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What is GridWise?
GridWise is a vision of how advanced communications, information and controls technology can transform the electric system. GridWise is not strictly a research and development program to explore the GridWise vision. Activities conducted by DOE and others, if coordinated, could potentially be collectively identified as the GridWise Initiative. The GridWise vision spans the electric system from generation to end-use appliances. While benefits will accrue at all levels in the electric enterprise, the bulk of the implementation will occur at the distribution and customer level. The name GridWise is protected in order to preserve its potential use for organized efforts consistent with the vision.

What is the GridWise Alliance Declaration?
The GridWise Alliance Declaration is a statement of endorsement of the GridWise vision, and non-binding agreement to work together to achieve that vision. The Alliance is an emerging organization. Signature on the Declaration indicates a willingness to support achievement of the vision, and serves to identify various stakeholders who share the desire to see the GridWise vision adopted. It does not commit any signatory to become a member of the GridWise Alliance or to conduct or participate in any specific action.

What is the GridWise Alliance?
The GridWise Alliance is being formed in order to provide a vehicle for coordination of action to achieve the GridWise vision. Membership is not restricted. Energy customers, regulators, vendors, utilities, associations, and governmental organizations can be members. It is a non-profit (501-3c) organization. As envisioned, the Alliance would work to identify and resolve challenges associated with implementation steps toward the GridWise vision. It could serve many additional roles including providing a vehicle for stakeholders to collectively engage GridWise implementation issues, as well as provide a resource for DOE, regulators, and state R&D organizations.

The Alliance has established an initial Board of Directors, who represent a wide range of stakeholders in the electric system. While primarily high-level leaders representing industrial parties, additional members are being added to the board to expand the suite of stakeholders represented. These leaders share a common belief in the merit of the GridWise vision, and the necessity to work together to refine and implement the vision.

DOE has provided nominal support for establishment of thisAlliance, and is gaining insight on key issues requiring early resolution. In particular, it provides review and strategic guidance for activities related to GridWise conducted by the DOE Electric Distribution Transformation Program. The board serves as the locus of integration among stakeholder groups and strategic engagement for pursuit of the GridWise vision.

What activity is underway related to GridWise?
The GridWise vision emerged from a series of DOE workshops and efforts by DOE's Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, focused on the merit, scope and need for DOE's development of advanced communications and control technologies. The GridWise vision has served as a compelling vehicle for establishment of a set of new activities within the Electric Distribution Transformation Program in the recently established Office of Electric Transmission and Distribution. Additionally, many organizations presently involved in operation of the electric system are conducting activities that serve to advance the GridWise vision, but are not linked in any formal way.

How is CEIDS related to GridWise?
The Consortium for Electric Infrastructure to Support a Digital Society (CEIDS) is a partnership between the Electric Power Research Institute and the Electricity Innovation Institute. It focuses on utilization of communications and electronics to enhance operations of the transmission and distribution system especially to address delivery of high quality power needed for the digital enterprise. The initial activities are largely focused on enhanced operation within the conventional utility command and control paradigm, and the specification of a new information systems design for electrical device integration. DOE is an active member of CEIDS. Beyond the CEIDS focus, GridWise envisions a new era of energy commerce that allows transaction-based decisions to drive operations and planning at all levels of the system. It engages customers' loads and on-site generation in active participation with energy transport and wholesale production to create a society of devices and organizations that balances supply and demand in an efficient, flexible and resilient manner. It blends energy commerce with the rest of the nation's economy to create a pattern of supplier, distributor, retailer, and consumer that more consistently integrates our energy infrastructure with the needs of our economy in general.

How is CERTS related to GridWise?
The Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS) is a group of universities and national laboratories who conduct research and development of technologies for enhanced transmission system reliability. CERTS conducts R&D primarily for the Transmission Reliability Program at DOE and for the California Energy Commission. The vision of CERTS is to advance tools, techniques and technologies to utilize real-time information to ultimately enable a smart, switchable transmission grid that facilitates performance in a market-driven regulatory framework. This CERTS vision is compatible with the GridWise vision. Albeit predominantly focused on the transmission system, the CERTS vision does recognize the role that elastic demand plays in the effective management of the bulk power system. Thus "load" and "demand response" are areas of common interest for CERTS and GridWise. Whereas the GridWise vision also promotes the application of technology in new ways that benefit reliable operation of the transmission system, it further embraces the participation of technology at the distribution and individual load level to act as partners in the safe, efficient, and reliable operation of the entire energy infrastructure.