Vision

The GridWise® Architecture Council supports a vision of a decarbonized, decentralized, and democratized electricity system to ensure the energy needs of today and that of future generations.

Mission

The GridWise® Architecture Council (GWAC) was formed in 2004 by the U.S. Department of Energy to propose principles for and accelerate the development and adoption of interoperability concepts and standards across all applications operating and interfacing with electric systems.

The Council’s mission is to engage with stakeholders to accelerate the development and application of grid architecture concepts and principles. This leads to:

• Identification of critical paths to facilitate the effective evolution of the systems, devices, and enitities that encompass the electric systems and achieve societal objectives.
• Advancement of standards, applications, and systems interfacing with the current and future electric systems to ensure they are sustainable, reliable, resilient, efficient, extensible, and equitable.

Organization

The GWAC holds face-to-face meetings at least twice per year, holds monthly virtual meetings, sponsors strategic industry forums, and coordinates with key industry organizations and DOE to promote the architectural principles and concepts supporting the Council’s vision and mission. DOE provides the GWAC administrative, technical, and logistical support.

Results

After forming in May 2004, GWAC focused its initial work on establishing interoperability principles that have been recognized by many electric industry stakeholders and to which many are subscribing. The Council continued its efforts in interoperability providing guidance related to Transactive Energy principles and architecture. GWAC is working with stakeholders to formulate a technical framework for the transformation of the electric system to a decarbonized, decentralized, and democratized system to meet the societal objectives of its stakeholders. 

 The GWAC also is building community awareness of the intrinsic value of flexibility and usability offered by the GridWise interoperability principles, as well as promoting an industry culture of continual improvement in processes and system architecture. 

Products

The GWAC develops and disseminates written definitions and clarifications of architectural principles, concepts, and recommendations, and provides guidelines, checklists, and position statements in support of its mission. These documents can be found at www.gridwiseac.org and in a variety of public documents and professional conference presentations and publications.