Communications architecture for intelligent electronic devices

• US 6,751,562 B1
• Filed: 03/22/2001
• Issued: 06/15/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 11/28/2000
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Power Measurement Ltd. (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: Power Measurement Ltd. (Schneider Electric SE)
• Inventors: Van Gorp, John C., Gilbert, Bryan J., Blackett, Andrew W., Teachman, Michael E., Yeo, Jeffrey W.
• Primary Examiner(s): ASSOUAD, PATRICK J
• Application Number:
  US09/814,436
• Time in Patent Office: 1,181 Days
• Field of Search: 702/61, 702/59, 702/62, 702/65, 702/188, 700/286, 700/291, 700/292, 700/293, 700/294, 700/295, 361/62, 361/64, 361/66, 361/68, 340/870.02, 340/635, 340/637, 340/638, 340/657
• US Class Current: 702/61
• CPC Class Codes: G01R 19/2513 Arrangements for monitoring electric power systems, e.g. power lines or loads; Logging
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 19/4185 characterised by the network communication
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 2219/32142 Define device, module description using xml format file
• CPC Class Codes: H02J 3/008 involving trading of energy or energy transmission rights
• CPC Class Codes: Y02P 90/02 Total factory control, e.g. smart factories, flexible manufacturing systems [FMS] or integrated manufacturing systems [IMS]
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/10 Energy trading, including energy flowing from end-user application to grid

Abstract

A power management architecture for an electrical power distribution system, or portion thereof, is disclosed. The architecture includes multiple intelligent electronic devices (“IED'"'"'s”) distributed throughout the power distribution system to manage the flow and consumption of power from the system. The IED'"'"'s are linked via a network to back-end servers. Power management application software and/or hardware components operate on the IED'"'"'s and the back-end servers and inter-operate via the network to implement a power management application. The communications between the IED'"'"'s and the back-end servers are facilitated through network security devices such as firewalls. The architecture provides a scalable and cost effective framework of hardware and software upon which such power management applications can operate to manage the distribution and consumption of electrical power by one or more utilities/suppliers and/or customers which provide and utilize the power distribution system.

Claims

1. An electrical power management architecture comprising:

at least one intelligent electronic device (“

IED”

) coupled with a portion of an electrical power system and further coupled with an internal network;

the at least one IED further comprising at least one sensor coupled with the portion of the electrical power system and further operative to sense at least one electrical parameter in the portion of the electrical power system and generate first power management data related thereto;

a firewall, the firewall operative to securely couple an external network with the internal network; and

a network interface operative to couple the at least one IED with the internal network and facilitate a communications, initiated by the at least one IED, of the first power management data through the firewall from the internal network to the external network.

2. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the firewall is operative to selectively restrict selected protocols communicated between the external network and the internal network.

3. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the network interface is further operative to facilitate receipt of the first power management data from the external network.

4. The electrical power management architecture of claim 3 wherein the first power management data is received as at least one electronic mail message.

5. The electrical power management architecture of claim 3, wherein the first power management data is received as at least one instant message.

6. The electrical power management architecture of claim 3, wherein the at least one IED is operative to process and implement a power management function in response to the first power management data.

7. The electrical power management architecture of claim 6, wherein the first power management data comprises a power management command.

8. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data is communicated as at least one electronic mail message.

9. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data is communicated as at least one instant message.

10. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the external network further comprises an external mail server, the at least one IED being further adapted to retrieve second power management data from the external mail server.

11. The electrical power management architecture of claim 10, wherein the at least one IED retrieves the second power management data using a POP3 protocol.

12. The electrical power management architecture of claim 10, wherein the second power management data is retrieved as at least one electronic mail message.

13. The electrical power management architecture of claim 10, wherein the at least one IED is capable of being configured to facilitate receipt of the power management data from the external mail server.

14. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the internal network is further coupled with an internal mail server, the at least one IED adapted to retrieve the first power management data from the internal mail server.

15. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the at least one IED comprises an electrical energy meter.

16. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the network interface is further coupled with a security module, the security module operative to prevent unauthorized access to the power management data.

17. The electrical power management architecture of claim 16, wherein the security module further comprises a second firewall.

18. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, further comprising a security module coupled with the network interface, the security module further comprising an encryption application operative to encrypt the first power management data prior to communication.

19. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, further comprising a security module coupled with the network interface, the security module operative to authenticate second power management data received from the external network.

20. The electrical power management architecture of claim 19, wherein the security module is operative to decrypt the second power management data received from the external network.

21. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, the network interface using at least one application, wherein the application comprises a SMTP client.

22. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, the network interface comprising at least one application, wherein the application comprises an instant messaging protocol.

23. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, the network interface comprising at least one application, wherein the application comprises a hypertext transport protocol (“

HTTP”

) tunneling application.

24. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, the network interface comprising at least one application, wherein the application communicates the power management data on a scheduled basis.

25. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the at least one IED retrieves a timestamp from a time server, the timestamp operative to timesync the at least one IED.

26. The electrical power management architecture of claim 25, the network interface comprising at least one application operative to communicate the power management data on a scheduled basis, the scheduled basis being authenticated from the timestamp.

27. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, the network interface comprising at least one application operative to communicate the first power management data on an event driven basis.

28. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data comprises a power management command.

29. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data is in extensible markup language (“

XML”

) format.

30. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data is in comma-separated value (“

CSV”

) format.

31. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the electrical power system comprises a load.

32. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the electrical power system comprises a generator.

33. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the internal network comprises an Ethernet network.

68. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises an HTTP format.

69. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises an XML format.

70. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises a SOAP format.

71. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises an SSL format.

72. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises an NNTP format.

73. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises an FTP format.

74. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises a MIME format.

75. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the first power management data further comprises an S-HTTP format.

76. The electrical power management architecture of claim 3, wherein the first power management data further comprises an HTTP format.

77. The electrical power management architecture of claim 3, wherein the first power management data further comprises an XML format.

78. The electrical power management architecture of claim 3, wherein the first power management data further comprises a SOAP format.

79. The electrical power management architecture of claim 10, wherein the at least one IED retrieves the second power management data using an IMAP protocol.

80. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the external network further comprises an external mail server, the at least one IED being further adapted to send the first power management data to the external mail server.

81. The electrical power management architecture of claim 80, wherein the at least one IED retrieves the second power management data using an POP3 protocol.

82. The electrical power management architecture of claim 80, wherein the at least one IED retrieves the second power management data using an IMAP protocol.

83. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, further comprising a security module coupled with the network interface, the security module further operative to provide authentication of the first power management data prior to communication.

84. The electrical power management architecture of claim 1, wherein the internal network is further coupled with a security module, the security module operative to prevent unauthorized access to the power management data.

85. The electrical power management architecture of claim 16, wherein the at least one IED further comprises the security module.

86. The electrical power management architecture of claim 25, wherein the timesync further comprises the NTP protocol.

34. An electrical power management architecture comprising:

at least one intelligent electronic device (“

IED”

) coupled with a portion of an electrical power system and further coupled with an internal network, the at least one IED further including at least one sensor coupled with the portion of the electrical power system and further operative to sense at least one electrical parameter in said portion of said electrical power system and to generate first power management data related thereto;

a firewall, the firewall operative to couple the internal network with an external network;

a communications interface operative to facilitate communications of the at least one IED with a transport box, the transport box having a network interface and operative to facilitate communication of the first power management data from the at least one IED through the firewall, and further wherein the network interface is operative to initiate communications of the first power management data from the internal network to the external network via the firewall on behalf of the at least one IED.

35. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the firewall is adapted to restrict communications from the internal network to the external network.

36. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the firewall is operative to restrict selected protocols between the external network and the internal network.

37. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein a security module is coupled with the network interface, the security module operative to prevent unauthorized access to the power management data.

38. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the network interface is further operative to facilitate receipt of at least one power management command from the external network.

39. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the first power management data comprises an electronic pulse, the at least one IED transmitting the electronic pulse to the transport box, the transport box converting the electronic pulse into second power management data.

40. The electrical power management architecture of claim 39, wherein the transport box converts the electronic pulse to XML format.

41. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the communications comprises at least one electronic mail message.

42. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the communications comprises at least one instant message.

43. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the network interface is further coupled to a security module, the security module further comprises an encryption application operative to encrypt the first power management data prior to transmission of the first power management data.

44. The electrical power management architecture of claim 43, wherein the transport box is further operative to receive an external electronic mail message from the external network, the at least IED further operative to communicate with the transport box and retrieve the external electronic mail message from the transport box.

45. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein a second network interface is operative to couple the at least one IED with the internal network.

46. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the communications comprises HTTP tunneling.

47. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the at least one IED comprises an energy meter.

48. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the at least one IED comprises an electro-mechanical watt-hour meter.

49. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the at least one IED comprises a Remote Terminal Unit (“

RTU”

).

50. The electrical power management architecture of claim 34, wherein the firewall comprises a proxy server.

51. An electrical power management architecture comprising:

at least one intelligent electronic device (“

IED”

) coupled with a portion of an electrical power system and further coupled with an internal network;

the at least one IED further comprising at least one sensor coupled with said electrical power system and further operative to sense at least one electric parameter in said portion of said electrical power system and to generate power management data related thereto;

a firewall operative to couple an external network with the internal network;

a mail server coupled with the internal network and operative to facilitate communications of electronic mail messages between the external network and the internal network;

a network interface operative to couple the at least one IED with the internal network and further operative to communicate with the mail server, the mail server being operative to communicate through the firewall, and further wherein the mail server is operative to initiate communications of at least one of the electronic mail messages comprising the power management data from the internal network to the external network.

52. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the mail server uses a POP3 protocol.

87. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the mail server uses an IMAP protocol.

88. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages is encrypted.

89. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages is decrypted.

90. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages is authenticated.

91. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages further comprises an SMTP format.

92. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages further comprises an XML format.

93. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages further comprises a CSV format.

94. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages further comprises a MIME format.

95. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages further comprises an IMAP format.

96. The electrical power management architecture of claim 51, wherein the at least one electronic mail messages parameters conform to the requirements of the external mail server.

53. An electrical power management architecture for managing an electrical power distribution system comprising:

a network;

at least one intelligent electronic device (“

IED”

) coupled with a portion of said electrical power distribution system and further coupled with said network, each of said at least one IED operative to implement a power management function in conjunction with said portion of said electrical power distribution system, said power management function operative to respond to at least one power management command and generate power management data, each of said at least one IED comprising;

a first network interface operative to couple said at least one IED with said network and facilitate transmission of said power management data and receipt of said at least one power management command over said network;

a security module coupled with said first network interface and operative to prevent unauthorized access to said power management data; and

a protocol stack, said protocol stack including an application layer comprising at least one application operative to punch through a firewall to facilitate said transmission of said power management data;

at least one sensor coupled with said portion of said electrical power system and further operative to sense at least one electrical parameter in said portion of said electrical power distribution system, said IED being operative to generate said power management data related thereto;

said architecture further comprising;

a power management application coupled with said network and operative to receive and process said power management data from said at least one IED and generate said at least one power management command to said at least one IED to implement said power management function.

54. A method of communicating power management data in an electrical power management architecture between an internal network and an external network, the internal network being coupled with the external network by a firewall, the method comprising:

(a) monitoring a portion of an electrical power distribution system with at least one intelligent electronic device (“

IED”

), the at least one IED further being coupled with the internal network, the at least one IED further comprising at least one sensor coupled with said portion of said electrical power distribution system and further operative to sense at least one electrical parameter in said portion of said electrical power distribution system and to generate at least one signal indicative thereof;

(b) generating power management data by the at least one IED based on said at least one signal;

(c) initiating a first communications of the power management data by the at least one IED to a receiver, the receiver being coupled with the external network; and

(d) facilitating the initiated first communications through the firewall to the external network for delivery to the receiver.

55. The method of claim 54, further comprising:

(e) receiving a second communications by the at least one IED from the external network through the firewall.

56. The method of claim 54, wherein the first communications comprises at least one electronic mail message.

57. The method of claim 54, further comprising:

(e) allowing communications using standard protocols between the internal and external networks by the firewall.

58. The method of claim 54, further comprising:

(e) restricting communications using standard protocols between the internal and external networks by the firewall.

59. A method of communicating power management data in an electrical power management architecture between an internal network and an external network, the internal network being coupled with the external network by a firewall through which communications between the internal network and external network must travel, the method comprising:

(a) monitoring a portion of an electrical power distribution system with at least one intelligent electronic device (“

IED”

), the at least one IED further being coupled with the internal network, the at least one IED further comprising at least one sensor coupled with an electric power system and further operative to sense at least one electrical parameter in said electric power system and to generate at least one signal indicative thereof;

(b) generating power management data by the at least one IED based on the at least one signal;

(c) initiating a first communications of the power management data by the at least one IED to a receiver, the receiver being coupled with the external network;

(d) configuring the internal network to allow the first communications to be transmitted to the external network via the firewall; and

(e) transmitting the initiated first communications through the firewall to the external network for delivery to the receiver.

60. The method of claim 59, wherein (d) further includes configuring an electronic mail server coupled with the internal network to allow the at least one IED to send electronic mail to the external network using the electronic mail server, the electronic mail server being operative to transmit electronic mail messages from the internal network to the external network via the firewall.

61. The method of claim 59, wherein (d) further includes configuring the firewall to allow the at least one IED to communicate with a communications server coupled with the external network.

62. The method of claim 61, wherein the communications server comprises an electronic mail server.

63. The method of claim 61, wherein the communications server comprises an XML server.

64. The method of claim 59, wherein the first communications is formatted in a computer readable format.

65. The method of claim 64, wherein the receiver comprises a data processing system operative to receive the first communications and automatically process the power management data.

66. The method of claim 59, wherein (c) is performed in response to an occurrence of an event monitored on the power distribution system.

67. The method of claim 59, wherein (c) is performed according to a pre-defined schedule maintained by the at least one IED.