OASIS Blue Advances Open Standards for Smart Energy Grids, Intelligent Buildings, and Natural Resource Management

["Carol Geyer" <carol.geyer@oasis-open.org>]

--Link to this press release at
http://www.oasis-open.org/news/oasis-news-2010-03-08.php--

OASIS Blue Advances Open Standards for Smart Energy Grids, Intelligent
Buildings, and Natural Resource Management

IBM, Constellation NewEnergy, CPower, EnerNOC, Grid Net, HP, NeuStar, TIBCO,
U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST) and Others Collaborate to Address Sustainability
Challenges  

8 March 2010 - The OASIS open standards consortium today announced the
formation of a new Member Section, OASIS Blue, which will bring together a
variety of open standards projects related to energy, intelligent buildings,
and natural resources. OASIS Blue will leverage the innovation of existing
electronic commerce standards and the power of the Internet to achieve
meaningful sustainability. An international effort, OASIS Blue incorporates
work that has been identified as a central deliverable for the U.S.
government's strategic Smart Grid initiative.

"We have a global imperative to develop new models for the mindful use of
energy and other natural resources--models that support efficient, effective
economic growth and enable rapid innovation," said David Chassin of Pacific
Northwest National Laboratory, chair of the OASIS Blue Steering Committee.
"OASIS Blue provides a safe, neutral environment where stakeholders can
cooperate to define clear taxonomies and information-sharing protocols that
will be recognized by the international standards community."

Several Technical Committees will coordinate efforts under OASIS Blue. The
Energy Interoperation Technical Committee defines standards for the
collaborative and transactive use of energy within demand response and
distributed energy resources. The  Energy Market Information Exchange (eMIX)
Technical Committee works on exchanging pricing information and product
definitions in energy markets. The Open Building Information Exchange (oBIX)
Committee enables mechanical and electrical control systems in buildings to
communicate with enterprise applications. OASIS Blue welcomes suggestions
for forming new Committees related to its mission. 

In addition to David Chassin, the OASIS Blue Steering Committee includes
Steven Bushby of NIST, Bob Dolin of Echelon, Rik Drummond of the Drummond
Group, Girish Ghatikar of Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Francois
Jammes of Schneider Electric, Arnaud Martens of Belgian SPF Finances, Dana
K. "Deke" Smith of buildingSMART alliance, and Jane L. Snowdon, Ph.D., of
IBM. 

"The name 'OASIS Blue' reflects the thinking of Adam Werbach, former head of
the Sierra Club, who maintains that real strides in sustainability will only
be realized when we view our efforts in terms of business opportunities, not
sacrifices," explained Laurent Liscia, OASIS executive director. "OASIS Blue
extends the sustainability goals of the 'Green' movement to incorporate
economic principles such as the value of greater efficiency, reduced
infrastructure cost, more effective use of resources, and the benefits of
economic growth."

Support for OASIS Blue:

CPower
"OASIS Blue represents an outstanding opportunity for our industries to
provide facility operators with access to standardized, flexible and
ubiquitous means of managing energy use, via vehicles that offer real
business value to both the facility and the grid," said Dirk Mahling, Chief
Technology Officer, CPower, Inc. "CPower is excited at the opportunity to
participate in this ongoing effort."

EnerNOC
"The adoption of standards is essential to accelerating the emergence of new
technologies that can deliver real value to energy users, and EnerNOC is
proud to be a part of an organization that is leading the charge," said
Terry Sick, Vice President of Engineering, EnerNOC.

Grid Net
"The real-time smart grid requires a secure, standards-based, Internet
interface between the transmission & distribution networks and the building
and retail energy markets. The OASIS oBIX and eMIX initiatives are critical
components in defining a secure open energy market that interfaces to the
real-time smart grid, which includes electric distribution grid devices,
smart meters, smart appliances, electric vehicles, solar PV panels, and
energy storage devices," said Ray Bell, Grid Net founder and chief executive
officer. "As long-term participants in smart grid standards development
efforts, we have been ardent supporters and technical contributors to the
smart grid framework being released by the US Dept of Commerce's NIST
Agency.  We are excited about the formation of OASIS Blue and support its
efforts to deliver improved energy resource management and a greener
planet."

TIBCO
"A great deal of the knowledge we have about high-performance enterprise
applications and transaction systems is directly applicable to the
challenges we face in increasing industry adoption of smart energy grids,"
said David Burke, Director, Product Management, at TIBCO Software Inc.
"That's why we look forward to working with the OASIS Blue Member Section
and its various technical committees to advance open standards that will
ensure smart grids are truly effective in advancing sustainability and
economic opportunity."


More information:

OASIS Blue Member Section 
http://www.oasis-blue.org/


About OASIS:

OASIS (Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards)
is a not-for-profit, international consortium that drives the development,
convergence and adoption of open standards for the global information
society. OASIS promotes industry consensus and produces worldwide standards
for energy, security, Web services, SOA, business transactions, content
technologies, and other applications. OASIS open standards offer the
potential to lower cost, stimulate innovation, grow global markets, and
protect the right of free choice of technology. OASIS members broadly
represent the marketplace of public and private sector technology leaders,
users and influencers. The consortium has more than 5,000 participants
representing over 600 organizations and individual members in 100 countries.
http://www.oasis-open.org


Press contact:

Carol Geyer
OASIS Senior Director of Communications and Development
carol.geyer@oasis-open.org
+1.978.667.5115 x209 (office)
+1.941.284.0403 (mobile)