The Next Generation Of Open Source Smart Grid

Battelle and AEP turn open-source scientists’ tool GridLAB-D into a utility planning and forecasting platform.

Open source software -- code that’s free for anyone to use, as long as they share what they’re doing with it -- plays a small, but growing, role in the smart grid. Examples include OpenADR, a Berkeley Labs-California Energy Commission-backed standard for automating demand response, and OpenPDC, a Tennessee Valley Authority’s Hadoop-based data management tool for transmission grid synchrophasor data.

Of course, the open-source software developed by Department of Energy labs, federal power authorities like TVA, and other public entities tends to start out as a way to model experiments, store data or other such research functions. Translating that capability into systems that are robust, interoperable and secure enough to be put to use on real-world grids takes a lot of extra effort.

At DistribuTECH last week, big Midwest utility AEP and Battelle, the Columbus, Ohio-based group that helps run $6.5 billion in annual research and development budgets for customers including DOE’s Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL), unveiled their latest take on turning open-source code to grid use. The tool is called Grid Command, and it’s an interesting mashup of some open-source code from PNNL, called GridLAB-D, and a lot of new data and functionality built to suit AEP’s needs...