Proposed Charter for OASIS Energy Market Information Exchange (eMIX) TC

Mary P McRae

Director, Technical Committee Administration

OASIS: Advancing open standards for the information society

email: mary.mcrae@oasis-open.org

web: www.oasis-open.org

twitter: fiberartisan #oasisopen

phone: 1.603.232.9090

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The name of the TC:
OASIS Energy Market Information Exchange TC

A statement of purpose, including a definition of the problem to be solved:
The purpose of the Technical Committee is to define information models for exchanging prices and product definitions in energy markets. As we all know, price is more than just a number. The characteristics of energy, such as quantity and units, generation source, carbon trading or tracing, power quality and reliability, and the schedule on which energy is available are information that is needed to make decisions in a market.

The committee will define neither market operations nor market structures; rather it will define how to exchange energy characteristics, availability, and schedules to support free and effective exchange of information in any energy market. In financial markets, this type of description is called a product definition. Although today's energy markets are almost exclusively wholesale, the product definitions will be usable in other scenarios including retail markets and "prices to devices" scenarios.

Distributed energy generation challenges the traditional hierarchical relationship of supplier and consumer. Alternative and renewable energy sources may be placed closer to the end nodes of the grid. Wind and solar generation, as well as industrial co-generation, allow end nodes to sometimes be energy suppliers. Energy storage, including that in plug-in electric vehicles, means that the same device may be sometimes a supplier, sometime a consumer. As these sources are all intermittent, they increase the challenge of coordinating supply and demand to maintain the reliability of the electric grid.

Dynamic pricing describes the situation where prices vary over time, in some cases as short as five-minute intervals. Dynamic pricing allows buildings, industrial facilities, homes, microgrids, and electric transportation to adapt to market conditions, rather than the much slower pace of regulatory change of authorized costs. Dynamic pricing is a reality in many markets for commercial and industrial customers, and is expanding for residential customers. Technical solutions such as Open Automated Demand Response, deployed in California markets and now the basis for work by the OASIS Energy Interoperation Technical Committee, communicates both price signals and reliability signals; Energy Interoperation will carry signals related to Distributed Energy Resources as well.

This work extends the definition of a simple price to include other characteristics and information to enable more effective markets and communication of market information.

Of course, energy prices are in use today in various domains, business processes, and markets. The goal of the Technical Committee is to provide an effective means of exchanging price and other characteristics that can be used for transactions both across and within domains.

Better communication of actionable energy prices will help enable and expand efficient markets (including forward and futures markets) that satisfy growing demand for lower-carbon, lower-energy buildings, net zero-energy systems, and supply-demand integration that take advantage of dynamic pricing. Local generation and local storage require that the consumer (in today's situation) make investments in technology and infrastructure including electric charging and thermal storage systems. Businesses, homes, electric vehicles and the power grid will benefit from automated and timely communication of energy price, characteristics, quantities, and related information.

A consistent model for market information exchange can be applied, with elaboration or use of defined subsets, to allow essentially the same information communication for homes, individual appliances, electric vehicles, small businesses, commercial buildings, office parks, neighborhood grids, and industrial facilities, simplifying communication flow and improving the quality of actions taken across the broad range of energy providers, distributors, and consumers. A consistent information model will reduce costs for implementation.

Price and characteristics of energy are not necessarily simple. Retail markets typically have simple actionable information, in large measure because the retail markets combined with distribution are defined with clear and specific prices; wholesale markets are more complex, with transactions subject to later adjustments, e.g. for balancing costs, as well as the complexities of tariff definitions. This work does not intend to address those complexities, rather to define a means for effective information exchange that permits immediate decisions - wholesale market participants must independently understand the complexities of the markets in which they operate. But a simple quotation of price, quantity, and characteristics in a consistent way across markets has significant value, even though the participants must understand and anticipate later adjustments.

In the evolving transactive power grid (the "Smart Grid") these communications will involve energy consumers, producers, transmission and distribution systems, and must enable aggregation for both consumption and curtailment resources. Market makers, such as Independent System Operators (ISOs), Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs), utilities, and other evolving mechanisms need to deliver actionable information in consistent formats as the Smart Grid evolves. With information in consistent formats, building and facility agents can make decisions on energy sale, purchase, and use that fit the goals and requirements of their home, business, or industrial facility.

The Technical Committee will focus on means of exchanging market information consistent with the OASIS Blue approach (see http://www.oasis-open.org/resources/white-papers/blue/), including consistency, transparency, and security.

