OpenADR Alliance announces first OpenADR certified products

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Global standards body, the OpenADR Alliance announces the launch of the first OpenADR 3.0 certified products developed by Alliance member companies, E.ON Energy Networks, EVoke Systems, and Universal Devices.

Published just over a year ago, the OpenADR 3.0 communications standard represents a major step forward in energy management technology and addresses the challenges faced by utilities, grid operators, and aggregators in managing the growth in distributed energy resources (DER) and automating demand response and grid flexibility initiatives to improve energy management efficiency.

“The role of standards like OpenADR 3.0 are key to the success of a changing energy market, simplifying energy management and improving flexibility.  This is more important than ever as increasingly innovative products enter the market,” comments Rolf Bienert, Managing and Technical Director, OpenADR Alliance.  “We’re excited to see members releasing the first certified OpenADR 3.0 products to the market and to see the standard go from strength to strength.”

E.ON Energy Networks’ flexibility platform SWITCH has successfully completed interoperability testing to become the first VTN (Virtual Top Node) solution to achieve OpenADR 3.0 certification.  SWITCH provides tooling for grid owners and lets them interface with customers that have controllable resources.  By communicating power demand adjustments with OpenADR, both forecasted and in real-time, grid issues can be managed proactively and safely.  With system integrations and power metering, the data flow can be fully automated by SWITCH with no manual input required.  Employing OpenADR 3.0 also enables a viable path for Swedish grid owners to harmonize and standardise IT communication for flexibility use cases such as demand response.  This creates value for end customers through reduced electricity costs due to better optimisation of the existing grid infrastructure, as well as reduced waiting times to get a new grid connection.

Developed in collaboration with Argonne National Laboratory and industry partners, EVoke Systems’ Energy Services Exchange (ESX) platform enables utilities and grid operators to aggregate and optimize EV load management and DER coordination.  By seamlessly communicating demand response and price signals to EV chargers, energy storage systems and other assets, ESX can improve overall system stability and incentivize customers participating in demand response programs.

While Universal Devices, Inc., a pioneer in energy management and automation solutions, launch of an OpenADR 3.0 certified open source Virtual End Node (VEN) across its platform removes the barriers to smart grid adoption.  “This certification represents our commitment to creating an energy ecosystem where utilities and consumers can seamlessly participate in demand response and dynamic pricing programs,” comments Orly Hasidim, Chief Operating Officer, Universal Devices.