Article #110 - The GridWise Architecture Council

The GridWise™ Architecture Council is a team of industry leaders who are shaping the guiding principles, or architecture, of a highly intelligent and interactive electric system - one ripe with decision-making information exchange and market-based opportunities. This architecture will provide guidelines for interaction between participants and interoperability between technologies and systems. We seek to:

• Develop and promote the policies and practices that will allow individual electric devices and their owners to interact and adapt as full participants in system operations.
• Shape the principles of connectivity for intelligent interactions and interoperability across all elements of the electric system from end-use systems, such as buildings or HVAC systems, to distribution, transmission and bulk power generation.
• Address issues of open information exchange, universal grid access, decentralized grid communications and control, and the use of modular and extensible technologies that are compatible with the existing infrastructure.

The Council is neither a design team, nor a standards-making body. Our role is to help identify areas for standardization that allow significant levels of interoperation between system components. We are helping to outline a philosophy of inter-system operation that preserves the freedom to innovate, design, implement and maintain each organization's portion of the electrical system.Visit the GridWise Architecture Council website for further information.