The data exchanged is critical information to allow buyers and sellers to communicate, understand, and act on prices, quantities, and other characteristics of energy that is bought and sold.

The scope of the work of the TC:
This TC will leverage existing work wherever feasible, and will produce specifications for interoperation consistent with architectural principles including symmetry, composability, service orientation, and aggregation.

The TC will develop a data model and XML vocabulary to exchange prices and product definitions for transactive energy markets. Web services definitions, service definitions consistent with the OASIS SOA Reference Model, and XML vocabularies supporting the information model will be developed as needed for interoperable and standard exchange of:
* Price information
* Bid information
* Time for use or availability
* Units and quantity to be traded
* Characteristics of what is to be traded
* Deal/Bid/Acceptance confirmations
Other mechanisms being defined for Energy Interoperation may take advantage of the definition of price and characteristics as defined by this Technical Committee.

This work will facilitate interaction with energy markets, including but not limited to allowing participants to:
* Take advantage of lower energy costs by deferring or accelerating usage
* Enable trading of curtailment and generation at retail, wholesale, and aggregator markets
* Enable forward and futures markets and specific contracted time of use and provision
* Enable retail, wholesale, and aggregator market decisions based on characteristics of energy traded, including but not limited to source (e.g. renewable) and carbon characteristics
* Enable auditing of transactions and characteristics of what is traded
* Support symmetry of interaction between providers and consumers of energy
* Provide for aggregation of provision, curtailment, and use at the retail and wholesale level

The definition of a price and of other market information exchanged depends on the market context in which it exists. It is not in scope for this TC to define specifications for markets or for interoperation. The TC will coordinate with others to ensure that commonly used market and communication models are supported.

The TC will define the specific type and amount of information exchanged as well as define extensibility and subsetting. The TC does not intend to attempt to define all characteristics of complex markets, but to define sufficient information exchange for effective decisions by market participants, suppliers, and consumers, and to communicate price quotations.

The data models and XML vocabularies defined by this TC will address issues in energy markets and the Smart Grid, but may be defined so as to support requirements for other markets.

This work is intended to be usable by the OASIS Energy Interoperation TC and other Smart Grid standardization efforts.

Models and requirements for cybersecurity and privacy will be addressed in the TC's work.

A list of deliverables, with projected completion dates:
Projected times are from inception, the date of the initial TC meeting.

Insofar as possible the TC will coordinate its schedules with the OASIS Energy Interoperation TC, UCAIug and other initiatives including those supported by NIST and regulatory agencies.

Based on coordination with Schedule and Interval, Energy Interoperation, and other standards efforts, the projected timetable is:

[1] Develop plan and identify funding for interoperability and conformance testing (1 month)
[2] Define eMIX price and product (4 months)
[3] Integrate eMIX with Common Schedule and Interval specification developed with others (5 months)
[4] Define profiles for use of eMIX in OASIS Energy Interoperation (6 months)
[5] Define profiles for use of eMIX in FIXML (12 months)
[6] Continued maintenance and development of profiles for other areas as guided by identified needs including those in the United States Smart Grid Roadmap.

After deliverable [5] is complete, the TC will enter "maintenance mode" described schematically in [6]. The maintenance is intended to provide minor revisions to address inconsistencies and any necessary modifications in a way that does not affect core structure and functionality of the final deliverable, as well as to develop profiles for other areas as identified in the future. Such updates will take place at least annually. During the maintenance mode, the TC will continue to address the interoperation and use of eMIX in its multiple contexts.

Specification of the IPR Mode under which the TC will operate:
The TC shall operate under RF on Limited Terms.

The anticipated audience or users of the work:
Anticipated users of this work include:
* Implementers of facility agents, embedded controllers, decision management systems, and gateways
* Market makers such as Independent System Operators and Regional Transmission Operators
* Participants in energy markets at all levels (e.g. retail, wholesale, curtailment, and forward and futures markets for energy trading)
* Aggregators of energy provision, curtailment, and use
* Generators
* Energy storage facilities
* Smart devices and premises automation systems
* Consumers of energy, for acquiring energy in a cost-effective manner consistent with their business and/or personal activities

The language in which the TC shall conduct business:
The TC will use English as the language for conducting its operations.

Non-normative information regarding the startup of the TC:
(2)(a) Identification of similar or applicable work that is being done in other OASIS TCs or by other organizations, why there is a need for another effort in this area and how this proposed TC will be different, and what level of liaison will be pursued with these other organizations.

