These terms and abbreviations are used regularly in Smart Grid Today  as part of our commitment to delivering the most concise, easy-to-read news possible.  Not everyone knows them all -- thus we put a link to this page at the end of every issue.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

AES:  Advanced encryption standard, a Federal Information Processing Standard (FIPS), specifically, FIPS Publication 197, that specifies a cryptographic algorithm for use by US Government organizations to protect sensitive, unclassified information. Much more from the US National Institute of Standards & Technology here: http://csrc.nist.gov/CryptoToolkit/aes/aesfact.html.

ALJ: Administrative law judge, not a judge but an official, professional hearing officer employed by a government agency to preside over hearings and appeals.

AMR:  Automated or advanced meter reading -- that uses one-way communications technology to collect data from the meter via PLC, radio or other networking technology (IMPORTANT: Our reports before 2009-Jun-21 may haave used the term AMR to mean a meter with two-way communications.  On that date we adopted the newer definition meaning one-way technology).

AMI:  Automated or advanced metering infrastructure, utility infrastructure with two-way communications for metering and associated systems allowing delivery of a wide variety of services and applications to the utility and customer.

ANSI: The American National Standards Institute, administrator and coordinator of the US private sector voluntary standardization system for more than 90 years as a private, nonprofit membership organization supported by a diverse constituency of private and public sector organizations.

API:  Application programming interface -- a piece of software that lets applicationns interact with the functions of an operatring system or other piece of software.

ARRA: The American Recovery & Reinvestment Act of 2009, aka the stimulus act, a US federal law setting aside hundreds of billions of dollars from the government to pay for "shovel ready" projects to help stimulate the US economy out of a recession, including $4.5 billion for smart grid via the DOE and $7+ billion for broadband via the NTIA and RUS offices at the Commerce Dept.

ARRL:  The American Radio Relay League is the US organization of licensed amateur radio operators that use short wave radios to communicate with other such operators.  In times of emergency such as floods, the aftermath of storms and other events that disrupt conventional communication, hams as they call themselves can offer a vital communication link to those in need and to those responding to the emergency.  BPL can potentially interfere with short-wave radio communications and mitigating that interference was the goal of the FCC's 2004 report and order.

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B

Bake-off:  In technology circles its a process used to compare competing technologies and choose one.

Bit:  Binary digit, the "0s" and "1s" of the digital world and the smallest increment of data thus used in measurements of data transmission such as kbps, mbps or gbps.

BPL:  Broadband over power lines, the technology at the heart of the power line networking industry.

BPS:  Bits per second, a measurement of data transmission speed -- for example the speed of a particular internet connection.  Bit stands for "binary digit," the "0" and "1" that are the basic building block of computer data (see also mbps).

Broadband:  General term for IP or internet connections faster that dial-up.  FCC says its anything over 300 bps, but a generally accepted definition might be the 500 kbps up to three mbps offered by BPL, cable and DSL.

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C

CAIFI:   Customer average interruption frequency index, a measure of electric utility reliability.

Cap-ex:  Capital expense or expenditure.

Carrier's carrier:  A telecom industry business model or deal structure where a firm sells or leases bandwidth or network capacity on its own infrastructure to another, often competitive network firm or telecom carrier.

Cat5, Cat6:  Category 5 and 6 Ethernet cables -- the basic standards of Ethernet network cabling.

CCTV:  Closed circuit TV, a term long used to describe surveillance and security camera systems.

CFO:  Chief financial officer.

C&I: Commercial and industrial.

CIO:  Chief information officer.

Coaxial cable:  A standardized, shielded cable used mostly by the cable TV inustry .

Codec:  Technology that encodes and decodes information such as digital video and audio.

COO:  Chief operating officer.

Co-op:  Cooperative electric utilities, member owned utilities that formed mostly in the 1930s to get electricity to areas where larger utilities couldn't make a business case for rolling out power lines.

CPE:  Customer premises equipment such as phones, modems, routers and set-top-boxes.

