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Contacts:
Bob Saint
MultiSpeak Program Manager
703-907-5863
Greg Robinson, Convener of the IEC TC57
Working Group 14
321 591-7443
The MultiSpeak Initiative and International Electrotechnical Commission’s TC 57 Working Group 14 (WG14) have agreed to collaborate on new international integration standards to improve data exchange among electric utilities.
In the current environment software developers that want to use standardized interfaces must choose between specifications determined by MultiSpeak, widely used by electric cooperatives, or Common Information Model (CIM), international standards, used primarily by large utilities. The prevalence of two sets of standards has hindered progress by utilities needing to share data between software applications such as Outage Management Systems (OMS), Customer Information Systems (CIS) and Advanced Metering Infrastructure (AMI) systems.
“The new integration standards should remove a big headache for software developers worried about the risk in choosing one standard over the other. With this collaboration on integration standards, there are no losers,” said Greg Robinson, convener of the IEC TC57, Working Group 14.
“This collaboration represents an important milestone for MultiSpeak,” said Bob Saint, MultiSpeak program manager. “New international integration standards will allow the software used by all utilities, including distribution cooperatives greater flexibility and functionality.”
Robinson and Gary McNaughton, technical coordinator of the MultiSpeak Initiative, will head the effort to create and propose two additions to IEC Standard 61968 for users who wish to implement MultiSpeak interface functionality using CIM objects.
A detailed mapping effort will compare data objects used by each group to identify and better understand the key strengths of each set of standards. The information will be used to determine how utilities and software developers can build better data exchange solutions. More specific guidance to Common Information Model (CIM) developers who wish to implement MultiSpeak functionality using CIM objects will come from creation of a CIM profile for MultiSpeak 4.0 and for pertinent parts of IEC 61968.
This collaboration will create and propose two sets of IEC standards:
- IEC 61968-14-1: Mapping between MultiSpeak 4.0 and IEC 61968, parts 3 through 10
- IEC 61968-14-2: A CIM profile for MultiSpeak 4.0, one profile for IEC 61968 parts 3 through10
About the MultiSpeak Initiative
The MultiSpeak Initiative has released a series of specifications that enable popular distribution utility software applications to exchange data in a predetermined manner. To view the current specification and for more information, visit www.multispeak.org.
About IEC TC57, WG14
The International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) sponsors development of international standards. Technical Committee 57 (TC57) creates standards for interfaces between software applications of interest to electric utilities worldwide. Working Group 14 (WG14) focuses on those applications that apply to the distribution division of electric utilities. IEC Standard 61968 formats rules for enterprise application integration based on the Common Information Model (CIM). For more information visit www.iec.ch.
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