The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association are writing a standard that would provide a common basis for electrical energy consumers to describe, manage and communicate about energy consumption and forecasts.

ASHRAE and an electrical manufacturers association are teaming up to make the “smart grid” smarter.

The American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers, and the National Electrical Manufacturers Association are writing a standard that would provide a common basis for electrical energy consumers to describe, manage and communicate about energy consumption and forecasts.

A meeting on the proposal is set for Aug. 30-31 at ASHRAE’s headquarters in Atlanta.

“Smart grids lead to smart meters lead to smart systems,” said ASRHAE President Lynn G. Bellenger, P.E. “As the smart grid adjusts to suit load distribution and maintain power quality and reliability, one of the steps will be to communicate with building metering systems which, in turn, will communicate with building systems and equipment. This ties into demand response control to reduce peak demand. One day in the future, we likely will have real-time pricing with dramatic differences in power costs dependent upon the time of day or grid load.”  

NEMA officials said writing the standard is an important effort.

“NEMA and the members of their smart grid and high-performance buildings councils see the creation of this standard as a strategic element in driving development of a nationwide smart electrical grid while increasing energy efficiency, occupant productivity and cost-effectiveness in safe secure buildings,” said Jim Lewis, manager of the association’s high-performance buildings division.

The standard is part of ASHRAE’s supporting efforts for the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, a public-private partnership initiated by the National Institute of Standards and Technology to speed development of interoperability and cyber security standards for a nationwide smart electric power grid.