Monday at GridWeek: International Collaboration

My focus today is on international collaboration on the Smart Grid, the topic of the initial roundtable discussion, and continuing with the day's "international" track. As noted in the discussion, in order for this effort to succeed internationally, we need standards. It was noted as well that we don't know what the end state of the Smart Grid development will look like; different things are being done in different parts of the world and may be adopted elsewhere.

This effort is certainly getting the attention of standards organizations. This morning while riding the escalator up to the meeting floor, a woman ahead of me turned around and exclaimed, "I saw your tweet last night!" She turned out to Gabriela Ehrlich, Head of Communications for IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), a standards body with which I am familiar though I don't work much with IEC standards (yet -- they have a sizable body of established standards applicable to the Smart Grid). Including her IEC colleagues I met this morning, they had coverage from Europe, North America and Latin America.

The current panel session, "Smart Grid Implementations -- International Overview" features representatives from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Russia. As just noted (live), different countries are developing technologies according to their various needs. Hopefully we can all integrate this for unified global development.

Afternoon update: Networking among the exhibits during the breaks: