NASPInet

NASPI Network (NASPInet) is an effort to develop an "industrial grade," secure, standardized, distributed, and expandable data communications infrastructure to support synchrophasor applications in North America.

In May 2008, National Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in support of U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability issued solicitation for developing and delivering a specification for NASPInet. The Statement of Work for NASPInet was developed by a subgroup of NASPI Data and Network Management Task Team (D&NMTT). Furthermore D&NMTT was tasked with reviewing the development progress and making recommendation to NETL.

The Department of Energy hired Quanta Technologies through a competitive solicitation to develop the technical specifications for the two NASPInet elements.

The two key architectural elements of the communications network are the phasor gateway, which links phasor measurement units to the network, and the data bus, which will carry the data between the gateways.

The completed draft NASPInet specifications are:

On June 15, 2009, the Department of Energy invited comments from interested members of the electric power, information technology, security, and telecommunications industries on the draft NASPInet specifications. These comments were collected from June 15 to August 15, 2009.

  • The DOE letter inviting comments on the NASPInet architecture specifications (PDF 468KB)
  • August 18, 2009, list of comments up to-date (PDF 1,512KB)

The D&NMTT provided a review of the broad feedback in order to refine the many comments received into a shorter list of pertinent items more actionable as NASPInet moves forward.

  • December 7, 2009, D&NMTT Group Comment Summary on Industry Comments to DOE Request (PDF 91KB).

Please return your questions or comments regarding NASPInet or its implementation to naspi@pnl.gov.