The Integrated Energy and Communication Systems Architecture

Volume III:
Models

 



 

 

 

 

EPRI Project Manager

Joe Hughes

Cosponsor

Electricity Innovation Institute Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society (CEIDS)

 

 

 

 

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ORGANIZATIONS THAT PREPARED THIS DOCUMENT

General Electric Company led by GE Global Research (Prime Contractor)

Significant Contributions made by
EnerNex Corporation
Hypertek
Lucent Technologies (Partner)
Systems Integration Specialists Company, Inc.
Utility Consulting International (Partner)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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CitationS

This document describes research sponsored by EPRI and Electricity Innovation Institute.

The publication is a corporate document that should be cited in the literature in the following manner:

THE INTEGRATED ENERGY AND COMMUNICATION SYSTEMS ARCHITECTURE, EPRI, Palo Alto, CA and Electricity Innovation Institute, Palo Alto, CA: 2003 {Product ID Number}.


Executive summary

Introduction

The breadth of the Integrated Energy and Communications Systems Architecture (IECSA) is enormous – spanning from the complex interactions of market trading to real time, self-healing power system control to the emerging market of home automation – all needing to be linked through a robust, integrated communication system. To accomplish this, the power system will need to be supported by an equally robust and self-healing communications and automation infrastructure; however, building such large-scale distributed information processing systems is not easy. It is a very complex task to design an architecture that reconciles requirements of an industry with the complexities of distributed processing systems.

There are limits to human ability to understand such complexity and to solve large sets of system equations. The problem must be broken down or divided into a series of smaller problems that can be solved. Modeling is one of the proven and well-accepted engineering techniques that simplify the system, so that we can better understand the system being developing. System simplification is achieved through the introduction of levels of abstraction, which allow the modeler to focus on one particular aspect of the system at a time. [1]

Scope and Purpose

The scope and purpose of Volume III of the IECSA is to outline the technical details behind the development of the IECSA model.  This volume will present to the reader the following topics:

·         Basic modeling concepts used to capture the industry requirements.

·         Guide to Notation used to express the modeling concepts.

·         Definition of basic rules used to document the architecture.

·         Guide to understanding the structure and organization of the content within the model.

Key Findings

The IECSA model captures the collective industry requirements as defined by project stakeholders (see list of contributing stakeholders in Volume II Appendix B). These requirements have been collected using the process outlined in the stakeholder engagement plan (Volume II Appendix A) and distilled into the abstract structural and behavioral modeling elements.  Information on the architectural analysis processes may be found in Volume IV. Future and follow-on projects may serve to enhance the richness and completeness of these requirements and supporting modeling elements.

Recommendations

Architecture must evolve over time to reflect the new business needs and technological approaches.  It is the recommendation of the IECSA team that the overall enterprise architecture and intermediate work product developed during the IECSA project (processes, templates, tools, and recommendations) serve as the basis for future projects. The IECSA team has made significant achievements in the application of standards based systems engineering methodologies towards the definition of the Enterprise Architecture. This architecture will provide significant benefit to improved system management in support of business requirements, at lower cost, faster time-to-market, and increased technical ability. That is, the benefits of the enterprise architecture can be summed up using three words: [2]

·         Better. Working towards a common business vision and common technical infrastructure.

·         Faster. Significant issues have been previously thought out.

·         Cheaper. Don’t reinvent the wheel every time a new system is built.


Where the Enterprise architecture models act as bridges between the business and the technical sides of the organization. A model that focuses primarily on business issues, or on technical issues, will not meet the real-world needs.  If business stakeholders do not see concepts that they can understand, and mappings of those concepts to technical ideas that they may not immediately comprehend, they will soon abandon the enterprise architecture efforts.  Similarly technical staff will also abandon an enterprise architecture that focuses solely on the business.  The architecture needs to find the modeling “sweet spot” that meets everyone’s needs.


Contents

 

Executive summary.. iii

Introduction. iii

Scope and Purpose. iii

Key Findings. iii

Recommendations. iii