The smart grid revolution is sparking debate over consumer privacy. It’s a huge concern that seems to be taking a back seat to the focus on cyber security. Yet privacy is a crucial discussion to elevate. Agreement on what data should be considered “private” and what should be considered “utility property” is needed. And this argument undoubtedly will continue to polarize stakeholders for the foreseeable future.

KEMA’s Will McNamara explores the privacy questions in the December 2009 issue of Automation Insight. Here’s an excerpt from Will’s article:

The debate over consumer privacy is pertinent regardless of how extensively a utility plans to remodel its infrastructure. Even without full smart grid deployment, privacy is still a consideration whenever existing meters are replaced with smart meters. The core purpose of AMI is to collect information related to a particular household or business. As the evolution to smart meters progresses, the kind of information that can and will be collected becomes more granular.  In general, meters already can collect a unique meter identifier, timestamp, usage data, and time synchronization every 15 to 60 minutes. Smart meters, generally speaking, can also collect outage, voltage, phase, and frequency data, along with detailed status and diagnostic information from networked sensors and smart appliances.

A recent report from the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST) Smart Grid group concluded that most utilities are lacking privacy policies and state public utility commissions have not done much to enact formal policy guidelines for the smart grid. In the absence of state public utility commission (PUC) mandates, the onus to develop policy standards likely will fall on utilities themselves, who might be reticent to act on this issue until forced to do so.

The scope of personal data that falls under the discussion of privacy is significant, given that “personal information” refers to any recorded information about an identifiable individual. In addition to the more standard information that one would expect to already be submitted to a utility (e.g., customer name, contact information, and perhaps bank account data), other information about individual preferences, transactional history, record of activities or travels increasingly holds value for third parties that may want to leverage that information for sales of services or other activities. At present, there are essentially three sources of consumer data that are the focus of privacy policymaking: smart meters, smart appliances and dynamic pricing.

The privacy debate cannot and will not be resolved any time soon. Technology is changing too quickly—there is uncertainty regarding state versus federal jurisdiction, and the fundamental question of who “owns” consumer data has no easy answer. All of these factors indicate that the agreement on the privacy discussion will not be easy to achieve. However, meanwhile, as AMI / smart grid deployments continue, there are immediate steps that utilities, technology vendors, and other participants in the sector can take and will likely be encouraged to take.

Read the full article, “Privacy and the smart grid: A quagmire of questions vexes the industry,” in the December 2009 issue of KEMA’s Automation Insight newsletter.