With the nations striving to gain energy independence, Smart Grid technology has emerged as the ultimate savior. In a landmark step, two premier bodies at each side of Atlantic decided to team up for Smart Grid standards development.

In a press release, the U.S. Commerce Department's National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the European Union's (EU) Smart Grid Coordination Group (SG-CG) announced that they are going to collaborate on working out common goals and areas of focus for the development of Smart Grid standards.

The new collaboration is meant to ensure that Smart Grid standards on both continents have as much in common as possible, so that devices and systems that interact with these grids can be designed in similar fashion. Accordingly, the two organizations reportedly came up with a joint white paper, outlining areas for future collaboration. Overall goals include the reduction of carbon emissions and security of supply. The whitepaper is available online.

The SG-CG represents three private-sector standards organizations: the European Committee for Standardization (CEN), the European Committee for Electrotechnical Standardization (CENELEC) and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI (News - Alert)). Both NIST and the SG-CG have mandates to coordinate the development of a standards framework for Smart Grids. The entire initiative, according to the industry experts have great potentials for unlocking innovation in the electrical sector.

Smart Grids are expected to ease the incorporation of renewable energy sources, energy saving devices and electric vehicles into the power system. In recent years, the US and EU governments have taken a number of actions in recent years, including the U.S. Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 and the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, and Europe's Directives 2009/72/EC and 2009/73/EC within the framework of the 3rd Package for the Internal Energy Market. This legislative effort has translated into a number of standards initiatives like the NIST Framework and Roadmap for Smart Grid Interoperability Standards in the United States and a Smart Grid mandate in the EU.

The collaboration aims to harmonize these conceptual frameworks. It also will promote the regular exchange of information regarding many issues.

“While the potential benefits of Smart Grids are enormous, they can only be fully reached if we can all agree on global solutions. It is promising to see that NIST and SG-CG will be supporting a number of common positions and areas of collaboration to ensure a consistent set of international standards,” chairman of SG-CG Ralph Sporer noted in a statement.

“The need for integration of multiple technologies, the many international activities, and ever-changing technical solutions within a short time frame make standards development a challenging task for standards organizations worldwide. But this collaboration should help make sure that no one reinvents the wheel,” Arnold added.

Early this year, NIST announced that John D. McDonald, general manager of marketing for GE Energy's transmission and distribution business and an IEEE (News - Alert) Fellow, will serve as chair of the governing board of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, the organization launched by NIST in November to sustain and coordinate development of interoperability standards for a modernized electric power grid.