NIA SSEN 0040 Technical Interfaces to Scale as a DSO

Key Activities

This project will determine the requirements for safely and securely communicating with customers’ end point devices, such as small generation connections, to enable more flexible connections and flexibility services at a smaller scale and at a lower cost. Initially, investigation will take place into the existing international communication protocols and interface devices that could be used for distributed energy resource management. A subset of the protocols and devices identified will be assessed within laboratory-based trials.

Expected Outcomes

A key benefit of this project is the creation of a technical specification of requirements around communication with customers’ end point devices, alternatively known as Technical Interfaces, that can be used by the electricity industry. The trial aims to assess the readiness of the selected protocols and devices for DSO applications, the compatibility of these interfaces with our existing systems and the cyber security implications of using these interfaces.

Progress

The project is now closed and all project reports are available on the website. The project has highlighted a number of requirements for end-point devices and makes some recommendations on specifications (specifically employing zero trust architecture including a trusted boot). Each of the frameworks tested, benefit from standardisation and built-in cyber security. The testing showed that the frameworks would be able to cope with standard Distribution Network Operator (DNO) operations within a range of typical internal network deployments. For interfaces at scale, standardization of APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) and importantly authentication mechanisms are critical. Learning in this report details these requirements and extends into additional testing which would be required for a large-scale deployment.