Tag Archives: ESA

BSI Requests Comments on a New Draft of PAS 1878

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Regular readers may recall that in 2021 the British Standards Institution published the first edition of their Publicly Available Specification 1878 on the subject of “Energy smart appliances”? You may also recall that I wrote at the time:

A “smart” EV charging station is a special case of an interoperable Energy Smart Appliance.

The BSI has recently published a draft version of a new edition of the PAS 1878 specification, and is inviting comments from interested parties. Note that the deadline for submitting any such comments is July 9th 2025.

The BSI’s request for comments points out that:

This PAS specifies the following aspects of a system for the delivery of certain demand side response (DSR) services for domestic and small business premises…

This PAS is intended to be used by manufacturers of ESAs and CEMs.

NOTE 1 – Other audiences that might have an interest in this PAS are maintainers of ESAs, manufacturers and maintainers of interfacing products, software developers and service providers.

The introduction to the new draft includes the following information:

This is a full revision of the document, and introduces the following principal changes:

  • defined system architecture for both on-premises and hybrid cloud/on-premises implementations of ESAs and CEMs, and both 1-to-1 and 1-to-many CEM to ESA connections;
  • minimum requirements for secure communication between CEMs, ESAs and DSRSPs;
  • detailed sequence of DSR-based activities from consumer registration to decommissioning;
  • a move from OpenADR 2.0b to OpenADR 3.0 as the minimum application layer protocol to be supported by Interface A (between DSRSP-CEM);
  • the optional provision of flexibility performance requests from the DSRSP to enable ESAs to calculate relevant flexibility offers more easily;
  • updated compatibility with GB smart metering and a wide range of smart appliances – including EV charge points and battery storage;
  • new provisions for Open ADR 3 as the Interface A

By way of a brief introduction to some of the assorted acronyms mentioned above, here is figure 1 from the draft PAS:

Clause 8 of the draft PAS includes these specific requirements regarding electric vehicle charging:

The smart EV chargepoint ESA shall be capable of reporting forecast power profiles based on operating capabilities, consumer preferences, including expected departure/arrival schedule and journey distance/ duration/characteristics, and external information, including estimates of EV battery capacity, EV state of charge (or state of charge if available via the charger – e.g. V2G, or accessible via the vehicle telematics) and EV physical operating limits. If a smart EV chargepoint supports V2G functionality and has been configured to present itself to the DSRSP as an ESA, it shall meet the information and messaging requirements specified in Clause 5 and Clause 6.

NOTE Smart EV chargepoints are not required to support V2G functionality.

Clause 5 is entitled “Communications and messaging” and includes this diagram:

Clause 6 is entitled “Cyber security” and includes this diagram:

If you have any questions please do not hesitate to ask using the space provided for that purpose below.

How do you solve a problem like Flexibility?

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How do you catch a cloud and pin it down?
How do you find a word that means Flexibility?

We’ll get back to answering that question in due course. First some exciting news.

On November 22nd I attended the kick off meeting of a new International Electrotechnical Commission “smart grid” committee. This one is catchily entitled the “System Committee Smart Energy ad hoc Group 11 on Energy flexibility and residential DSR: common ground”, or “SyC SE ahG 11” for short.

If you follow the link just above you will discover that ahG 11’s mission is:

To consider the implementation of international residential flexibility system standards, their compatibility with national requirements, and propose best practice:

* To ensure the compatibility of end-to-end system solutions at international level,

* To identify emerging challenges related to the uptake of residential DSR,

* To consider terminology alignment, and

* To develop an accelerated report containing requirements for residential flexibility. This would give recommendations for alignment of existing national publications and flexibility projects under development with international standards. It would also identify, if relevant, the need for further standardization

Amongst other questions discussed at the kick off meeting was “How do you define the term ‘flexibility'”. Your mileage may vary of course, but since I spent 5 years of my life meeting 2 or 3 times per week on the committee developing the IEC 63110-1 document I will quote from the Committee Draft for Vote (CDV for short) of that international standard:

General concept of elasticity of resource use, (demand, storage, generation) modification of consumption and/or generation of energy/power, on an individual or aggregated level, in 371 reaction to an external signal (price signal or request) in order to provide a service within the energy system

Elasticity of resource use (demand, storage, generation), modification of consumption and/or generation of energy/power, on an individual or aggregated level, in reaction to an external signal (price signal or request) in order to provide a service within the energy system.

If you have strong objections to that definition please do not hesitate to join ahG 11, or failing that to send your preferred term of words to me so that I can bring it to the committee’s attention.

My other main action item before the next meeting in the New Year is to generate a list of existing standards, regulations etc. relevant to my particular area of expertise, which is bi-directional power transfer during electric vehicle (dis)charging (BPT for short). More commonly referred to as V2x. Since ahG 11’s term of reference includes the word “residential” this suggests an emphasis on vehicle-to-home technology (V2H for short) . However, homes are of course connected to the local electricity distribution grid, and are not forbidden from feeding electrical energy back into the grid as long as all the associated rules and regulations are adhered to.

Please let me or any other member of the committee know of any “standards” within your own area of expertise that may be relevant to “residential demand side response” (using the UK’s non standard nomenclature!), whether they be international, national, “industry de facto” or even the learnings from relevant “pilot projects”.

To give you a more graphic explanation of what we’re after, here is an extract from one of the documents on my own (by now rather long!) list; the first edition of the British Standards Institution‘s Publicly Available Specification 1878 (PAS 1878 for short)

Please feel free to suggest candidates for “standards” for communicating across any of the arrowed lines in the diagram, and alternative diagrams for that matter!

Electric Vehicles as “Energy Smart Appliances”

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The British Standards Institution has just published a new “specification”, and unlike most BSI “standards” this one is free to download, as long as you don’t mind parting with an email address. As the download page puts it:

BSI is working with the UK Government to encourage the uptake of safe, secure and interoperable Energy Smart Appliances (ESAs). These are needed for the active management of demand on the electricity network, known as Demand Side Response (DSR). PAS 1878 is a critical component in this because it details the requirements and criteria necessary to make an energy smart appliance compatible with DSR activities.

At this point you may have a couple of question, such as “What on Earth is a PAS?”. The BSI have a ready answer for that question:

A PAS (Publicly Available Specification) is a fast-track standardization document – the result of an expert consulting service from BSI. It defines good practice for a product, service or process. It’s a powerful way to establish the integrity of an innovation or approach.

The next obvious question is “What has this got to do with electric vehicles and/or vehicle-to-grid technology?”. The answer to which is that a “smart” EV charging station is a special case of an interoperable Energy Smart Appliance. As the foreword to PAS 1878 states:

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