GridOPTICS(TM) A Novel Software Framework for Integrating Power Grid Data Storage, Management and Analysis

This paper describes the architecture and design of Grid OPTICS(TM), a novel software framework for integrating a collection of software tools developed by PNNL's Future Power Grid Initiative (FPGI) into a coherent, powerful operations and planning tool for the power grid of the future. Grid OPTICS(TM) enables plug-and-play of various analysis, modeling and visualization software tools to improve the efficiency and reliability of power grid. To bridge the data access for different control purposes, Grid OPTICS(TM) provides a scalable, lightweight event processing layer that hides the complexity of data collection, storage, delivery and management. A significant challenge is the requirement to access large amount of data in real time. We address this challenge though a scalable system architecture that balances system performance and ease of integration. The initial prototype of Grid OPTICSTM was demonstrated with several use cases from PNNL's FPGI and show that our system can provide real time data access to a diverse set of applications with easy to use APIs.