IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020 - 29

january/february 2020

ieee power & energy magazine

figure 4. The overview of the MultiSpeak endpoints. PAN: personal area network.

Distribution Engineering, Planning,
and Construction
Demand Response
Outage Management and Distribution Operations

Asset
Management
Underground
Facility
Locations
Field
Design
PAN
Communications
DR
SCADA
Location
Tracking

Switching
Orders
Outage
Detection
Call
Handling

Outage
Analysis

EA (DMS)
Message
Management
DERs
Distribution
Automation

Demand
Management

MultiSpeak Web Services Bus
Publications
Subscription
Management

Weather

GIS
Network Model
Management

Notification

Payment
Gateway
Meter Data
Management
Payment
Processing
End Device
Testing and
Receiving
Inventory
Management
Work
Owner
Work
Performer
Work
Requester
Work
Viewer
Meter
Reading

Commissioning
and Provisioning
Customer
Billing
Connect/
Disconnect

RM

Scheduling
and
Assignment

Work
Generator

Assembly
Management

Finance
and
Accounting

Prepaid
Metering

Customer Billing and
PAN Management
Work Order Accounting
and Inventory

Interoperability standards enable
disparate à la carte software applications to communicate securely and
cost-effectively in a standardized way
without expensive custom interfaces.
They are implemented to connect
and integrate utility software systems
called endpoints, enabling distribution
optimization by providing the ability
to monitor and control the connected
grid assets. Assuring interoperability
between utility systems in the following functional categories is critical for
the current and future operation of the
distribution grid:
✔ outage management and distribution operations
✔ DR
✔ distribution engineering, planning, and construction
✔ metering and service management
✔ work management
✔ work order accounting and inventory
✔ customer billing.
Figure 4 presents the MultiSpeak
standard's 40-plus endpoints grouped
in the functional categories. Figure 5
illustrates the seamless, cybersecure interoperable systems that are
needed to create an ADMS. Figure 6
highlights the key differentiators of

Work Management

Interoperability
Standards

Metering and Service
Management

utility functions, complexity, and the
lack of scalability. Connecting disparate systems from single and multiple
vendors creates complex issues that
are time consuming and expensive to
resolve. Small and medium electric
distribution utilities have a limited
number of IT personnel and resources
and require a scalable, cost-effective, and cybersecure solution. In
2000, the NRECA, utilities, software
vendors, and consultants developed a
specification/protocol called MultiSpeak to address the interoperability/
integration issue. MultiSpeak is now
widely used and presents one potential
solution for integrating ADMSs with
utility systems in a scalable, secure,
and cost-effective manner.

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IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - January/February 2020

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