The Open Smart Grid Protocol (OSGP) is a family of specifications published by the European Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI) used in conjunction with the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard for smart grid applications. OSGP is optimized to provide reliable and efficient delivery of command and control information for smart meters, direct load control modules, solar panels, gateways, and other smart grid devices. With over 4 million OSGP based smart meters and devices deployed worldwide it is one of the most widely used smart meter and smart grid device networking standards.
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Protocol layers and features
OSGP follows a modern, structured approach based on the OSI protocol model to meet the evolving challenges of the smart grid.
At the application layer, ETSI GS OSG 001 provides a table-oriented data storage and command system that provides for not only smart meters and related data but for general purpose extension to other smart grid devices. OSGP is designed to be very bandwidth efficient, enabling it to offer high performance and low cost using bandwidth constrained media such as the power line. For example, just as SQL provide an efficient and flexible database query language for enterprise applications, OSGP provides an efficient and flexible query language for smart grid devices. As with SQL, OSGP support reading and writing of single attributes, multiple elements, or even entire tables. As another example, OSGP includes capabilities for an adaptive, directed meshing system that enables any OSGP device to serve as a message repeater, further optimizing bandwidth use by repeating only those packets that need to be repeated. OSGP also includes authentication and encryption for all exchanges to protect the integrity and privacy of data as is required in the smart grid.
The intermediate layers of the OSGP stack leverage the ISO/IEC 14908 control networking standard, a field-proven multi-application widely used in smart grid, smart city, and smart building applications with more than 100 million devices deployed worldwide. ISO/IEC 14908 is highly optimized for efficient, reliable, and scalable control networking applications. The low overhead of ISO/IEC 14908 enables it to deliver high performance without requiring high bandwidth.
Since it builds on ISO/IEC 14908, which is media independent, OSGP has the possibility to be used with any current or future physical media. OSGP today uses ETSI TS 103 908 (PowerLine Telecommunications) as its physical layer. Although a new standard, products that conform to ETSI TS 103 908 prior to its formal adoption have been on the market for many years, with over 35 million smart meter and grid devices deployed.
Standards
OSGP is built upon the following open standards.
OSGP is supported and maintained by the OSGP Alliance (formerly known as Energy Services Network Association), a non-profit corporation composed of utilities, manufacturers and system integrators.