There are many means for market information exchange of bids and prices, including XML vocabularies. The characteristics of energy, such as source (e.g. geothermal, hydroelectric, natural gas generation, hard coal, soft coal generators with stack scrubbers, carbon characteristics) are of high present and future interest. Today's energy markets command a premium for renewable energy, but there are no broadly interoperable means of consistently tagging energy with its source or characteristics. Specific markets, such as ISO New England's GIS - do handle tagging and administration of credit. The interoperable extension of such information models is a goal of this work.

The intention of this work is to define data models and vocabularies that allow software to exchange energy market information, and may permit extensibility to similar markets in the future.

We believe that close coordination and balancing among the full range of stakeholders is essential to ensure that a single, technology independent requirements specification and abstract information model can be developed that can be implemented by the OASIS TC and any other entities that may develop non-XML profiles, thus assuring interoperation at the semantic level in the future.

For one example, wholesale energy markets have specific requirements for submission and acceptance of energy offers including standardized business processes. The work of this Technical Committee is not intended to supplant those requirements but rather to work with them as a means of exchanging information among multiple entities. In particular, the utilities, Independent System Operators (ISOs), Regional Transmission Operators (RTOs), energy market makers, and wholesale energy market participants have defined models, business processes, and XML vocabularies that could support and contribute to this TC's work. We welcome them as stakeholders and contributors.

We anticipate input from technology, policy and business stakeholders and organizations, including but not limited to NIST Domain Expert Working Groups (NIST DEWG) and Task Groups (http://www.nist.gov/smartgrid/), The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC http://www.ferc.gov), the United States Department of Energy (DOE http://www.energy.gov/), the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC http://naruc.org/) and the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI http://www.epri.com).

In addition we expect to coordinate and/or harmonize with work involving price information in business processes and in-domain interoperability in Standards Developing Organizations including but not limited to the North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB http://naesb.org/) and the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC http://www.iec.ch/).

The development of open, transactive energy is a goal of the GridWise Architecture Council (http://www.gridwiseac.org/). We expect to engage the members throughout the lifecycle of the TC, as well as with emerging Smart Grid Architecture efforts from NIST including the Interim Smart Grid Interoperability Roadmap.

The definition of a market is a required context for understanding prices, characteristics, and bids. Market definition is outside the scope of this TC; we expect to interact with work developing out of the 2009 GridEcon conference (http://www.gridecon.com/2009/), NIST, and the evolving Smart Grid Interim Interoperability Standards Framework (http://nist.gov/smartgrid/).

The Financial Information Exchange protocol (FIX, www.FixProtocol.org) is an open specification intended to streamline electronic communications in the financial securities industry. FIX supports multiple formats and types of communications between financial entities including trade allocation, order submissions, order changes, execution reporting and advertisements. FIX is employed by numerous financial vendors and has emerged as the favored specification among trading partners. FIX is used in many markets, so defining the FIX product definition profile in EMIX would not pre-judge energy market design. Fix has sequencing, but not schedules, so both could take advantage of the proposed WS-Calendar work.

European markets have an additional area of economic interface, between Transmission and Distribution (in American terminology), which are typically under separate ownership. As time allows, or in a future update, the TC may address those needs.

Demand Response and other energy interactions may be used to deliver Price information; the TC will coordinate with the OASIS Energy Interoperation TC (http://www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbrev=energyinterop) in this area with the expectation that that Technical Committee will use the output of EMIX. This work has different stakeholders and expertise needed than that for Energy Interoperation, but in addition there is substantial overlap in supporters and likely participants, assuring close coordination.

Work on defining business attributes of a service, being developed by the OASIS Service Oriented Architecture End-to-End Resource Planning TC (SOA-EERP TC), may apply to define attributes of energy.

The (proposed, in formation) OASIS WS-Calendar Technical Committee or other work (identified in this draft as "Common Schedule and Interval") will provide an interoperable XML vocabulary and semantics for time that is applicable to energy pricing and price communication, automated building management, and business process. We expect to coordinate and use that work.

Composability with the WS-Transaction family of OASIS Standards may be beneficial for consistent distributed outcomes, particularly across enterprises with diverse ownership.

Service definitions and the approach of the TC should be consistent with the OASIS Service Oriented Architecture Reference Model (http://www.oasis-open.org/specs/#soa-rmv1.0) and best practices in that area.

