Decoding DLMS: Revolutionizing Energy and Water Management with Sergio Lazzarotto

Join us for an enlightening episode of the Sustainability Podcast, where we sit down with Sergio Lazzarotto from the DLMS User Association. In this comprehensive interview, Sergio shares his extensive experience in the energy sector, emphasizing the critical role of DLMS in advancing interoperable and secure data exchange standards. Discover how DLMS not only supports smart metering across various utilities but also adapts to the evolving demands of modern energy and water management.

 Learn about the founding of DLMS in response to European legislative directives and how it has grown to facilitate the deployment of smart metering technology across Europe. Sergio delves into the technical depths of DLMS as a data exchange protocol rather than just a communication standard, explaining its crucial role at the application layer of the seven-layer OSI model and its impact on device interoperability and market compatibility.

 This episode is a must-listen for anyone interested in the intersection of technology and sustainability, offering insights into how standardized protocols like DLMS are shaping the future of energy efficiency and grid management. Tune in to explore how DLMS is expanding its reach beyond electricity to include gas and water, paving the way for a more integrated and efficient future in energy consumption and resource management.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------

Would you like to be a guest on our growing podcast?

If you have an intriguing, thought provoking topic you'd like to discuss on our podcast, please contact our host Jim Frazer

View all the episodes here: https://thesustainabilitypodcast.buzzsprout.com

Transcript

Jim Frazer
Welcome again to another episode of the sustainability Podcast. Today my guest is Sergio Lazzarotto of the DLMS User Association Sergio. Welcome. How are you today?

Sergio Lazzarotto
Fine. Thank you. I really appreciate to be your guest today.

Jim Frazer
Well, it's great, great to have you, Sergio and I met briefly at the Distribute tech conference in Orlando a few weeks ago. We had a very substantive conversation there about energy, the grid interoperability and standards. So I'm Sergio, can you tell us just a little bit about yourself and your organization? Sure.

Sergio Lazzarotto
So God's I am an electronic engineer. So I'm coming from from that side from that experience. And across my career, I have spent a substantial amount of time in the computer industry. Therefore, my background is essentially on the IT side, mainly on the PC. And over the time, I have moved moving more towards from engineering development then towards innovation management. And in the last 20 years, I've been spending more time in collaborating and working into the innovation management, consulting areas, helping several organizations to implement innovation management processes, and in fina and in into the LMS user association. So IDMs user Association is a private organization. And it's a Standardization Organization, by analogy is the equivalent of the Bluetooth SIG that is very well known. So basically, the, the essence of the LMS. And the reason why the LMS was created, it goes back to the late 90s. In early 2000, when the the European Parliament, they voted the directive 441, which was basically a legislative framework, which was basically pushing for the deployment in the upgrading of the grid, the European grid in the different countries to adopt smart metering. And the consequence of this legislative decision was that it required let me say in awareness and other an answer from the industry side, and this is how at that time, the major smart meter manufacturers decided to get together on their unique body to be able to come up with an standardized answer on how they would propose solution for basically money for developing manufacturing in afterwards deploying the Smart Metering across Europe.

Jim Frazer
So, Sergio, the the acronym D, LM s, what what does that stand for and what was the organization actually created.

Sergio Lazzarotto
So the organization was created in 1991. And the acronym is a reference for the the data exchange standards, but effectively is an acronym that let me say that we don't use any more into our communication. And the reason is that it very early stage one DMS was created it was perceived as an communication protocol, which in fact, it is not. In here we may we need to make the difference between a communication protocol that is basically the standardization on how you are transporting data from one site to another site by opposition to a data exchange protocol, which is usually agnostic to any communication protocol. And the data exchange protocol is how you are formatting the data and how data are basically formatted into an adapted way to respond as best on how they are used within certain applications. And this is what the LMS is effectively. So the LMS is a data exchange protocol that is being standardized for being used within the energy industry, and it is agnostic to any communication protocol. However, this agnosticism doesn't mean that we cannot coexist with A different type of communication protocol. This is why DMS over the years, we have been signing liaisons with several standardization organizations that are standardizing communication protocol such as Weisen, Laura G three pa G three alliances and so forth. And thanks to the liaison we have, we guarantee that whenever we need to develop appropriate interfaces between our standard in their standard to be able to sit on top of their communication protocol into the most optimized way then we are doing this work together in alignment with the objective of both organization, the organization standardizing the communication protocol and the LMS standardizing the data exchange protocol

Jim Frazer
for for some of our listeners who may not be so, aware of the difference between different protocols and standards, would it be would it be on correct to say that the LMS is an application layer standard at the top of the seven layer OSI interoperability model

Sergio Lazzarotto
absolutely, that is absolutely correct. So, what we are doing basically, the LMS is an object based protocol and what we are doing we are defining objects and classes in in in delivering certain functions. And then those functions are aggregated and parameterised into use cases those use cases being application specific for different types of applications. And of course, abusively the first one where it has been used into has been the smart metering and into the smart metering, you do have a certain number of functions which are dedicated to measure a certain number of parameters like the average power consumptions or if you are measuring the the reactive power and so forth, and then is you are using those defined functions. And if you are as you are configuring them, within a certain specific use case and aggregating those functions, to fulfill the requirement of use cases, then these use cases are basically responding to what within a given application or on how within a given application, the device should behave.

