Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Home Area Network Requirements, but Were Afraid to Ask
Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Home Area Network Requirements, but Were Afraid to Ask
The OpenHAN Task Force recently released an interesting document, UCAIug Home Area Network System Requirements Specification, that should be required reading for any utility considering deploying an advanced metering infrastructure that interacts with home area networks (HANs). The full 157-page report can be found at:
For background, the OpenHAN Task Force was formed to develop guiding principles, use cases, and platform independent requirements for utility advanced metering infrastructure projects incorporating HANs. The contributors to the report included more than a dozen investor-owned utilities in North America, as well as contributors from companies such as Ecologic Analytics, eMeter, Google, IBM, EnerNex Corporation, Tendril Networks, Itron, Schneider Electric, Trilliant, and Silver Spring Networks.
The purpose of the new report is to define the system requirements for an open standard HAN system and to supply the vendor community with a common set of principles and requirements around which to create products and ensure reliable and sustainable HAN platforms.
The new report also serves to promote open standards-based HANs that are interoperable and to empower consumers to manage their electricity consumption by providing them the intelligence and control they need to make informed decisions on their energy use.
Many companies are currently developing HAN technologies. These technologies can enable consumers to remotely connect to and control automated digital devices throughout their home. For example, a consumer could use their computer or mobile phone to switch appliances on or off or to control temperature and lighting.
It is this instantaneous consumer awareness of information such as load reduction events, energy usage, and energy pricing that makes HANs of interest to utilities. Utilities hope to help facilitate load reduction from their customers when energy prices are high by communicating control signals (e.g., pricing, voluntary load reduction program events) to various enabling devices that have been authorized to exchange information.
Not surprisingly, a large portion of the report is dedicated to the important topic of security. Because bi-directional communication with HAN devices entails the flow of information through various networks, it is necessary to have appropriate security measures in place to lower the risk of eavesdropping, intrusion, and transmitting unwanted content. Furthermore, each HAN device, as a node on the network, has the potential to host, transmit, and receive unwanted content. Security in the HAN is a balance between securing the bi-directional communications, ensuring consumer privacy, and manufacturing cost-effective HAN devices.
When determining the appropriate security requirements, the report recommends performing a security risk assessment, including identifying vulnerabilities, impacts, and threats, from a high-level overall functional perspective. The primary goal of the security risk assessment should be on prevention. The output of this type of risk assessment becomes the basis for the selection of security requirements and the identification of security requirements gaps.
One of the more interesting aspects of the report is its requirements maps. In order to provide guidance to utilities and vendors, the report mapped each set of requirements to functional HAN devices. These tables can be used as a template or starting point for utilities in their discussions with vendors and in their procurement process. Additionally, vendors will find value in using the tables as guidance for producing devices and software which enables basic HAN functionality and for providing additional functionality in order to provide a level of differentiation from competitors.
Obviously, it is a bit difficult to summarize the findings of a 157-page document into a few hundred words. Interestingly, the report does not even attempt to do so. That is to say that there is not an executive summary provided to boil the findings into a concise page or two. This is somewhat understandable, however, given the technical nature of the topic.
I encourage you to check out the report, and look forward to hearing your thoughts about it!
Christopher Perdue
Vice President, Sierra Energy Group
cperdue@energycentral.com
310.471.7396