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D

DA:  Distribution automation, a general term referring to a class of technology that lets electric utilities monitor and remotely control their power distribution networks with two-way computer networking and computerized data handling.

DB:  Decibels, a measure of sound volume or amplitude of sound or radio waves.

dba:  Doing business as.

DG: Distributed generation, power generation that happens on the premises of the end user.

DR:  Demand response, where "demand" is the utility term for the draw of electricity from the electric distribution system and "response" refers to actions taken by utility customers to reduce their demand. This term refers to a type of arrangement between utilities and customers that can take various forms but always refers to the agreement by customers to cut their use of electricity when the utility asks them to, or in some cases customers give the utility permission to remotely change the use of power within the customer's premises. Many DR arrangements are with big industrial consumers that agree to shut down some or all of their power use when the utility alerts them -- often via a phone call -- to a peak demand condition, and often with a financial consideration to mitigate the impact on the business of the customer. Programs for residential customers often use remote controls of thermostats, water heaters, swimming pool pumps and other appliances. Some DR programs offer financial incentives to the customer to have their power use reduced temporarily and others use variable power rates, boosting the cost of power to create an incentive for the customer to reduce power use as peak use times.

DRSG:  Demand Response & Smart Grid Coalition, a leading trade association in the smart grid and demand response industry.

DS2:  Design of Systems on Silicon, a leading PLC chipmaker.

DSL:  Digital subscriber line, a broadband delivery technology used mostly by telecom firms.

DSM:  Demand side management, a type of utility program designed to cut power demand on the utility by 1) using technology or 2) changing power use behavior within the customer's premises.

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E

EIA:  Energy Information Administration, an office of the US Dept of Energy (www.eia.doe.gov).

EISA: Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007, the first US federal law setting funds and responsibilities for the smart grid via DOE, FERC and NIST.

EMC:  Electromagnetic compatibility, the condition where communications equipment is running without causing or suffering unacceptable degradation due to unintentional electromagnetic interference to or from other equipment in the same environment.

EMEA:  Europe, Middle East & Africa, often treated as a single region for marketing and distribution.

EPAct:  Energy Policy Act of 2005.

EPRI:  Electric Power Research Institute, a leading and highly respected research body that was chosen by NIST to create the federal interim roadmap to smart grid interoperability standards.

Ethernet:  A family of LAN products covered by the IEEE 802.3 standard (Cisco Systems has more detailed info here).

ETSI:  European Telecommunications Standards Institute, a key standards body.

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F

Fabless:  Non-manufacturer, used by semiconductor firms to explain their role as a chip designer but not a factory.

FCC:  US Federal Communications Commission (www.fcc.gov">www.fcc.gov).

FERC: Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the US federal regulator of the energy utility industry, focusing mainly on interstate issues of transmission and wholesale markets plus lots of related isues including smart grid standards, DR policies and much more.

Firmware:  Software that's embedded in a hardware device including in the computer chips themselves.

Fixed wireless:  Point-to-point or point-to-multipoint wireless networking where the antennas on both sides of the network are fixed to a permanent location (see mobile wireless and nomadic wireless).

Footprint:  The geographical region served by a particular electric distribution firm or utility.

FTTx (FTTH, FTTP, FTTC):  Fiber-to-the-home/premises or curb -- broadband access networks using optical fiber.

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G

GAAP:  Generally accepted accounting principles, defined by the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants as encompassing "the conventions, rules and procedures necessary to define accepted practice in the preparation of financial statements in the US".

Gateway:  A network management device usually within a home or business that distributes throughout the premises the variety of available broadband services such as internet, voice and video.

GBPS: Gigabits per second, a measure of broadband speed or bandwidth that translates to one billion bits per second --1,000 times faster (or more data per second) that 1 mbps.  The latter speed was once considered lightening fast but has been outpaced by BPL, cable modems and DSL.

