In 2005, at the suggestion of the California Energy Commission (CEC), the UCA International Users Group (UCAIUG) formed the OpenAMI task force to provide a forum for the rapid, technical development of standards, practices, and guidelines necessary to foster interoperability in AMI systems. This group has a wide membership base – any interested party can join and contribute equally.
Upon its formation, the OpenAMI task force realized that a clear set of requirements were required prior to developing specific technological solutions. The OpenAMI task force first proceeded to adopt a core set of guiding principles and then began defining requirements through a use case based process. Due to the large constituency of the membership however, it has been difficult to reach consensus on many points. Some utility companies participating in the OpenAMI process have indicated that core requirements from their point of view (as the ultimate customer for AMI systems) are being missed, not addressed thoroughly, or simply incorrect from their point of view.
Due to the significant increase in utility and regulatory interest given the 2005 Energy Policy Act call for removing barriers to deployment of smart meters nationally, the formation of a group to address utility specific issues related to AMI systems was urgently needed.
UtilityAMI will not develop new standards that members would be required to accept but rather will develop policy, high level requirements, and identify standards that could be applied in various circumstances. Consumers of the work products of UtilityAMI may include regulators, UtilityAMI members, and non-members with the goal being to encourage the development and use of uniform approaches to similar technical issues.
This approach is consistent with the recommendations of the EPRI IntelliGrid Architecture, the GridWise Architecture Council Constitution for Utility Interoperability, and the California Energy Commission reports on AMI/DRI architecture and interoperability. In addition, coordination with OpenAMI would be maintained to utilize use cases, reference designs, interface specifications, and other OpenAMI work products as they are produced. UtilityAMI will in fact fill the role of the utility advisory board that is defined in the OpenAMI operating rules but has not been instantiated until recently.
The documents produced by UtilityAMI are expected to constitute a set of recommendations that can be used by individual utilities and other interested parties at their sole discretion. By striving to capture specific recommendations in writing --- and then providing them to a large group of interested parties for review and comment --- it is expected that the general requirements of utilities for AMI will be better understood. As a result, potential vendors are likely to be encouraged to develop new products that are better suited to a wider utility market than might result if product development efforts by potential vendors were driven solely by RFP or other solicitations by individual utilities. Standards organizations and industry organizations such as OpenAMI will be able to focus their efforts on technical initiatives that most directly address the requirements of the end customer of these systems.