Jim Frazer
So, Sergio, for again, for our audience, I'd like to just touch a little bit on the seven layer OSI model. The way I think about it in a very pedestrian simple way is that there are seven layers and there's a lot of engineering granularity there but at the lowest level, I think about it very simply that the plug a must must physically match the connector must be the right size, whether it be USB or Ethernet or something else. And at the highest level, it really is an application layer which is beyond the protocol and for those who are not you know well versed in this I often think you know you that oh well languages English, Italian, French, Spanish, they all use basically the same character set, but it doesn't mean I can understand someone who speaks another language that language is the application layer in in that world. So, is that is that a relatively simple representation? Okay.

Sergio Lazzarotto
Let me give you a good example, because I am coming from the PC industry and I have been a very early stage and contributor to the standardization of USB and Bluetooth Low Energy. And the good example is the following. When you do have a USB peripheral and you connect it on your PC, the first thing is that it does is that your peripheral will basically in enumerate itself in saying I am this peripheral I am capable of doing this and that this is happening at the low level protocol, which is really the communication protocol between your PC and then your peripheral. But then comes the second level, which is the at the level of the data exchange. And probably the old people remember, when we were having the windows 10 it before even Windows 10 that sometime when we were plugging in the USB peripheral, because the driver of that peripheral was not correctly loaded on Windows, your device was not recognized when your device was connected and from a communication viewpoint, it was recognized, it was not behaving under the Windows application. Because the Windows driver were missing these c's exactly these seven layer we are talking about.

Jim Frazer
assassinating that's that's a great example. So, getting more granular and more focused. So, I heard you say functions many times on our so is the Dia de l ms standardization effort, does it focus on functional profiles for all the different terminal devices that may be on the grid? Or is it just smart meters or or can you just describe that ecosystem? Okay,

Sergio Lazzarotto
so, initially, as I said, it was developed for smart metering, okay, that is where the LMS is coming from. However, since I joined into the LMS, and with the experience I brought into this ecosystem, coming from the PC, in the PC and into the IT industry, we used to talk about compatibility. In this ecosystem of energy they use to talk about interoperability. Now, it doesn't mean that because you are interoperable, that you are compatible, you can be interoperable because at the end, the data you are delivering, do have the same meaning. However, in the device itself, how you are producing the data, how you are formatting the data in how you are delivering the data into the system can be different from one manufacturer to another manufacturer. And here then is where we we used to be in the LMS. Before it was that the LMS was guaranteeing the certification for compliance. Therefore, we were guaranteeing that the data delivered by default by the devices they were compliant according to the GLMs specification, it means they were having the same meaning. But this is not enough, because a public utility when a public utility, they have to buy product from the different manufacturers, they would like to be able to exchange a device a with a device be coming from the two different manufacturers in order to be able to achieve that you got to bring this level of interoperability from the compliance up to the compatibility and to answer now, your question is that if you want to go up to this level, you cannot only implement the standards anymore, what you have to do, you have to implement it configured and parameterised in a very specific way that you are standardizing and as you are doing that, you are basically creating a kind of silo of functionalities, which are parameterised in a very specific way. So that whenever you change you choose the device a or the device b it will behave for what it has been standardized, and for what it has been certified compatible, it will behave exactly in the same way. This is when we are talking about brilliantly.

Jim Frazer
well understood here. I know that some of some of our listeners come from the intelligent transportation systems world where we're the US Department of Transportation starting 2025 years ago, started a similar effort. Where for a traffic signal, a call box a toll booth. They have an unambiguous SNMP MIB management information base that has the parameters in only one correct order. Each parameter has engineering units and has a legal range. And thus, if you'd like To purchase a traffic signal, you could buy it from many different vendors. But they all look exactly the same on the network, you don't really care who it comes from.

