EnerNOC, Inc. (EnerNOC), a US-based developer and provider of clean and intelligent energy solutions, has installed the presence-enabled Smart Grid technology, PowerTalk, in over 250 of its about 5,000 commercial, institutional, and industrial customer sites. PowerTalk enables real-time communication through open, standards-based presence technology between almost any Internet-enabled smart meter or device and company’s Network Operations Center (NOC).
The always-on, two-way presence-based connection created by PowerTalk significantly enhances visibility into demand response assets. PowerTalk also streamlines the site enablement process, allowing EnerNOC to more efficiently equip end-use customers to participate in demand response. By more quickly enrolling eligible megawatts, EnerNOC maximizes revenue opportunities for itself and its customers.
“EnerNOC continues to actively invest in new technologies that help drive operational efficiency in our rapidly expanding network, increase customer satisfaction, and position EnerNOC for future success as the Smart Grid continues to take shape,” said Tim Healy, EnerNOC’s chairman and chief executive officer. “PowerTalk represents an important step forward on all of those fronts. It is already driving significant efficiencies in our site enablement process, and we are actively investing in future applications of presence technology to make the existing electric power grid more responsive, efficient, and reliable.”
Some of the features and benefits of PowerTalk include:
Increased Visibility into Smart Grid Devices with Presence Technology:
Similar to new instant messaging services that use presence technology to transmit real-time information (such as whether or not a contact is online, active, or idle), presence-enabled PowerTalk devices continuously report their status and other information using the well-defined Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) so that changing conditions are detected in real time. This innovation enables more predictable, dynamic, and reliable distributed asset dispatch and management, particularly in high-value load management applications that require quick dispatch and high frequency data reporting, such as PJM Interconnection’s Synchronized Reserves Market.
“Reliability, transparency, and real-time data management are top priorities for our utility and grid operator customers, and have historically been the hallmarks of EnerNOC’s demand response applications,” said Darren Brady, EnerNOC’s senior vice president and chief operating officer. “With PowerTalk, we are taking that commitment to a new level.”
PowerTalk’s presence functionality can be leveraged and applied to applications beyond demand response, such as enhanced outage detection and voltage management, as well as SCADA-equivalent feeds into utility control rooms, or any application that requires exchanging energy usage or management information between system components.
Simple and Streamlined Site Enablement:
PowerTalk-enabled devices are firewall friendly and can leverage existing customer networks to facilitate secure, authenticated, and encrypted communication, without the need to establish a virtual private network. This eliminates the need for end-use customers to devote IT resources to help ready their facilities to participate in demand response. Once connected to the Internet, a PowerTalk-enabled smart meter or device automatically searches out EnerNOC’s NOC and self-registers. The resulting streamlined site enablement process speeds demand response deployments and reduces installation costs, enabling customers to begin earning demand response payments sooner, which contributes to overall customer satisfaction.
Integrating EnerNOC’s solution with our existing network and IT infrastructure was very easy and straightforward. Throughout the process, we were able to stay focused on our core business while EnerNOC handled the enablement process from start to finish, said Terry Sedler, owner of Home City Ice. It’s another example of how partnering with EnerNOC for demand response drives value for our business.
Scalable Platform:
Whereas most current technical approaches involve reading Smart Grid devices on predefined schedules, known as polling, PowerTalk enables constant and real-time visibility into device status and availability without polling. Because PowerTalk-enabled devices automatically push data back to the NOC, scalability constraints associated with polling devices to retrieve data are avoided. As utilities and grid operators continue to network assets and deploy demand response as part of their resource portfolios, the ability to scale to hundreds of thousands or millions of concurrent connections is critical.
Adaptable and Future-ready:
By leveraging XMPP, an open, standards-based messaging protocol, PowerTalk facilitates integration with and interoperability among existing and future smart devices and back office IT systems. As EnerNOC adds new functionality to PowerTalk, software updates can be automatically pushed out to the entire network, including distributed energy management devices, helping to ensure rapid deployment of new value-added features.
“The development of open, standards-based communications protocols will be central in the transformation of today’s electric power grid into the Smart Grid of the future. We believe that presence-enabled PowerTalk is helping to drive that evolution, even before the widespread deployment of Smart Grid hardware, such as Advanced Metering Infrastructure,” said Terry Sick, vice president of product development and engineering at EnerNOC.