Sparx Systems and UCAIug Collaborate on Standards for Electric Utilities

Creswick, Australia September 17, 2020

Sparx Systems is pleased to announce a renewed agreement with the CIM User Group to support rapid change within the global utility sector, driven by Distributed Energy Renewables (DER) and help meet the challenges to standards development posed by COVID-19.

Through an enduring and productive 14 year relationship that has benefited both organizations, Sparx Systems has supported the 61850 and CIM User Group (CIMug) in the development of IEC 61850 and the Common Information Model models to support key industry standards within the IEC TC57. These industry models have been developed and are continually maintained in Sparx Systems Enterprise Architect.

The collaboration has been driven by a number of factors, such as the global impact of COVID-19 on the standards development process and industry changes over the past decade, such as the exponential evolution of the renewable energy market. Renewable energy now accounts for a third of the global power capacity and this transformation is having a direct impact on the future capacity of the grid.

Ken Harkin, Head of Strategic Relations at Sparx Systems stated, “The face to face meetings that have been the tradition of the standards development communities has been deeply impacted by the effects wrought by COVID-19. However, Enterprise Architect Pro Cloud Server now facilitates ‘collaboration in the model’ for industry stakeholders and subject matter experts, which enables effective meetings to continue virtually, eliminating the expense of travel while providing convenience and increased contact opportunities.”

Improved standards and ongoing research and development for hardware and software advances in power, communications, and information technologies are essential to successful evolution of the future grid.

"The mission of the 61850 and CIM User Groups to support, promote and encourage the use of the standards and standards development activities has been greatly enhanced by the partnership with Sparx Systems", remarked Margaret Goodrich, President of UCAIug. "Our unique position provides the perfect framework to provide the much needed tools to continue the development of the models supporting the standards development. With this new collaboration, we will be able to provide the Pro Cloud Server to enhance the user collaboration activities and continue the standards development in our new and more virtual world."

Dr. Stuart Laval, Co-chairman of the Open Field Message Bus (OpenFMB) task forces at the UCA International Users Group (UCAIug) and North American Energy Standards Board (NAESB), remarked, "Similar to the 61850 and CIM User Groups, UCAIug's recently established Open Field Message Bus (OpenFMB) Users Group can also benefit a lot from this cloud collaboration environment. This enhanced tool feature has the potential to greatly improve the data modeling governance process in our use-case working group that is actively defining, extending, and validating new OpenFMB platform independent model artifacts being implemented in Unified Modeling Language (UML)."

In an effort to increase the number of individuals and organizations contributing to the standards development effort, a CIMug has been established in the Oceania region and will be led by Australia and New Zealand. This is the regional chapter of the CIMug established outside of the US and the EU.

This collaboration agreement presents many benefits, both short and long term, for all our global industry stakeholders and most immediately for those prospective Members in the Oceania region who will be able to directly contribute to the standards development effort.