GHG: Greenhouse gas

G.hn:  Pronounced "G-dot-H-N," it's a networking technology standard under development at the ITU-T with two primary goals: working on all three of the most common home networks -- power line, coaxial and phone lines -- and delivering 1 gbps bandwidth. The HomeGrid Forum was created as a private sector organization meant to help the development of G.hn (http://www.homegridforum.org).

GHz:  Gigahertz, a bandwidth measure meaning billions of bits/second, thus 1 ghz = one billion bits/second.

GIS:  Geographic information system used by utilities and other entities to keep a record of the location of every peice of infrastructure they own or use.

GPS:  Global positioning satelite, a technology that lets the user know exactly where they are on the surface of the Earth within a few feet or meters.

G&T: Generation and transmission, usually used to describe a type of company in the electric industry that generates power for one or more utilities and transmits the power over long distances via high-voltage transmission lines to substations in the areas where the power is then distributed by the utility over medium-voltage power lines.  G&T describes both a segment of the power industry and the firms that operate in that segment.

GW:  Gigawatt, one million watts.

GWh: Gigawatt hour.

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H

HAN:  Home area network, the network in the home created by BPL or another technology and that may need to be able to interact with a DR, AMR or other external application, service or system.

HDTV:  High definition television -- with a higher resolution a thus a clearer, crisper image than traditional TV.

HFC:  Hybrid-fiber/coaxial, the second-generation connection technology used by the cable TV industry to bring higher bandwidths to its original coaxial cable networks. The fiber is optical fiber that brings high-speed connections into neighborhoods and makes delivering suitable bandwidth for digital TV, HDTV and cable modem service possible.

Homeplug:  A leading PLC specification originally created for in-home networking and now used for access BPL networking, too.

HVAC:  Heating, ventilation and air conditioning -- the systems used to condition the air in office and commercial buildings and the industry that creates, installs and maintains those systems.

Hydro: Short for "hydro power," the use of water pressure, most often created with a dam and a river or lake, to generate power -- a technology that is used everywhere but dominates the generation strategies in the northwestern US and throughout Canada.

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I

IBEC:  International Broadband Electric Communications (www.ibec.net) .

IC:  Integrated circuits, also called computer chips.

IEC: International Electrotechnical Commission.

IEEE:  Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (often pronounced "EYE-triple-E") -- creates technology standards among a variety of activities.

Internal apps:  Internal utility applications.  A wide and growing array of devices -- and the services those devices perform -- for utilities, including advanced metering, remote monitoring and control of electricity distribution systems and many other inventive systems.

Interop:  Short for "interoperable," one of those cumbersome words that's irreplaceable in the smart grid industry thus we shorten it sometimes to make it at least a bit easier to manage.

IOU:  Investor owned utility.

IP:  Internet protocol, the universal computer language that made the internet possible by breaking all content into packets to transmit it, carrying those packets to their intended destination and re-assembling them into text, documents, graphics, computer code and video at the other end.  The real genius was realizing all that content could be mixed together along the networks and then sorted back out as needed for delivery and reassembly. 

IPv4, IPv6:  IP (above) version 4 is the protocol that was used to create the internet we've all come to know since the mid 90s and includes an addressing protocol that never imagined billions of devices would one day be connected to the internet and thus need unique addresses.  IPv6 is being deployed now bit-by-bit and has a new addressing standard that allows for a much larger universe of addressable devices.

IT:  Information Technology .

ITU, ITU-T:  The International Telecommunications Union (ITU) is the United Nations' agency for information and communication technology issues and the global focal point for governments and the private sector in developing networks and services.  Its telecom standards arm, the International Telecommunication Union -Telecommunication Standardization Sector (ITU-T), is a world standards-setting organization and a couterpart to bodies such as the IEEE, CENELEC and others.  

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J

Joint use:  A legal term describing the sharing of utility poles by mutual agreement between pole-owning utilities, typically the local ILEC and the electric utility.

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K

KBPS:  Kilobits or thousand bits per second, a measure of data transsmission speed.

