OASIS Energy Market Information Exchange (eMIX) TC

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Exchanging price information and product definitions in energy markets and to those following markets

William Cox, wtcox@coxsoftwarearchitects.com, Chair

Table of Contents

Announcements

Energy Market Information Exchange (EMIX) Version 1.0 is now complete and published in the OASIS archives. All license rights as defined in the specification are now available to developers and other users of the work product. The Acrobat PDF form is authoritative for the specification; the schemas and WSDL files are authoritative for machine-readable artifacts.

This work product is included in the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel Catalog of Standards after Governing Board and Membership acceptance. See their EMIX-specific page for more information.

Implementation work is in progress, including by members of the OpenADR Alliance and TeMIX Inc. In addition, two open source projects implementing Energy Interoperation 1.0 and/or profiles that use the EMIX information model are starting up.

We strongly encourage feedback from users, developers and others, whether OASIS members or not, for the sake of improving the interoperability and quality of OASIS work. All previously submitted comments (for this work as well as other works of the TC) are publicly archived and can be viewed in the Energy Market Information Exchange Issue Tracker archive. Submitted comments (for this work as well as other works of that TC) are publicly archived and can be viewed at http://lists.oasis- open.org/archives/emix-comment/.

Energy markets and sales have been characterized by tariffs and embedded knowledge that make decision automation difficult. Smart grids introduce rapidly changing products and product availability, with associated dynamic prices. Lack of standardized messages conveying a standardized vocabulary for market information has been a barrier to development and deployment of technology to respond to changing market circumstances.

Price and product definition are actionable information. When presented with standard messages conveying price and product, automated systems can make decisions to optimize energy and economic results. In regulated electricity markets, price and products often are defined by complex tariffs, derived through political processes. EMIX defines the information for use in messages that convey this actionable information. An essential distinction between energy and other markets is that price is strongly influenced by time of delivery. EMIX conveys time and interval by incorporating WS-Calendar into tenders, contracts, and performance calls.

An essential distinction between energy and other markets is that price is strongly influenced by time of delivery. Energy for sale at 2:00 AM, when energy use is low, is not the same price as energy for sale at the same location at 2:00 PM, during the working day. EMIX conveys time and interval by incorporating WS-Calendar into tenders, contracts, and performance calls.

Not all market information is available in real time. Present day markets, particularly wholesale markets, may have deferred charges (e.g. balancing charges) that cannot be determined at point of sale. Other markets may require additional purchases to allow the use of the energy purchased (e.g. same-time transmission rights or pipeline fees when accepting delivery on a forward contract). EMIX is useful for representing available price and product information.

OASIS and the EMIX TC welcome your comments. To submit comments, click the "Send A Comment" link on the EMIX TC home page and follow the instructions to subscribe to the emix-comment email list, then simply send comments to that list. If you are a member of the TC, please use the Jira tracking tool to submit comments instead.

We also call your attention to the OASIS IPR Policy applicable to the work of this technical committee. All members of the TC should be familiar with this document, which may create obligations regarding the disclosure and availability of a member's patent, copyright, trademark and license rights that read on an approved OASIS specification. OASIS invites any persons who know of any such claims to disclose these if they may be essential to the implementation of the above specification, so that notice of them may be posted to the notice page for this TC's work.

The approach taken by the TC mirrors that taken by the ISO/RTO Council in developing information exchange requirements for Demand Response: First the required business information exchanges are analyzed, then types and inheritance from the relevant range of shared information models are assigned. The TC has largely completed the first phase, hence this informal public review.

We welcome interested parties to join the TC as it continues to develop its specifications. Participation in the eMIX TC is open to all interested parties, including: energy market participants (retail, wholesale, curtailment, forward and futures trading markets); ISOs and RTOs; aggregators of energy provision; generators; and providers of Smart devices. Contact join@oasis-open.org or the TC chairs for more information on joining the TC.

This work was prepared in response the the NIST Smart Grid Roadmap and the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP) Prioirity Action Plan 03 (PAP03) which is now ccompleted. It is based upon WS-Calendar for the common communication of time and schedule (PAP04) and is used extensively in Energy Interoperation (PAP09) which is approaching its second Public Review

Overview

The OASIS eMIX TC works to define standards for exchanging energy characteristics, availability, and schedules to support the free and effective exchange of information. Better communication of actionable energy prices will help enable and expand efficient markets that satisfy the growing demand for lower-carbon, lower-energy buildings, net zero-energy systems, and supply-demand integration that take advantage of dynamic pricing. Businesses, homes, electric vehicles and the power grid will benefit from automated and timely communication of energy price, characteristics, quantities, and related information.

eMIX focuses on methods of exchanging market information consistent with the OASIS Blue approach, encompassing consistency, transparency, and security.

The eMIX TC works closely with the OASIS Energy Interoperation TC and the OASIS WS-Calendar TC, which respectively are developing Web services-based information and communication models for exchanging dynamic pricing, reliability, and emergency signals and information on energy market participation (such as bids), load predictability, and generation, and common schedule information.

For more information on eMIX, see the TC Charter.

Subcommittees

No subcommittees have been formed for this TC.

Technical Work Produced by the Committee

Energy Market Information Exchange (EMIX) Version 1.0 is now complete and published in the OASIS archives. See Announcements above for details.

Expository Work Produced by the Committee

The Technical Commitee's TEMIX White Paper is available for discussion and comment.

Six Committee Note Drafts; final ballots are planned soon:

External Resources

The eMIX TC works as part of the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology [NIST] Priority Action Plan for Smart Grid Interoperability and the Priority Action Plan 3 Working Group. This work is now facilitated by the SmartGrid Inteorperability Panel in conjunction with NIST.

The Committee Note Draft Retail Block & Tier Prices using EMIX 1.0 has been extended to a paper in Grid-Interop 2011 titled OASIS Collaborative Energy Standards, Facilities, and ZigBee Smart Energy; a preprint is available at the link. The paper shows how any facility management system that can support block & tier price information and demand response can accept and respond to information for Energy Interoperation 1.0/OpenADR 2 and EMIX.

Mailing Lists and Comments

emix: the list used by TC members to conduct Committee work. TC membership is required to post. TC members are automatically subscribed; the public may view archives.

emix-comment: a public mail list for providing input to the OASIS eMIX TC members. Send a comment or view archives.

Additional Information

Providing Feedback: OASIS welcomes feedback on its technical activities from potential users, developers, and others to better assure the interoperability and quality of OASIS work.