IBM, Constellation NewEnergy, CPower, EnerNOC, Grid Net, HP, NeuStar, TIBCO, U.S. Department of Defense, U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and Others Collaborate to Address Sustainability Challenges

The OASIS Web Services Calendar (WS-Calendar) Technical Committee works to adapt existing calendaring specifications for Web services, with a focus on Smart Grid prices and schedules.

WS-Calendar will be developed for use inside other specifications and standards, bringing a common scheduling function to diverse interactions in different domains. The TC will base its initial work on the XML serialization of iCalendar (IETF RFC 5545) developed by CalConnect.org.

OASIS has secured a private donation to underwrite a limited number of new Contributor-level memberships for academic institutions interested in advancing open standards for sustainability.

Eligible recipients of these free memberships (each a $1100 value) will be universities or colleges that are able to provide at least one representative to actively participate in one or more Technical Committees related to OASIS Blue.

Contact member-services@oasis-open.org for more details.

Scott McGrath, senior director of Member Services at OASIS, issued an announcement of OASIS Blue, encouraging organizations that wish to support the new Member Section to have their Primary Representatives notify member-services@oasis-open.org via email. He stressed there is no additional cost for members to affiliate with OASIS Blue and no dues allocations will be made for this Member Section.

Organizations that affiliate with OASIS Blue will be eligible to serve on and vote for the Member Section Steering Committee and will be recognized on the Member Section web site.

All interested parties are invited to participate in the new OASIS eMIX Technical Committee. This group will work to define standards for exchanging energy characteristics, availability, and schedules to support the free and effective exchange of information. The eMIX TC will operate under the Royalty Free on Limited Terms mode of the OASIS IPR Policy. The 40+ TC proposers include representatives of OASIS Foundational Sponsors--IBM, Primeton, and Sun Microsystems--as well as Sponsors--EnerNOC, EPRI, TIBCO, U.S. NIST--and others.

The new Energy Interoperation Technical Committee will develop Web services-based information and communication models for exchanging dynamic pricing, reliability, and emergency signals. The group's work will also extend to information on energy market participation (such as bids), load predictability, and generation. Participants include representatives of IBM, Microsoft, Cisco, CPower, EnerNOC, Google, Grid Net, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, US National Institute of Standards and
Technology (NIST), TIBCO, and others.