Standards for energy management system application program interfaces

This paper introduces draft IEC standard 61970. This standard develops the guidelines and information model produced by the EPRI Control Centre Application Program Interface (CCAPI) project. The first part of the standard is a reference model describing the expected architecture and listing the major categories of applications. The major work completed is a common information model that is an object-oriented representation of a power system as viewed by energy management systems. One part describes physical based entities such as substation and conducting equipment. This model of network equipment and connectivity can also be used within distribution management systems. Other parts describe abstract entities related to the financial and scheduling data required for deregulated operation of power systems. Work is continuing to define the component interface standards for each of the application categories. This work is using a software design process that analyses the information exchanges described in use cases.