On December 21, 2010, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) announced it will hold a technical conference* on smart grid interoperability standards. The purpose of the technical conference is to obtain further information to aid FERC's determination of whether there is "sufficient consensus" that the five families of standards posted by the National Institute of Standards and Technology are ready for the commission's consideration in a rulemaking proceeding, as directed by section 1305(d) of the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007. The agenda for the conference will be issued in a subsequent notice.
"The FERC technical conference represents an essential next step in the realization of the Smart Grid interoperability framework," said George Arnold, the national coordinator for smart grid interoperability at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). "This is an important milestone, since under the Energy Independence and Security Act, FERC must make an independent determination of whether NIST's work has led to sufficient consensus before it can initiate a rulemaking."
* Docket No. RM11-2-000. The technical conference will be held at 1 p.m. January 31, 2011, at FERC headquarters at 888 First Street NE, Washington, D.C., and is open to the public. For more information, visit the Event Calendar.
