IEEE 2030.5 over NATS

[antonellomonti]

Mission Statement

To foster a dynamic and collaborative community centered on the IEEE 2030.5 InterSTORE version protocol, leveraging NATS messaging infrastructure. Our mission is to maximize the communication capabilities of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and Energy Management Systems (EMS) by supporting diverse and scalable use cases, including many-to-many (m-n) communication, to drive innovation and efficiency in the energy sector by increasing adoption of the standard.

Description

The original IEEE 2030.5 standard from 2018 and recently updated by the 2023 version, is a widely used communication protocol designed to manage distributed resources, already adopted in California and Australia. The original standard is an interoperability dictionary-based protocol. In our project we’ve upgraded the current version of the IEEE2030.5 software/firmware package by using a NATS messaging, added JSON structure support and moreover, we’ve developed a protocol converter to bridge the gap to other protocols (MQTT and ModBUS) and standardisation procedures of existing equipment and systems.

Is this a new project or an existing one?

The project will be a continuation of EU research project InterSTORE. The project has multiple objectives of which IEEE 2030.5 would be fit as a LFE project. Other EU projects will continue supporting this action in parallel

Current lead(s)

• Project coordinator – prof. Antonello Monti, RWTH Aachen University
• Technical manager – Alexandre Lucas - INESC - TEC
• Quality manager – Peter Nemcek - Cybergrid

The following organisations are part of the Horizon Europe project:
o Capwatt,
o CyberGrid,
o The European Association for Storage of Energy (EASE),
o Eaton,
o Enel X Global Retail,
o Engineering,
o Hybrid Energy Storage Solutions S.L., HESSTec,
o Instituto De Engenharia De Sistemas E Computadores, Tecnologia E Ciencia - Inesc Tec
o Forschungszentrum Jülich,
o The Institute for Automation of Complex Power Systems - RWTH Aachen University,
o Sunesis,
o Verband der Elektrotechnik, Elektronik und Informationstechnik e.V.

Sponsoring organization(s), along with any other key contributing individuals and/or organizations

See list from previous point.

Detail any existing community infrastructure, including:

• Github/GitLab, or other location where the code is hosted
• Website and/or docs
• Communication channels ( such as Mailing lists, Slack, IRC )
• Social Media Accounts

GitHub: https://github.com/Horizont-Europe-Interstore
Docker: https://hub.docker.com/u/interstore

Are there any specific infrastructure needs or requests outside of what is provided normally by LF Energy ? If so please detail them.

No

Why would this be a good candidate for inclusion in LF Energy?

The wide adoption of IEEE 2030.5 standard with the InterSTORE version across the globe presents a huge pull of potential participants, who would be interested in the technical solutions developed in the project, as they are designed to address common issues they face. Among the issues are: conversion among different protocols (IEEE 2030 and Modbus/MQTT/...), standardization of the new protocol and limitations of current version (IEEE 2030.5 over NATS. Hosting the project may lead the way towards seamless interoperable across the Energy sector regardless of the SGAM zones, domains or layers as it applies to all. The hosting by LFE would be the ideal channel to highlight and promote the developed solutions and a critical complement to the already existing portfolio within the Foundation.

How would this benefit from inclusion in LF Energy?

The benefit mostly lies in LFE capacity to promote and build a large community around the project. We believe this is the only way this project can have an impact towards adoption more interoperable and inclusive energy sector, unleashing various use cases. The contributions of the community would increase adoption and participation in developing further conversion possibilities using the legacy protocol converter.
The fact that IEEE 2030.5 is officially adopted outside Europe is a key motivation to create a community that is broader than Europe itself.

Provide a statement on alignment with the mission in the LF Energy charter.

Our project has a strong correlation to LF Energy charter as it is research oriented, meaning its sole purpose is to promote, support and develop a community around open standard applications to help energy sector to be more interoperable and enlarge its list of possible communication scenarios.

