ShareThis

(Washington, DC)  The Department of Energy’s (DOE) examinations of two big smart grid-related issues, consumer data access and privacy and utility communications needs, are now complete, DOE General Counsel Scott Blake Harris said today in announcing the top-line findings of these wide-ranging examinations.  Both of the DOE proceedings on this topic stem from the Federal Communications Commission’s (FCC) National Broadband Plan, released last spring, which asked the DOE to dig deeper into the central questions of consumer energy data usage and the future of utility communications in the smart grid era.

Data Access and Privacy

Speaking at a forum hosted by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, Harris outlined the major conclusions of the DOE’s report on smart grid data access, third party use and privacy issues.  In general, the various commenters in the data access and privacy proceeding were in very broad agreement, Harris said.  Among the areas of agreement for the various utility, telecom, technology, government and public interest groups who filed comments are:

1.       Consumer education and flexibilities of technologies are going to be critical to the long-term success of the smart grid.

2.       Detailed consumption data should be protected.

3.       Utilities should continue to give access to consumer data.

4.       Consumers should have access to their own data.

5.       Smart grid deployment strategies should consider special populations, such as older Americans, minorities and rural residents.

6.       No data should be disclosed to third parties unless the consumer agrees to such disclosure via opt-in permission mechanisms.

7.       Opt-in permission requires authorization that has specific terms and procedures, particularly regarding what the specific data access start and stop dates are.

8.       Third parties have to be required to protect data and only use the data for purposes the data are intended.

9.       States should adopt regulations regarding the disclosure of consumer data.

From a policy perspective, an array of commenters agreed that educating consumers on smart grid technologies should be a high priority, with both federal and state programs supporting this goal.  Whatever policies and regulations ultimately get adopted, Harris said, they must be flexible, taking into account local circumstances and  they should be tailored to populations most stressed by high energy costs.

Some data access and privacy issues, however, did spark disagreements.  “It is difficult to predict whether consumers or utilities are the low-cost provider of data,” Harris said, referring to the choice between allowing consumers to give their data to third parties or asking utilities to send it to the third parties directly.

Other areas where a consensus failed to emerge:

·         Whether to require consumers to fill out electronic or written authorization forms.

·         How to limit the legal liability of utilities which might inadvertently violate the privacy of consumers when providing data to third parties.

·         What types of data utilities should collect and disclose.

·         What data should utilities provide to third parties.

·         When utilities should be required to charge cost-based fees to third parties.

·         How and in what form utilities should be required to provide data to third parties (e.g. should the data be machine-readable? Real-time?).

DOE is reluctant to recommend any hard and fast rules regarding all of these issues because of the diverse circumstances of particular jurisdictions.  Instead, “DOE can better serve the public by alerting local policymakers of the equity of the debate rather than who won the debate,” Harris said.

But some specific recommendations to states are in order, he added.  States should consider how to deal with data management costs as utilities transition to a model where they share data with third parties, Harris said.  The important point, though, is that states view this as a transition.  States should further examine the certification requirements of third parties and set some ground rules about which third parties have rights to access consumer data.

Communications Needs

The same kind of broad consensus on data access and privacy matters did not emerge when it came to the second set of issues examined by DOE, namely utility communications needs.  Harris said that DOE expected the debate to solidify into a utilities versus telco fight, but “what we found was more nuanced.”

In short, “whether utilities should use their own networks or telcos depends on the circumstances,” Harris said.   “We do not draw any hard conclusions.  In the end it is up to utilities to decide what meets their needs.”

The two most controversial aspects of utility communications are reliability of commercial communications providers used by utilities and the availability of spectrum for utilities to develop their own communications networks.  In terms of telecom service provider reliability, the biggest problems are lack of back-up power and the inability to give utilities priority of service, Harris said.

Discussion regarding both of these issues, as well as other issues, should continue.  Changes in existing federal government programs that allow utilities to gain emergency or priority access to communications networks, such as TSP (Telecommunications Service Priority) or WSP (Wireless Priority Service) should be investigated further, Harris said.

Moreover, utilities should be given a seat at the table across the federal government where issues of spectrum access are debated, Harris recommended.  DOE is committed to working with the other federal agencies and working groups to help utilities seek solutions to their spectrum shortage issues.

UTC will prepare a special Information Bulletin summarizing the full contents of the DOE reports, which are now available. For more information, please contact legal@utc.org.