The document discusses the importance of open standards in the electricity sector, emphasizing their role in facilitating interoperability, safety, and effective governance amid the rapid changes driven by digitalization and decarbonization. It outlines the Linux Foundation's initiatives to promote standards development, including their collaboration with other organizations to establish scalable customer data access and power system data specifications. The document also highlights the challenges of accessing utility customer data at scale and the need for standardization in data formats and access methods.

1. Carbon Data
Specifications
Mechanisms to Improve Data Access and Standardization in the Electricity Sector

2. Antitrust Policy Notice
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Antitrust Policy available at linuxfoundation.org/antitrust-policy. If you have questions
about these matters, please contact your company counsel, or if you are a member of
the Linux Foundation, feel free to contact Andrew Updegrove of the firm of Gesmer
Updegrove LLP, which provides legal counsel to the Linux Foundation.

3. The importance of
open standards in the
energy sector
Alex Thornton, Executive Director at LF Energy

4. LF Energy accelerates the energy transition by
building communities to develop open
technologies and standards.

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6. LF Energy
Members

7. Why do we need standards?

8. Why do we need standards?
Standards facilitate interoperability and
safety.
Without consistent, international standards,
interoperability and scalability are hard!
Source: https://www.gearpatrol.com/archive/a118234/guide-to-plugs-and-sockets-by-
country/

9. Why do we need standards?
The electric grid is the largest and most
complex machine ever made. It’s a system of
systems.
We operate in a global economy with multi-
national companies and trade across borders.
Standards ensure these technical and
economic systems function and thrive.

10. Traditional approach to standards
Deliberate, consensus-driven approach
ensures participants are comfortable with
resulting standards and will adopt them.
This approach works quite well, especially
with relatively stable hardware ecosystems.

11. Why do we need open standards?
Driven by digitalization and decarbonization
goals, the electric grid is changing fast.
Conservatively slow and closed standards
process sometimes isn’t fast enough to keep
up with the pace of change and incorporate
all necessary expertise.
Open standards are fast, agile, facilitate
widespread contribution and adoption, and
meet the pace demanded of the digital
energy transition.
Graphic: DOE 2020 Smart Grid System Report https://www.energy.gov/sites/default/files/2022-
05/2020%20Smart%20Grid%20System%20Report_0.pdf

12. Open approach to standards
Community specification process increases speed,
agility, and pool of expertise available to contribute.
Specification is eventually submitted to standard
body to become formally recognized.
Software reference implementations of the
standard reduce variance of interpretations
and duplication of effort in implementation.

13. Governance of open standards
● Project charter defines the scope for collaboration, legal structure and
governance model
● A license determines how the specification can be used
● Defined governance framework provides long-term, structured decision-
making

14. Linux Foundation and open standards
● The Linux Foundation has tools to make setting up well-structured
standards projects easier:
○ Community Specification: provides a “standards-organization-in-a-repo.” All you have to
do is clone or copy the Community Specifications repository, fill in a few details, and get
started.
○ Joint Development Foundation: provides the corporate and legal infrastructure to enable
groups to quickly establish and operate lightweight collaborations to develop technical
specifications, standards, and source code.
● We’re an approved submitter to ISO, with success submitting standards
such as OpenChain ISO/IEC 5230:2020.
● We’re also formal partner of ETSI.

15. Summary
● Standards ensure technical and economics systems function and thrive.
● Open standards are fast, agile, and transparent.
● Open standards have clearly defined governance structures.
● The Linux Foundation has success partnering with standards bodies
such as ISO and ETSI.

16. Project Motivation:
Why Google got
involved
Hallie Cramer, Technical Program Manager at Google

17. Google’s Energy Journey

18. Why 100% Annual Renewable Energy
Matching is Not Enough

19. Interest in the CDSC

20. Aiming to accelerate pathways to grid
decarbonization by providing data that is:

21. Better data is a foundational building block
to develop the solutions needed for any
clean energy future.

22. Tour of discovery and
connectivity specs
Daniel Roesler, CTO at UtilityAPI

23. The problem:
Getting data once is easy
Getting data at scale is hard

24. What's hard about getting utility customer data at scale?
● Need way more data nowadays than just the customer's bills or monthly kwh
● Most customers have no idea how to get their data needed for analysis
● Individual customer data is private and sensitive and requires consent to get
● Fragmented across many utilities and other central authorities
● Data formats are mostly ad-hoc or proprietary with little documentation
● Hard to find what utilities offer what methods of access and what vendors can qualify
● Many don't offer digital methods of access (paper forms or manual processes only)
● For those that do have digital access, vendor registration is often slow, complex, and expensive
● Existing standards for digital access are proprietary, complex, and have major gaps
● Regulatory oversight is highly complex because current specifications require expert knowledge

25. Soooo… what are the
components of a scalable
connectivity standard?

26. What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?

27. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?

28. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?

29. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?

30. Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
What are the components of a scalable connectivity standard?

31. CDSC-WG1's Connectivity Specifications:
CDSC-WG1-01 ("Server Metadata")
How utilities and other centralized entities can disclose what data and capabilities they offer.
CDSC-WG1-02 ("Client Registration")
How vendors can register, onboard, and manage their connectivity with utilities and other centralized entities.

32. CDSC-WG1's Connectivity Specifications:
CDSC-WG1-01 ("Server Metadata")
How utilities and other centralized entities can disclose what data and capabilities they offer.
CDSC-WG1-02 ("Client Registration")
How vendors can register, onboard, and manage their connectivity with utilities and other centralized entities.
From: https://daniel-utilityapi.github.io/Customer-Data/specs/cdsc-wg1-02/overview
From: https://daniel-utilityapi.github.io/Customer-Data/specs/cdsc-wg1-01/overview

33. Who can benefit from these
connectivity specifications?

34. Other specifications!
Our first two specifications (CDSC-WG1-01/02) can be used by
other standards to streamline third party service provider
registration and onboarding (DER, EE, EV, DR, etc.).
For example, our Customer Data specification (CDSC-WG1-03)
uses these connectivity specs as its base.
By unblocking service provider registration and onboarding, we
accelerate adoption of new innovative programs, grid flexibility,
and deployment of clean energy technologies.

35. Tour of customer data
specs
Daniel Roesler, CTO at UtilityAPI

36. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")

37. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
Authorization
Get individual customer consent to access their data.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")

38. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
Authorization
Get individual customer consent to access their data.
Data Access
Retrieve authorized customer data in a standardized format.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")

39. What are the components of a scalable customer data
access standard?
Discovery
Find what utilities and other central entities that offer data access.
Registration + Connectivity
Sign up and establish connections with utilities.
Authorization
Get individual customer consent to access their data.
Data Access
Retrieve authorized customer data in a standardized format.
CDSC-WG1-01
("Server Metadata")
CDSC-WG1-02
("Client Registration")
CDSC-WG1-03
("Customer Data")

40. CDSC-WG1's Customer Data Specifications:
CDSC-WG1-03 ("Customer Data")
How vendors can obtain customer authorization
and how the authorized customer data should be
formatted.
Target use cases:
● Carbon Accounting
● Decarbonization Projects
● Distributed Grid Flexibility
● Building Benchmarking
From: https://daniel-utilityapi.github.io/Customer-Data/specs/cdsc-wg1-03/overview

41. How you can get involved!

42. How to get involved:
1. Visit our website:
https://customerdata.carbondataspec.org/
2. Join the mailing list.
3. Attend the working group meetings.
4. Give feedback on the specification drafts.

43. Tour of power
systems data specs
Henry Richardson, Senior Analyst at WattTime

44. Power System Data Spec Intent
“Define an open specification for raw electric power system data to facilitate a
systematic and more accurate approach to report grid emissions.”
Creating a unified specification for data retrieved from power system operators,
including:
● Generation mix
● Power imports and exports
● Power market data
● Delivery capacities and/or constraints
● Power generation emissions

45. Key Concepts
Topology levels: The hierarchy of resource levels in relation to the other
resource types. (ex. Interconnection, Balancing Authority Area, Zone,
Transmission Node/Substation, Generating Plant, Meter, et).
PowerSystemResource (PSR): A specific resource within the power system,
which could range from the balancing authority to individual power plants

46. Power System Data Spec Structure
System Level Information:
● /power-system-resources/list-topology-levels
● /power-system-resources/list-resources
● /power-system-resources/list-prices
Power System Resource ‘Static’ Information:
● /power-system-resource/{id}/topology (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/describe (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/capacity (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/transmission-capacity (GET)
Power System Resource Timeseries Information:
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/emissions (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/generation (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/demand (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/imports (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/exports (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/price (GET)
● /power-system-resource/{id}/timeseries/curtailment (GET)

47. Open Questions
Is price definition sufficient? Is the spec’s treatment of prices, using a defined price set, sufficient to
address different wholesale prices that may arise?
https://github.com/carbon-data-specification/Power-Systems-Data/issues/112
Should imports and exports be combined for a given PSR? How should imports and exports be
treated?
https://github.com/carbon-data-specification/Power-Systems-Data/issues/111
Is the solution to transmission robust? Can the transmission capacity endpoint be merged with the
sibling hierarchy endpoint? How is transmission discoverable? Should transmission be a PSR?
https://github.com/carbon-data-specification/Power-Systems-Data/issues/111

48. Q&A