and two Standing Committees.

Smart Utility Network of Networks Work Group:  The SNC Board noted that with the advent of micro generation and decentralized generation, utilities are increasingly changing delivery infrastructures so that they can reap the benefits of technological and regulatory changes.  Other developments, such as wind farms and plug-in hybrid vehicles, will likewise force utilities to further design and manage delivery -- as well as consumer billing -- infrastructure in new and innovative ways.  Recognizing that these developments are propelling utilities to embrace smart grid technologies, the Board discussed the potential value of an interconnected, utility IP communications network that could enable the faster deployment of smart energy networks.  The SNC Board decided to create a Smart Utility Network of Networks (SUN2) Work Group to explore how such an network of network could add value by supporting multiple applications including but not limited to distributed- and micro-generation of energy, sharing of customer usage data, and sharing energy with other distribution utilities without the need to interconnect via a third-party transmission network.  The SUN2 Work Group will be chaired by SNC Board Chairman Fred Fletcher and will report its findings to the Board at its meeting during UTC Annual Conference – UTC TELECOM 2009 – in June.  If you are interested in participating in the SUN2 Work Group, CLICK HERE.

SNC Security Committee:  Following a discussion about the impact of security issues on the development of intelligent utilities, the SNC Board agreed that a serious lack of useful information about smart utility network security threats and solutions existed, the SNC Board created a special SNC Security Committee.  The Security Committee will be chaired by Toronto Hydro’s Manager of Information Technology Security, Kshamit Dixit, and will be charged initially to identify and monitor ongoing security issues involving smart networks and recommend any actions that need to be taken to the SNC Board.  If you are interested in participating in the SNC Security Committee, CLICK HERE.

SNC Education & Research Committee:  Recognizing a need for overall guidance for UTC’s educational and research programs, the SNC Board created an Education and Research Committee to support development of UTC education and training programs, Conference sessions, other events, webinars, research studies, and web-based information to help all UTC members better track and understand the rapidly evolving business, technical and policy issues surrounding smart utility networks.  Craig Maternoski, Manager of Applied Technologies at Integrys Energy Group, will chair this committee.  One of the Committee’s initial projects will be collect case histories of Smart Utility Network applications from UTC members.  If you have a case study that you would like to share, please send it to UTC for inclusion by CLICKING HERE.  If you are interested in volunteering to work on the SNC Education & Research Committee, CLICK HERE.

Federal and State Public Policy: The SNC Board considered creating a Legal/Regulatory Affairs Committee, but decided against taking that step as it would create too much overlap with UTC’s existing Public Policy Division.  Additional the SNC Board felt that policy issues were too important to the development of smart utility networks to delegate that below the Board level.  The SNC Board did receive a report on US and Canadian policy activities at the state and provincial level prepared by UTC’s legal staff and agreed that it should be posted on the UTC web site and made available to all UTC members.  If you are interested in seeing this report, CLICK HERE.  The SNC Board also reviewed a recent report from UTC, entitled the Utility Spectrum Crisis that calls on the US federal government to follow Canada’s lead by making spectrum available for intelligent utility applications.  If you would like to see the full report, CLICK HERE.  Subsequent to the SNC Board meeting, the U.S. Congress passed and President Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (a.k.a. the stimulus bill) with billions of dollars of funding for smart grid applications.  To read an analysis of the ARRA prepared by the UTC Legal Department, CLICK HERE.

UTC’s Smart Network Council:  The SNC was created by the Utilities Telecom Council’s Board of Directors to provide leadership to UTC’s activities in support of UTC members’ efforts to build next-generation utilities and ensure that all of UTC’s diverse activities that impacted smart utility networks were coordinated.  The SNC is organized as an independent operating unit within UTC.  Participation in the SNC is open to any employee of a UTC member company.  Participation can be as simple as visiting the SNC Web Site, to keep up with SNC activities, or can involve volunteering to serve on SNC Committees.  Membership on the SNC Board is limited to those elected by the SNC Board or appointed by the UTC Board.  The Chairman of the SNC Board is also a member of the UTC Board of Directors.  The UTC staff lead in support of the SNC is Cynthia Brumfield, Director of Research.  Cynthia can be reach at cynthia.brumfield@utc.org or 1.202.833.6828.