Between the Poles

New license for crowdsourced geospatial data adopted by OpenStreetMap

Crowdsourced geospatial landbase data is competitive in many parts of the world with government or commercial geospatial data.  The best known crowdsourced data source is OpenStreetMap.  To date OpenStreetMap data has been licenced under Creative Commons (CC-BY-SA 2.0) licensing. But there are some aspects of the CC license that are limiting when used with geospatial data. The two issues with CC licensing I am aware of are distinguishing between collective and derivative work for geospatial data.  More often than not, when you're working with geospatial data you are using more than one dataset which represents a collective work.  A second motivation is that in some jurisdictions geospatial data is not copyrightable. 

For a couple of years a new license, called the Open Database License (ODbL) and specfically tailored for geospatial data, has been under development.  OpenStreetMap is moving to the new license on April 1st, 2012. The ODbL license is comprised of an Open Database License (ODbL), a Database Contents License (DbCL) covering the database itself and its contents, and a set of upgraded Contributor Terms covering submissions to the database.  Because the ODbL license is replacing CC-BY-SA, everyone who has contributed data to OpenStreetMap will have to explicitly agree to the terms of the new license, which allows OpenStreetMap to distribute his/her data after April 1.  Data submitted by folks who don't agree to the new license will be removed from the database after that date.

Ensuring electrical devices are "smart grid-ready"

I blogged recently about the progress in smart grid standards over the past year including the NIST Smart Grid Framework and the SGIP Catalog of Standards.

NIST SGIP has just announced the process by which test laboratories and certifying organizations are accredited for evaluation of smart grid products.  To enable a competitive market for smart devices, the NIST SGIP and others are working to define standards for interoperability for electrical devices from power generator to household appliances.  To make sure that these devices really are interoperable will require testing, not something that the SGIP is mandated to do.  This will require accredited testing labs and certification bodies. The IPRM v2.0 process that SGIP has outlined defines the process for accreditation.

Autodesk founded 30 years ago

Autodesk was founded January 30, 1982.  Later it would bring Computer Aided Design (CAD) down from mainframe systems to the IBM PC and DOS with a new product named AutoCAD.

Japan's aging population - 40% will be of retirement age by 2060

I have blogged previously about the aging workforce challenge facing the US, Western Europe(especially Germany), South Korea, Australia, Canada, and Japan.  Government projections of population decline in Japan are unparalleled anywhere else in the world, because of a low birthrate, long life expectancy and low immigration.

The Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare has projected that by 2060, about 40% of the population of Japan will be of retirement age.  In addition by 2060 Japan's population is projected to be 87 million people, down from 128 million currently.  Life expectancy is projected to continue to rise to 84.19 for men and 90.93 for women in 2060.

OGC Open GeoSMS Standard approved

The OGC Open GeoSMS Standard is an extended Short Message Service (SMS) encoding and interface for exchanging location content between devices or applications. The OGC has just announced that the OGC membership has voted to adopt Open GeoSMS as an OGC standard.  The OGC Open GeoSMS Standard is available publicly.

FOSS4G North America 2012 to be held April 10-12 in Washington DC

Following last year’s well-attended international FOSS4G conference in Denver Colorado, the North American community of free and open source geospatial software developers, users, and advocates are planning a regular annual event in North America. The first FOSS4G-NA conference is scheduled to take place April 10–12, 2012 at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, DC. FOSS4G-NA will bring together many public and private-sector stakeholders at the forefront of some of the world’s most innovative free and open source software to discuss and work on building tools to help solve some of the world’s most pressing problems.  The organizers have confirmed Michael Byrne, the Federal Communications Commission’s Geospatial Information Officer and the force behind the National Broadband Map, as a keynote speaker.