KEMA:  A global consultancy and test lab started in 1927 in the Netherlands -- the letters of its name are an abbreviation of its original Dutch name that is not now used.

Kilobit:  Thousand bits.

KV:  Kilovolt.

KW: Kilowatt (with apologies to the heirs of Mr. Watt, we do not capitalize the "w").

KWh:  Kilowatt hours, a measure of the amount of electricity used by a utility customer.

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L

LAN:  Local area network, usually connecting computers and related devices in a single office, building or home.

Load:  Electric utility term for the infrastructure that uses the power the utility distributes -- such as homes, businesses, industry and in-the-field equipment -- thus, locating a power generation or storage device near load, for example, means putting it close to where the power will be used.

LV:  Low voltage, describing the power lines utilities use to carry power from the transformer into homes and small businesses.

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M

M2M: Machine-to-machine.

MBPS:  Megabits per second, a measurement of the speed data travels in a network -- such as through a home or business internet connection.

MDM:  Meter data management, a system designed to handle the data gathered from usually a large number of meters. 

MDMS:  Meter data management system.

Megabit:  A million bits.

Mesh network:  A network technology where each node or end-device can communicate with any nearby devices to create "smart" data routing that finds the most efficient path for data and can change the path when a node stops working.

MHz:  Megahertz, a million hertz, a measure of radio wave frequency.

Microgrid: The definition for this term may still be evolving but one of its greatest proponents, the Galvin Electricity Initiative explaines it this way: "The microgrid model focuses on linking building-integrated systems together to take advantage of shared power generation and storage."  It's an area of electric distribution infrastructure or "grid" that can be or is necessarily self-sufficient with various forms of local generation such as solar and win. The "smart microgrid" is enabled with communications and computer technology to help it operate apart from the utility grid -- although most microgrid visions include interconnection with the utility network, perhaps as a backup to local generation.

Mobile wireless:  Used for mobile phones (also known as cell phones), a network technology where a provider's fixed antennas communicate with customers' mobile antennas on devices that can travel from one antenna's range into another's seamlessly (see also fixed wireless and nomadic wireless).

MOU:  Memorandum of understanding, an agreement between entities with clearly defined goals, roles and responsibilities.

Muni:  Municipal electric utility, owned by the town or city they serve.

MV:  Medium voltage, describing the power lines utilities use to carry power from a substation out into neighborhoods, also known as the distribution grid.

MW: Megawatt, 1 million watts.

MWh: Megawatt-hour, a measure of electrcity supply, availability or use over time.

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N

NAESB: The North American Energy Standards board, pronounced "NAYZ-bee."

NARUC:  National Assn of Regulatory Utility Commissioners.

NDA:  Non-disclosure agreement.

NEMA:  National Electrical Manufacturers Assn, "the trade association of choice for the electrical manufacturing industry. Founded in 1926 and headquartered near Washington, DC, its approximately 450 member companies manufacture products used in the generation, transmission and distribution, control, and end-use of electricity," said the group's website.

NERC:   North American Electric Reliability Corporation, the regulatory entity charged with probing reliability issues and setting and enforcing standards meant to foster electric reliability including overseeing smaller, regional reliability organizations.

NGO:  Non-governmental organization, a not-for-profit organization that serves a government-like development function but is not run by a local or national government.

NIST:  National Institute of Standards & Technology, an office of the US Dept of Commerce, it handles standards and technology issued for the federal government including being tasked in the Energy Independence & Security Act of 2007 with heading up an effort to set interoperability standards for the smart grid industry.

NOC:  Network operations center (pronounced like "knock"), where monitoring and control devices manage a communications network, often located far from the network and may serve multiple networks at once..

NPRM:  Notice of proposed rulemaking.

NRECA:  National Rural Electric Cooperative Assn, the trade association representing rural electric cooperatives (www.nreca.org).

NRTC:  National Rural Telecommunications Cooperative -- a co-op for co-ops, using the combined buying-power of its 1,300 co-op members to get good deals on services and products for rural electric and telecom cooperatives (www.nrtc.coop).

