A case for IEEE Std. 1451 in smart microgrid environments

Smart microgrids exploit information and communication technologies to efficiently manage local renewable energy sources and energy storage devices, collectively known as distributed energy resources (DERs). This requires the inclusion of rather sophisticated sensing and/or actuating units within the DER interfaces. The definition of uniform procedures to access these interfaces is a system design issue of considerable importance, since a smart microgrid aims to be self-managing and should be able to deal with the peculiarities of different DERs while implementing distributed control and energy management techniques. This paper discusses the use of the IEEE 1451 "Standard for a Smart Transducer Interface for Sensors and Actuators" as the convergence layer enabling uniform access to smart microgrid resources, analyses its application and some of the benefits its features may bring.