Important dates:

    1/23/2012 Call for Papers
    1/23/2012 Pre-Registration Opens
    2/9/2012  Early Bird Registration Closes
    2/10/2012 Regular Registration Opens
    3/1/2012 Papers Submission Deadline
    3/15/2012 Confirmation of Accepted Papers
    4/2/2012 Close of Online Registration

Obama says infrastructure needs investment

President Obama in his State of the Union speech specifically called out infrastructure as requiring significant investment.  He said that "our infrastructure used to be the best", and mentioned countries such as Russia, China, South Korea, and several European countries that are ahead of the US in some sector of infrastructure.  He also referred to the American Society of Civil Engineers' Intrastructure Scorecard that assigned a grade of "D" to American infrastructure.

He said that the Administration is proposiing to redouble the rebuilding efforts that were initiated over the past two years and identified attracting private funding as important for this effort.  He specifically mentioned two initiatives.

High speed rail

Within 25 years the goal is to enable 80% of Americans to have access to high speed rail.  He mentioned routes in California and the Midwest that are already underway.

High speed wireless

Within 5 years the goal is to make it possible for businesses to provide 98% of Americans with access to the next generation of high speed wireless coverage.

Department of Interior to require full disclosure of hydraulic fracturing fluids on federal lands

The impact of hydraulic fracturing on water quality in the US is getting a lot of attention, most recently from the EPA nationally and specifically in Wyoming.

Last year the Wilderness Society surveyed the fracturing fluids requirements in state statutes to see whether they require public disclosure of hydraulic fracturing chemicals. As part of the survey they called the oil and gas commissions in each state to confirm their findings. 

The Wilderness Society found that of the 33 states where drilling occurs, only Wyoming requires full public disclosure of the chemicals in hydraulic fracturing fluids.  Arkansas, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee required some disclosure of chemicals, but not to the public or in sufficient detail.

In his recent State of the Union speech, President Obama confirmed that the Department of Interior will require full disclosure of hydraulic fracturing fluids for any use of hydraulic fracturing on public lands.  The Department of the Interior has already announced that it is drawing up safety regulations for drilling on federal lands.  To date all hydraulic fracturing has been on private lands, but when the guidelines are in place federal lands will be opened to drilling.

Distributech: Demand response (DR) - a business opportunity for owners of commercial buildings

In the US historically electric power utilities have attempted to build enough capacity to meet peak load. For example, California uses 5% of its electric power generation capacity less than 50 hours a year.  But peakers, as the power plants are called that are only fired up to meet peak load - typically on a hot July or August afternoon, are expensive.  Power utilities can reduce their CAPEX and their OPEX, and customers' power bills, by shaving peak load. 

Demand Response

One of the ways that power companies in the US are increasingly turning to is demand response (DR).  DR is an agreement between the power utility and a customer, such as a residential, industrial, or commercial site, which allows the utility to shut down or otherwise reduce the power demand from some of the facilities or equipment at the customer's site.  It can be a manual process where the power utility contacts the customer and negotiates the shut down of some part of the customer's power equipment, or increasingly the DR process is automated.

DR can be a win-win-win for everyone.  The customer reduces his/her electric power bills, the utility doesn't have to fire up a peaker or build new power plants, which benefits the utility, the customer, and the environment.  Recently FERC has mandated that a negawatt should be compensated at the same rate as a megawatt.  In other words, customers should be paid the same for reducing load by a megawatt as a generator is paid for generating a megawatt.  Utilities have found that industry has generally been responsive to DR programs, but have not found the same level of interest among owners of commercial buildings.  Commercial buildings are responsible for about 20% of total energy consumption in the US and about the same proportion of emissions.

At Distributech, Brendan Owens of the US Green Building Council (USGBC) and Peter Wiegand of Skipping Stone outlined an initiative to increae awareness among owners of commercial buildings of the benefits of DR.  The USGBC is responsible for the widely used LEED program for certifiying buildings as green according to a number of criteria.  Onwers who are interested in certifying their buildings according to the LEED scorecard can get a LEED DR credit if they participate in a DR program.  A directory of commercial building owners who are participating in DR programs has been compiled.