(2)(b) The date, time, and location of the first meeting, whether it will be held in person or by phone, and who will sponsor this first meeting:
The first meeting will be by teleconference on 15 October 2009 at 11am ET.

(2)(c) The projected on-going meeting schedule for the year following the formation of the TC, or until the projected date of the final deliverable, whichever comes first, and who will be expected to sponsor these meetings:
The TC will conduct its business via weekly teleconference calls. The time of the call will be determined during the first meeting of the TC. The TC will conduct face-to-face meetings as needed and determined by the TC. The TC participants will sponsor teleconference facilities and face-to-face meetings.

(2)(d) The names, electronic mail addresses, and membership affiliations of at least Minimum Membership who support this proposal and are committed to the Charter and projected meeting schedule:

Ron Ambrosio, rfa@us.ibm.com, IBM
Jean-Yves Bitterlich, Jean-Yves.Bitterlich@Sun.COM, Sun Microsystems
Anto Budiardjo, anto@clasma.com, Individual
Edward Cazalet, ed@cazalet.com, Individual
Chris Cheng, chris@primeton.com, Primeton
Toby Considine, Toby.Considine@unc.edu, University of North Carolina
William Cox, wtcox@CoxSoftwareArchitects.com, Associate
Sharon Dinges, sdinges@trane.com, Trane
Robert Dolin, bobd@echelon.com, Echelon Corporation

Rik Drummond, rikd@drummondgroup.com, Drummond Group
Craig Gemmill, craig.gemmill@tridium.com, Tridium, Inc.
Girish Ghatikar, GGhatikar@lbl.gov, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
David Holmberg, david.holmberg@nist.gov, National Institute of Standards and Technology

Gale Horst, ghorst@epri.com, Electric Power Research Institute
Jeffrey Kegley, jkegley@tridium.com, Tridium, Inc.
Ed Koch, ed@akuacom.com, Akuacom
Michel Kohanim, michel@universal-devices.com, Associate
Larry Lackey, llackey@tibco.com, TIBCO Software Inc
Wayne Longcore, wrlongcore@cmsenergy.com, Consumers Energy

Ralph Martinez, ralph.martinez@baesystems.com, BAE Systems Inc
Lance McKee, lmckee@opengeospatial.org, Open Geospatial Consortium

Terry Mohn, terry.mohn@baesystems.com, BAE Systems Inc

David Nemirow, david.nemirow@baesystems.com, BAE Systems Inc

Robert Old, bob.old@siemens.com, Siemens AG
Mary Ann Piette, mapiette@lbl.gov, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Carl Reed, creed@opengeospatial.org, Open Geospatial Consortium Inc
Jeremy Roberts, jeremy@lonmark.org, LonMark International

Song Jingjing, songjj@bsw.gov.cn, Changfeng Alliance

Anno Scholten, anno@seefarconsulting.com, Individual
Pornsak Songkaku, pornsak.songkakul@siemens.com, Siemens AG
Jane Snowdon, snowdon@us.ibm.com, IBM
Matt Wakefield, mwakefield@epri.com, Electric Power Research Institute
David Wilson, DavidCWilson@trane.com, Trane

Stephen Hagan, stephen.hagan@gmail.com, General Services Administration

Dave Hardin, david.hardin@ips.invensys.co, Invensys Process Controls

Del Hilber, del.hilber@constellation.com, Constellation New Energy

Praveen Kumar, dpraveenkumar1@gmail.com, Individual

Michael Lavelle, mlavelle@enthenergy.com, ENthEnergy, LLC

Ron Melton, ron.melton@pnl.gov, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory

Jim Northey, jim.northey@fixprotocol.org, FIX

John Petze, jpetze@gmail.com, Individual

Leighton Wolffe, Leighton.Wolffe@constellation.com, Constellation New Energy

(2)(e) The name of the Convener who must be an Eligible Person.
Edward Cazalet, Individual

(2)(f) The name of the Member Section with which the TC intends to affiliate
The Energy Market Information Exchange TC intends to affiliate with the OASIS Blue Member Section.

(2)(g) Optionally, a list of contributions of existing technical work that the proposers anticipate will be made to this TC.
None

(2)(h) Optionally, a draft Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) document regarding the planned scope of the TC, for posting on the TC's website.
None

(2)(i) Optionally, a proposed working title and acronym for the specification(s) to be developed by the TC.
eMIX

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