Sergio Lazzarotto
exactly it. And you know, I think that this this point, I think is extremely important public utilities, when they are buying equipment and if we start with smart metering, we can discuss later on, on about other products. They are making investment for decades. And the problem is that if you are buying product from two manufacturers, today, you get full satisfaction, you have two sources each okay, but who guarantees you that in 10 years from now, you're going to continue to have two manufacturers that are going to be there, you know, the industry is the industry and there are companies that are selling divisions, you know, buying divisions and even company visa bearing from the business and so forth. Therefore, how do you guarantee that you can maintain over these 1520 25 years, your investment, and the only way you can achieve that is through the compatibility. And the compatibility gives you another guarantee? It is that when you are developing compatible products over time, you have the obligation of the backward compatibility. Over time, you can add the functionalities, but the older functionalities which were existing in older version of your standard, they will have to continue to be supported exactly the same way. And in this backward compatibility is another element that is extremely important for public utility to guarantee them the system utility of their business over the song load. So long time.

Jim Frazer
Yes, I mean, I might also add and actually be interested in your comments on once you have a standardized interoperable solution that drives commoditization. And prices costing of the components does in fact, lessen. Ideally,

Sergio Lazzarotto
yes, but in here, I have a good example. If you take, again, USB when we decided to launch USB at the beginning, if I'm taking the example for the mice, at the beginning, it was launched with the support of the mouse for two buttons, there wasn't the wheel, the roller was not supported. And the reason is that there were two manufacturers, which were on the market with a roller like each one, they were enabling the roller functionalities with proprietary drivers sitting on top of the Windows driver, then it lasted for a couple of years. And then we realized that these functionality was not perceived anymore as innovation or added value, it was perceived as a normal functionality everybody buying a mouse they were expecting to buy it with a roller and therefore, what was at a given time considered innovation or a market differentiator at the level of the manufacturers it did become general purpose and then it becomes part of the basic basic driver or the basic standard. What is the lesson of that? It is that it is not because you are standardizing that it prevents you to add innovation. And it is not because you are innovating with some specific proprietary functionalities, that those over time cannot become general purpose and become part of the core specification that will be basically used by everybody. So this is I mean, I would say the cherry on the cake for the market leaders who are those that are driving the innovation in the market. The standardization do not stop the business development, the standardization, reduce development costs, because by developing one single platform, you can touch much more many more markets in customers than you used to do with proprietary solution. The maintenance over time is going to cost you Much less as well. And in fina, what is also very interesting, it is your time to market. Because when you are developing a platform over time, the time to market to develop instantiations of different products implementing the same platform is going to be shortened in DC is a terrific advantage for the manufacturers as well. Nothing prevents you to add the value and differentiate yourself. And this is very important.

Jim Frazer
Wow, that's great. So, DLM s started with smart meters. Yeah, what other what other applications are supported today or are under consideration. So,

Sergio Lazzarotto
DNS as they say it started at the end of the 90s. And if we look, who is today DNS, we are representing 310 members across the worlds from more than 60 countries, we have developed more than 300 million of product across the world. And we do have as an example, if penetration in in Europe of more than 80% in United States more than 40% globally in Europe, we do have a penetration of 60%. Therefore, de facto the LMS is the reference for this this market, but here we are talking about electricity smart metering. However, over those years, the LMS has been so having some opportunity of developing itself into other smart metering industries, in particular the gas in in the water. If we look at those two areas, interesting, interestingly to mention that those two areas the water in the gas, while from a metrology viewpoint, those are standardized. And Isaac is doing the standardization of the metrology parts from the data exchange protocol. They are no standards covering them. These really so each manufacturer they were going with their own solution, there is a European initiative that has been undertaken in the last years, which is the beginning of a kind of standardization, but it's mainly Europe specific. And that is the embers with their wireless version of the wireless embers. But it touches only Europe in therefore what GLMs have decided decided to standardize as well, the water and the gas, smart metering. And this is what we are currently doing. By the end of this year, we are going to publish the standards for the water in the gas as well. Now, of course, here we are still, even though we go into the meat utility area, which is the gas, the water and the electricity, we still speak about smart metering. But now comes a very interesting discussion we had internally in the LMS years, a few years ago, which is okay, we are de facto the standard for the regulated world where we are collecting, measuring those data, transforming them into a digital format. And you know, moving them up to the head and system. Now, we know that the other side of the non regulated world is an ecosystem that is a potentially candidates to consume those data. And using those data could make value because you can achieve a certain level of performances that will help you basically to work in a more efficient way. I'm giving you an example. In your home, you have a smart meter. Now. We have been used that when you plug the plug into on the wall, you get the electricity and the electricity is coming. But in a certain number of application nowadays. Do you really need to have the electricity now? Or can you wait a little bit as an example? If you're can coming at home at five o'clock in the afternoon and you will take your car back tomorrow morning at six o'clock. Do you really need the battery to start charging at five o'clock, would that make a big difference for you, if these batteries start to charge at midnight, while you still have the guarantee that at six o'clock in the morning, your car is fully charged, of course not wouldn't make any difference for the consumer, but for the public utility and the DSO, it will make a huge difference, because then the demand to charge the car the battery car, you will take it out from the peak from the peak demand, which is something that is already existing today, even though we are not charging cars, it is existing since since several years since, you know, since the electricity is existing, they are lone peaks, which are the beginning in the morning is the end of the day. And you know, we need to be able to coexist with those peaks. And the only way you can coexist with those peaks, it is to be able to understand what is the demand that is going to come and how you can still offer the energy required by these demands. However, without making your peak problem becoming even bigger, but trying to smooth this demand and to smooth it out, so that you are still giving satisfaction to the consumer without creating additional problem on the grid. And here the best example is that your smart meter knows exactly what is your organic consumption you have in your price. And therefore connecting the Smart Meter directly with the Evie charger. You can tell to the Evie charger, how much it can demand. And therefore at that point in time your Evie charger can adjust its demand. If you are saying you to your Evie charger, I am sorry, I cannot give to you now anything, please come back to me and ask me the electricity within three hours, it works as well. Right. So these are the type of data exchange that you can enable between different types of devices. So that you can enable one device that is the one demanding the energy to adapt each demand in function of the grid, I would say constraints that the DSO is is basic. But then comes the problem. How can two devices talk to each other? Well, if they are compatible, and this is where the LMS comes into the game.

