LF Energy announced its new project, Grid eXchange Fabric (GXF). GXF is a scalable and technology-agnostic industrial Internet of Things (IoT) platform that allows grid operators to securely collect data and monitor, control and manage smart devices on the grid. Formerly known as Open Smart Grid Platform (OSGP), GXF was created by leading Dutch distribution system operator Alliander and is the first project contributed by the company to the open-source community since joining LF Energy last October as a Premier Member.

LF Energy is a Linux Foundation project charged with accelerating the decarbonization goals of the energy and electricity sectors through open-source technology.

Recently, grid operators have added operational hardware to the power grid that gathers data through IoT sensors to garner better insight into infrastructure performance. In correlation with utility operational changes are the millions of distributed energy devices coming onto the grid.

Each of the devices requires vastly different tools and processes to ensure interoperability. The purpose of GXF is to decrease the overall complexity and associated maintenance costs of accessing these devices by creating a single generic method of abstracting data access.

To fully realize the energy transition, GXF enables energy network operators to create advanced business applications across multiple use cases. Other grid operators have applied GXF as the head-end system, which allows for maximum data flexibility between smart meters and network operators, while some have used GXF to manage microgrids. Broadly, GXF will be used as a generic connectivity layer to collect and direct large volumes of data for asset monitoring and analytics. In this way, grid operators are preparing themselves to manage torrents of data at the edge of the grid through GXF.

For more information, visit https://www.lfenergy.org/projects/