“Open Power Grids”: an association to share standards for grid components
The “Open Power Grids” association gathers industry players operating in the electricity distribution value chain to focus on efficient and sustainable grid components that can help decarbonize power distribution infrastructure.
The “Open Power Grids” association, that has acquired legal personality to better pursue its aim to share and develop standards and technologies for grid components with a range of industry stakeholders, aiming to accelerate the adoption of more efficient, safe, and sustainable power grids that comply with net zero carbon emissions requirements.
The association brings together network operators, manufacturers, research institutes and other industry players, allowing them to access the global standards that Enel uses for its tenders, and to propose new standards or modifications to the existing ones.
Over the last decade, Enel has encouraged a convergence of technical solutions towards global standards. The association is helping to speed up progress in this direction as relevant actors of the industry are already engaged in identifying the best solutions in an open and collaborative environment.
Enel’s strategy for its grids business focuses on zeroing the inherent emissions of the infrastructure itself. It will involve lowering the CO2 footprint from operations, reducing network losses, and adopting circular and low emissions materials and components.
For Enel, an expected benefit of the association is that many more units of components that conform to our standards will be produced both by our usual suppliers and by others, increasing market supply.
For the community, this step is aimed to make it easier to build reliable and competitive grid infrastructure critical to the energy transition. In addition, the adoption of our standards by various parties (engineering companies, distributors, etc.) could lead to their constant improvement, with constructive input from all.
The convergence towards the same innovative and sustainable solutions would constitute an extraordinary accelerator of the industrial system: acceleration that Enel cannot pursue alone.
How to join
The collaborative environment is based on two pillars: a digital platform and an association.
The Open Power Grids platform is a digital platform, where all the Enel Global Functional Technical Specifications (of both components and network modules) are available to the members of the Open Power Grids Association.
Those interested in joining the association or finding out more about this initiative can send an email to openpowergrids@enel.com or consult the documents and articles of association below. The adhesion to the association foresees the observation of certain criteria as well as the contribution of the membership fee.
After joining the association, members will receive the invitation code to access the “Open Power Grids Platform” to consult functional specifications and start proposing improvements or the introduction of new ones according to the conditions and the purpose of the association.
Once access is granted, members will be able to consult the Enel Standards, with the possibility to make proposals by starting a new Improvement Request associated to a specific Open Power Grids standard item, so it can be traced and merged properly with any other request related to the same and unique item. These requests will simultaneously launch a collaborative process, where every member will contribute with their comments and enhancements to the request, which will finally be assessed by a Technical Committee to be approved and updated accordingly.