E.ON SE, Intertrust, JERA and Origin Energy have founded the Trusted Energy Interoperability Alliance (TEIA) to develop and promote open technology standards for energy devices, data interoperability and security for the global energy industry ecosystem.
Standardising security formats, application interfaces and compliance requirements for energy IoT hardware and software will be crucial for creating a level playing field that addresses common challenges.
TEIA’s goal is to develop standards for secure interoperability, enabling the energy value chain from conventional and alternative fuels, renewable and conventional generation to edge energy systems and devices for commercial and residential applications.
TEIA was launched by German multinational electric utility E.ON SE alongside Silicon Valley-based software company Intertrust, Japan-based electric utility company JERA and Australian electricity and gas supplier Origin.
“As with the consumer electronics industry, openness and choice are crucial for an industry as mission critical as energy,” said E.ON SE’s chief strategy & innovation officer, Thomas Birr. “The TEIA standard will reduce time to market and create an open environment for cost-effective, standardised and secure energy solutions that will both promote decarboniation and benefit energy customers.”
Developing an interoperable ecosystem
Energy companies currently procure connected devices and software from different vendors, but often find themselves with siloed systems and security gaps.
This creates a significant operational burden, states the newly formed alliance, increasing development and operating costs and introduces security vulnerabilities, which can be exploited by malicious actors and materially impact operating costs and performance.
These issues would also increase energy prices and complicate energy companies’ obligations to meet decarbonisation goals and data-related regulatory requirements for data privacy, residency and the upcoming EU Data Acts.
TEIA-compliant software and devices would work together securely, to create an interoperable system to meet this challenge.
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In a release announcing the alliance, the partners state that by adopting common, open specifications, software and hardware vendors can reduce costs and security burdens while providing operators with interoperable technologies that ensure consistent security.
Standards also bring clarity, they add, to Intellectual Property matters as value chains evolve from proprietary solutions to stack compositions with multiple component suppliers.
“The Trusted Energy Interoperability Alliance brings together global energy giants that collectively serve millions of customers,” said Intertrust’s CEO, Talal G. Shamoon. “We are proud to bring our extensive expertise in trusted, secure and open standards-based distributed computing to support this important effort.”
“Standardisation and interoperability of systems in the distributed digital energy ecosystem is becoming increasingly important as the complexity and number of participants increase,” said Origin Energy executive general manager of future energy and technology, Tony Lucas. “An open, standards-based approach will help streamline the transition to net zero.”
The TEIA standards organisation welcomes participation from companies and organisations in the digital energy ecosystem, including device manufacturers, software vendor and energy companies.
