ESNA - What you always wanted to know about OSGP
What is OSGP?
The Open Smart
Grid Protocol (OSGP) is targeted at utilities that want a multi-application
Smart Grid infrastructure instead of a meter centric Automated Metering
Infrastructure (AMI). OSGP is not just applicable for meters; it’s for a
variety of smart grid devices. Energy Services Network Association (ESNA), a
non-profit corporation composed of utilities, manufacturers, and integrators,
is responsible for promoting the adoption of OSGP, supporting the publishing
and maintaining of the OSGP specifications and standards, as well as supporting
the certification process of OSGP compliant devices.
The OSGP
application specification, ETSI GS OSG 001, is available
from European Telecommunications
Standards Institute (ETSI). ETSI produces globally
applicable standards for Information and Communications Technologies (ICT),
including fixed, mobile, radio, power line, and Internet technologies. ETSI and
CENELEC are officially recognized by the European Union as European Standards
Organizations.
As an open
standard without any licensing or intellectual property encumbrances, OSGP
enables
- Development
of interoperable smart meters and other smart grid devices by multiple vendors
- A large selection of smart grid products for utilities
OSGP provides
secure, scalable control networking services for any device connected to the
low-voltage grid. It also supplies critical information about the condition of
the distribution itself, which further improves reliability and lowers
operating costs for utilities and network operators.
At the Physical
Layer, OSGP currently uses ETSI TS 103 908 as its power line communication
standard; however the OSGP application layer is independent of the physical
layer, so it is not tied to a specific communications medium.
For the
Networking Layer, OSGP uses ISO/IEC14908-1.
For the data
model, OSGP adapts the IEEE 1377 and the ANSI C 12 table structure for a
networking protocol, not just for meters but for other utility related devices
as well and adds extensions for security, authentication, and encryption.
The protocol
supports the following capabilities:
- End-to-end
device communications & control
- Three
tier architecture for decentralized applications
- Multi-vendor,
multi-device interoperability
- Reliable
communications (highest reliability in the industry, > 99.8%)
- Automatic
topology management, meaning that OSGP-based systems automatically discover the
power line topology, automatically discover meters and other devices connected
to the power line, and can report this information back to the utility data centre
- Rich
power-quality data to enable sophisticated smart grid applications.
- Secure
firmware upgrades over the network
- Non-meter
devices can use the OSGP infrastructure to communicate with the utility’s
enterprise software. This makes the meter and other OSGP device data available
to new smart grid applications.
Advantages
of OSGP
In OSGP interoperability,
privacy and security are cornerstones in the vision of further developments, because
each vendor will easily find the way to communicate its added value services. Today
there are more than 4 million smart meters installed and operating that are
based on OSGP, at some of the largest and most advanced smart metering projects
ever implemented. For instance, in Sweden, Vattenfall and E.ON deployed more
than one million OSGP compliant meters and benefit from superior performance
and reliability of OSGP.
In Denmark, more than 800,000 OSGP compliant meters have been deployed by a
number of utilities including SEAS/NVE, NRGi, and EnergiMidt. These smart
meters like others in OSGP deployments, report not just hourly readings, but
provide extended load profile data, power quality reports, and integration with
home energy networks with perfect daily performance of every meter between of
between 99.8 and 100%.
OSGP started
with a networked design for all of the smart grid devices on the edge. In
contrast, DLMS was designed for automatic meter reading. By the way, OSGP’s
open network and standards philosophy could expand in the future to incorporate
the integration and interworking with DLMS/COSEM devices, something that DLMS
is not prepared to support. OSGP is rapidly gaining more visibility with an ever-growing
ecosystem of industry vendors offering OSGP compliant products to utilities on
all continents.
OSGP Vendors
OSGP is supported by a variety of meter and smart grid device
suppliers that offer or plan to offer solutions compliant with the standard
including, Romanian AEM, General Electric, Mitshubishi Electric, Korea’s VIDCOM,
Malaysia's Comintel, China’s Holley Metering, Brazil’s ELO, Austria’s Ubitronix
and Kapsch, Germany’s Diehl, and Görlitz with a Landis & Gyr
based solution and not to forget US based company Echelon. Besides that several companies are in the application process.
OSGP Conformance testing is handled by DNV-KEMA. Based on successful
independent Conformance testing the OSGP UA, ESNA will provide the certificate
of "OSGP compliance".
Harry CrijnsESNA secretaryJuly 2013