NTIA:  The National Telecommunications & Information Administration, an agency of the US Commerce Dept, the office is the Executive Branch's principal voice on domestic and international telecommunications and information technology.

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O

OEM:  Original equipment manufacturer, a term with various meanings including simply an equipment manufacturer.  We try to avoid using this term since it has too many definitions such as original maker of equipment that's sold under a different brand name and a firm that acquires technology and implements it into a product.  Instead, we prefer to explain the actual role of the firm in question to help achieve clarity in our reporting.

OFDM: Orthogonal frequency-division multiplexing, a technological invention that's used by various networking equipment makers to deliver high-speed or "broadband" networking such as BPL, for example .

OFGEM:  Office of the Gas & Electricity Markets, a national regulatory agency of the UK government.  Since the UK "deregulated" its power and gas utilities, Ofgem polices the markets and the distribution firms.  This is a rare acronym where we use the non-traditional proprietary style capitals and lower case.  Why bend the rules here?  Putting "GEM" in caps changes the pronunciation in an unfortunate way plus since this is a regulatory agency, we feel this acronym is not an attempt to insert a "logo" or service- or trade-mark into news copy.

OPERA:  Open PLC European Research Alliance, the European Union's BPL effort to find and perfect a BPL technology for Europe .

Op-ex:  Operating expenditures -- a financial term meaning the money it costs to run a company or an operation within a company such as a network.

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P

PEV:  Plug-in electric vehicle.

PHEV:  Plug-in hybrid electric vehicle.

PLC:  Power line communications, describes all communications over power lines including BPL and lower speed services, too.

Pole attachments:  Originally by mutual agreement and later by federal statute and regulation, provide non-pole-owning firms such as cable TV and CLECs with access to a utility's distribution poles, conduits and rights of way.

POP:  Point of presence, where the local network connects to national networks.

PSC:  Public Service Commission.

PUC:  Public Utilities Commission.

PV: Photovoltaic, solar power technology that turns sunlight directly into electricity.

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Q

Q1-Q4:  Q1 is shorthand for the first quarter of a year and the other three follow the pattern.

R

R&D:  Research and development.

Recloser: A device used on medium-voltage power distribution circuits to control the flow of power.

REMC:  Rural electric membership cooperative/corporation -- a term commonly used in the name of an electric co-op such as the South Central Indiana REMC.

Regenerator:  A device that boosts the distance a BPL signal can travel by decoding the message, filtering the message content from any noise on the lines, then recoding and transmitting the message.

Repeater:  An outdated approach to boosting a BPL signal. A repeater re-ampliphies the signal plus any noise the signal picked up ultimately causing the degradation of the signal (see regenerator).

RF:  Radio frequency, used as a generic term in many industries to describe radio signals used for networking and even those signals that cause interference.

RFP:  Request for proposal.

ROI:  Return on investment, a financial term referring to the revenue generated by an investment. In the world of networks it usually refers to revenue generated by investing in network infrastructure.

ROW:  Right of way, a legal term referring to access by utilities to private and public property.

RTU:  A remote terminal unit that collects data from grid ware such as meters in real time.

RUS Loans:  Rural utility service loans -- low-cost loans for broadband and other telecom service offered by the USDA and authorized by Congress.

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S

SAIDI:  System average interruption duration index - a measure of the duration of outages at an electric utility.

SAIFI:   System average interruption frequency index, a measurement of electric utility reliability.

SCADA:  Supervisory control and data acquisition, a system used by power utilities so send and collect supervisory controls and monitor data through power lines.

SGIG: Smart Grid Investment Grant program, one of DOE's stimulus programs under ARRA, offering matching funds to 100 projects out of the 400 that applied, up to a maximum of $200 million/project, though many asked for and received less than that.  We assembled a guide to our coverage of the program under Hot Topics.