The USGBC and Skipping Stone and other partners including Lawrence Berkeley National Labs and the Environment Defence Fund have started the Demand Response Partnership Program
(DRRP) to educate owners of commercial buildings about the benefits of DR and to encourage greater adoption of DR by this sector.  They have announced that Southern California Edison has agreed to support the effort.

Distributech Utility University: Substation automation and enterprise data management

Yesterday at Distributech Utility University John D McDonald, currently with GE, presented the perspective a very experienced electric power industry veteran, but also of a visonary and a pioneer, on substation automation and managing the data generated by the equipment in substations.

Substations are a ciritcal part of the electric power grid everywhere we use electricity.  In the US there are about 14 000 transmission substations and 48 000 distribution substations.

Intelligent electronic device

The fundamental building block of substation automation is the intelligent electronic device (IED).  An IED incoporates two key elements in addtion to its electric power function (control, protection, data acquisition), a digital processor and the ability to communicate digitally with the external world.  A little over half of all substation have IEDs, but they need to be integrated into a communications network and an enterprise data management system, to be able to provide the full benefits of which they are capable.  Most utiltiies are only realizing 20% of the benefits of their IEDs.

Operational and non-operational data

There are two types of data that are generated by IEDs.  Operational data is data that is used by the control center. Typically a data point is recorded every 2 seconds by each IED and in North America DNP3 is the standard protocol used to communicate this information to the control center.  Non-operational data is not used for real-time operation of the grid.  It is available on demand or may be triggered by an event and is extracted by proprietary commands.  It can be point data or a file. 

These two types of data are managed in different ways and follows different pathways through the organization.  IEDs communicate with data concentrators which replace the older RTUs.  From the data concentrators the data follows different paths depending on whether it is operational or non-operational data.  Operational data goes directly to the control center, which often uses a SCADA system.  Non-operational data goes to a corporate enterprise data management system, typically a data mart, where the data may be used by 20-25 different groups within the utility. 

The communications to and from devices in substations is typically serial, not ethernet.  There are organizational reasons which have made it difficult to implement LANs in substations.  Typically this is becasue LANs are the responsibility of the IT group, not operations.

55% of substations with IEDs (29% of all substations) have no integration with enterprise data management systems and no automation.  The remainder (24% of the total) have some integration.  After retrofit of older substations 97% will have IEDs, and of these 42% will include IED integration and automation.  Virtually all new substations have IEDs, and most also have IED integration and automation.

The motivation for installing IEDs and the associated integration and automation is motivated by deregulation and competition and an enterprise-wide interest in information from IEDs.

• Improved power quality and service reliability (SAIDI and SAIFI)
• New energy-related services and business areas
• Lower cost of service
• Better decision making

In the past these have provided sufficient motivation for forward looking utilities to invest in substation automation, but as the statistics on IED deployement and integration indicate, many utilities have not taken advantage of the opportunity, 

Substation automation and the smart grid

The smart grid provides a major business driver for substation automation, as a result of which the rate of substation automation is expected to go up dramatically.  The term that John McDonald prefers to use is the "smarter grid", because the grid has always had some level on intelligence.  But what he sees as happening is that because of IEDs and similar intelligent devices in distribution ann transmission networks, and in generating plants, the grid is moving from the old grid characterized by

• You call when the power goes out
• The utility pays whatever it takes to meet peak demand
• Difficult to manage high wind and solar penetration
• Cannot manage distributed generation safely
• ~10 % of power is wasted in transmission and distribution

to the smarter grid where

• The utility knows the power is out and usually restores it automatically
• The utility suppresses demand at peak, lowering cost and reducing CAPEX
• No problem with higher wind and solar penetration
• Can manage distributed generation safely
• Power loss is reduced by 2+ %, lowering emissions and customer bills

Substation automation is a ciritical part of making the smarter grid happen.