What specific need does this project address?

1. Outdated protocol (IEEE 2030.5 over REST) cannot match all the communication scenarios, where our solution enables that.
   Target group: aggregators, system operators
2. Legacy protocol converter enlarges possibilities of using the new protocol by bridging to devices non-native to IEEE 2030.5. Target group: Device managers
3. Standardisation approaches increase confidence and give a step by step guidelines on how to test a new device. Target groups: IoT manufacturers and retailers, governing bodies

Describe how this project impacts the energy industry.

The current challenges of Energy industry include the short comings of existing protocols as they are unable to cover all communication scenarios, and are not transversal to all SGAM zones and domains. Additionally, they usually don’t foresee any bridging of communication gaps among different protocols.
Our solution promotes interoperability and means to translate among protocols. On top of that the protocol chosen covers a vast variety of communication use cases.

Describe how this project intersects with other LF Energy projects/working groups/special interest groups.

This project would fit in the SIG Grid Operations

Who are the potential benefactors of this project?

Installers: (Legacy Protocol Converter) LPC enlarges possibilities of devices they can use
Goverments: Our enhanced protocol may present the basis for standardisation
Aggregators: IEEE 2030.5 over NATS is upgraded version designed to manage distributed resources of various kinds

What other organizations in the world should be interested in this project?

Australian TSO as they have made IEEE 2030.5 their national standard. Moreover in California several adoption groups exist.

Plan for growing in maturity if accepted within LF Energy

Step by step loop:

1. Showcase the benefits of project solutions
2. Create interest among public
3. Invite people to join to our community
4. Support collaboration in enlarging use cases and improving the tools the project can cover
5. Back to 1.

Project license

MIT License

Is the project's code available now? If so provide a link to the code location.

Please previous answer on the repositories

Does this project have ongoing public (or private) technical meetings?

yes. This is the requirement of being EU research project. The meetings are internal for now, but open one could be organised.

Does this project's community venues have a code of conduct? If so, please provide a link to it?

yes. It is aligned with EU commission.

Describe the project's leadership team and decision-making process.

For now, the proposed project is following the decision-making process of InterSTORE project, based on the consortium composition and its regular general assemblies. In this, all decisions are taken as a vote of partners involved or as a decision of project leaders, which are:
o Project coordinator – prof. Antonello Monti
o Technical manager – Alexandre Lukas
o Quality manager – Peter Nemcek
o Financial Manager – Ulrike Gohil

Does this project have public governance (more than just one organization)?

Yes. Operations are regulated by the contracts driving the project, i.e. the Grant Agreement with the European Commission and the Consortium Agreement among the partners.

Does this project have a development schedule and/or release schedule?

We have a plan until the end of the project, i.e. April 2025.
Several partners are anyway committed to continue beyond the funding cycle and see the LFE location as the best way to continue this cooperation and to make it stronger with other partners.

Does this project have dependencies on other open source projects? Which ones?

No

Describe the project's documentation.

Code is stored on GitHub and all relevant descriptions are publicly available deliverables from the project

Describe any trademarks associated with the project.

the ones used by InterSTORE project and the ones related to old version of IEEE 2030.5 protocol.

Do you have a project roadmap? If so please attach or provide a link.

Not for the development after the end of the funding cycle.

Are this project's roadmap and meeting minutes public posted?

N/A

Does this project have a legal entity and/or registered trademarks?

No

Has this project been announced or promoted in any press?

– yes. As a European project the traditional communication channels are used such as LinkedIn and X. There is a white paper soon to be published.

Does this project compete with other open source projects or commercial products?

Yes, there are other protocols and solutions to link DER to EMS. yes. Existing protocols have a focus domain such as the IEC61850 towards substations, ModBus for industrial environments or MQTT for IOT and similar devices.
There are also previous implementation of IEEE2030.5 as open source but, as far as we know, not for the last version and not over NATS.