The Consumer Interface with Smart Grid

Recently, the NIST blog was open for consumer opinion on several topics related to Smartgrid.

The question that intrigued me most was "Who owns the usage data?"

I posted the following response to this question:

Energy usage data of individuals or commercial entities is private and can have security, safety and societal implications if made public. The ownership clearly belongs to the consumer.

The consumer generates this data and it is collected in the privacy of his or her premises. The data reflects the lifestyle and personal choices of the consumer.However, Smart grid is an intricate network linking various assets by the constant flow of energy and data. Conversion of raw data into useful information is a critical step in equipping the grid with the right “intelligence”. This conversion requires tools, techniques and business rules for processing of the data. The consumer does not have this infrastructure or incentive to process the data but is definitely the central entity in the information. The question then really becomes “who protects this information?” and “who can use it?”The accountability of protecting the information and the underlying data lies with the Utility. The Utility will have to protect the collection, flow, storage and archival of the data leading to the information.

The owner, a consumer in this case, has the responsibility to ensure the protection measures put by the Utility are not compromised in any way. The regulators will have to be informed of all exceptions and breaches of security of the data. A parallel one can think of is the banking data. When we go to the ATM machine, we share private information at the ATM. The bank is accountable for providing a secure and safe way of collecting and dispersing information during the interaction. However, the responsibility of ensuring that the privacy and security measures put in by the Bank are not compromised remains with us. We own the data but the bank protects it – at least that is what we trust our banks with.The usage of the information should be for the core objectives that a smartgrid needs to meet. Utilities and regulators alongwith authorized service providers should be able to use this data.

The ownership of data and its implications will continue to be an area where debates will continue and new issues will be uncovered everyday as we embrace the smartgrid. After all, there are two sides to usage of every information - the constructive and the destructive. While we reap the benefits of the constructive usage, minimizing the destructive usage of data is what we should all think about.