SGRDG: Smart Grid Regional Demonstration Grant program, one of DOE's stimulus programs under ARRA, offering matching funds to 32 projects that test new ground for the US. 

Smart grid:  A nickname for the utility power distribution grid enabled with computer technology and two-way digital communications networking.  The term encompasses the ever-widening palatte of utility applications that enhance and automate the monitoring and control of electrical distribution networks for added reliability, efficiency and cost effective operations.

Smart meter:  A utility meter for electricity, natural gas or water, usually, that always includes two-way communications technology (see AMI).

Stranded asset:  An asset that is worth less on the market than it is on a balance sheet because it has become obsolete in advance of complete depreciation, such as electric utility meters that are replaced by newer meters before the existing ones would normally have been retired.

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T

T1/T3:  The T1 and later T3 are standard connections to the internet originally used by universities, institutions and other ISPs. Once considered super-fast, the T1 delivers about 1.5 mbps or about half the bandwidth many end-users get with a cable modem today. Both are still widely used.

TCP, TCP/IP:  Transmission control protocol, usually written with internet protocol as TCP/IP and the two make up the suite of protocols that defines the internet.

T&D:  Transmission and distribution. The former brings power from the generation source usually through HV lines to the substation where the latter -- MV distribution lines -- carry the power into neighborhoods.

Telco:  Telecommunications company -- though we prefer the term telecom firm.

TOU:  "Time of use," referring to the dynamic pricing of electricity. This approach to electricity pricing lets time of day and other conditions move the price of power used by retail customers at established intervals, although the details of how and when the price would change is established through a regulatory process and could be very different from one state or region to the next. When customers and/or their automated appliances and power-using systems receive a price signal via the networks supporting AMI or intelligent distribution management systems -- the typical reduction of electricity demand when prices soar is cited repeatedly as a key feature of the evolving smart grid or modernized electric energy infrastructure (see also DR).

TWh: Tera-Watt hour, a measure of electricity in trillion Watts used in one hour.

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U

UPA:  United Powerline Association -- dedicated to PLC coexistance, interoperability and the DS2 chipset (www.upaplc.org).

UPLC:  United Power Line Council, trade assn of the utility access BPL world (www.uplc.utc.org).

USB:  Universal serial bus, a cable system with rectangular plugs used to connect a wide variety of devices to computers and computer peripherals.

USDA:  US Dept of Agriculture (www.usda.gov).

UTC:  United Telecom Council, a global trade association dedicated to creating a favorable business, regulatory and technological environment for companies that own, manage or provide critical telecom systems in support of their core business. Founded in 1948 to advocate for the allocation of added radio spectrum for power utilities, UTC has evolved into a dynamic organization that represents electric, gas and water utilities; natural gas pipelines; critical infrastructure companies, and other industry stakeholders. Parent organization of BPL trade association, the UPLC.

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V

VC:  Venture capital.

VDSL & VDSL2:  Very high bit-rate DSL. VDSL delivers up to 26 mbps over distances up to 50 meters on short loops such as from fiber to the curb, and VDSL2 is the 2nd generation of VDSL and can hit 100 mbps on loops about 100 meters long using a bandwidth of 30 mhz.

VLAN:  Virtual local area network, a method of segmenting traffic from individual users on an IP network so that those within the VLAN "see" each other on the network and can communicate and share files, printers and other peripherals locally -- while blocking interaction from others on the network.

VOIP:  Voice over internet protocol.

VP:  Vice president.

VPN:  Virtual private network -- a method of keeping the presence of and network devices belonging to particular users secure and hidden from other users on the same network infrastructure. The name referrs to simulating private networks within a network pipe that carries data to and from multiple users.

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W

WAN:  Wide area network, a computer network connecting all the buildings in a building complex to each other or all the homes and businesses in a neighborhood, town or city to the internet.

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XML:  Extensible markup language, like the HTML protocol that makes web pages possible, XML makes more advanced applications possible over IP networks. Find lots more information from Sun Microsystems.

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