Demand Response Research Center
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Open Automated Demand Response Communication Standards (OpenADR or Open Auto-DR) Development

The OpenADR research has been carried out by the Demand Response Research Center (DRRC) which is managed by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Over six years of research, development, and demonstration have led to this standard development process. The initial goal of the OpenADR research was to explore the feasibility of developing a low cost communications infrastructure to improve the reliability, repeatability, robustness, and cost-effectiveness of demand response (DR) in commercial buildings. One key research question was: Could today's technology be used to automate the response of commercial and industrial buildings to standardized electricity price and reliability signals? The research was funded by the California Energy Commission's (CEC) Public Interest Energy Research Program (PIER).

The OpenADR standards development activities are broadly classified under following categories:

  1. OpenADR Specification Documents: OpenADR specification (Version 1.0) CEC and LBNL report, addresses comments from all public review drafts and leads toward the development of OpenADR standards. These documents outline technology neutral communications specification and data models using Web Services to send DR signals to end-use customer systems.
  2. OpenADR Standards Development: OpenADR is being donated to the Organization for the Advancement of Structured Information Standards (OASIS) and the UCA International Users Group (UCAIug). Each of these organizations will work together with LBNL to create groups that will collaborate around further developing the OpenADR specification (Version 1.0). Details of OpenADR effort within OASIS is listed under "Energy Interoperation Technical Committee" charter. The UCAIug website has the final "UCA OpenSG Proposal" and other related public documentation.
  3. OpenADR Client Development Program: This program, offered by LBNL subcontractor, is designed to allow interested parties to develop Clients capable of receiving and consuming DR signals according to the proposed OpenADR specification (Version 1.0). For details and enrollment to this program, see the OpenADR Client Development Program Users Guide [PDF, 500 KB].
  4. OpenADR Outreach Collaborative: This proposal will create an OpenADR outreach collaborative aimed at leveraging the OpenADR specification and methodologies to foster more effective deployment and adoption of dynamic pricing, grid reliability, and automation of demand response within the industry.