Jim Frazer
That's fascinating. And you did read my leading questions there. Because I was thinking of you know the world is moving to almost a peer to peer network of energy in creation and distribution. And I was thinking about the oh three or four applications Evie charging, energy storage P home PV or facility photovoltaic power and and of course wind and I was thinking you know where does DL ms play a role here is the are your functional profiles in the meter or are they perhaps in some of those terminal devices.

Sergio Lazzarotto
So, we have recently released the generic what we call those instantiations of our standards parameterize and configured for a very specific application is what the NMS is calling the generic combining profiles. And we have been releasing the electrical vehicle charging station generic companion profile few weeks ago. So this is the first time that GLMs goes on the other side of the fence in releasing an instantiation of each protocol to permit Evie chargers to connect with smart meters and take advantage of smart meter data to adjust their demand. So this is the first time of course, DMS intention is not to stay there. Now when I am saying this there will be some market leaders in the domotic that are going to you know start to screen and say, Hey guys, we don't need GLMs we have already, you know hundreds of other protocols. Why are you deciding to come into this area? No, that's not the end. intention, we will only focus on the 20% of the I would say appliances or General Product consuming electricity on these 20% that are creating the 80% of the problem to the public utilities. And therefore, what are we talking about? We are talking about Evie chargers, we are talking about each back heat pumps and we are talking about distributed energy resources. Let's talk a little bit about distributed energy resources. Today you have the photovoltaic panels and those photovoltaic panels do have inverters those inverter are injecting their energy into the grid right. And people can get advantage because they can get some money back from the energy they are selling well, this is great, but if you do have a big farm that is reproducing megawatts, these guys they have already been discussing the project with the Public Utilities and how these should be integrated into the grid. So, here the NMS have nothing to say and this is not our world, but the problem is coming from public utilities from each one of the consumer that has 50 square meter 100 square meter 200 square meters of panels on the roof, this is where the problem is coming from those inverters they are converting DC current which is what the pilots are producing into AC current and this conversion is a conversion that is a US producing harmonics due to the technology used to produce the sinusoidal curve, and those are monic are injected as well into the grid, but the inconvenient is that those are morning are pure reactive power. And when we talk to public utility about reactive power, they start to hit the dress the hair on the head, because this means pure losses pure morning that is wasted. And therefore here comes how can we still enable to the consumer to take advantage of the energy is she or he is producing and get some money back? How can we enable that without penalizing the public utilities, because these guys is the they are all aggregated, they will produce additional losses because of the reactive power. And therefore all those topic needs to be understood, they need to be discussed. And this is aware now comes the activity that the LMS is doing is that of course we have many members in our association. We do have different types of manufacturers, we do have public utilities, we do have DSOs. But if we want to be able to integrate with the Smart Meter, or integrated into the grid, an inverter, we need to have the right people around the table. If we are if we don't have inverter manufacturer, that are sitting around the table with the guys producing the smart meter and the public utilities in Phoenix are facing the problem, we will never address this. And therefore this is also what DMS is doing now since more than a year. We are working to have those other device manufacturers to give them some, you know some interest in try to capture their interest to tell them hey guys, come into DMS sit around the table with us and then all together we will come up with a standard that makes the consensus in the industry and this is very important. One thing to mention is that the LMS as I said is an private standardization association that these industry the energy industry, the water industry is mainly realigned to international standardization bodies. So we are talking about IC we are talking about MC and therefore DMS head to collaborate with those international standardization bodies and this is what we have been doing in the LMS we have been signing liaison with those standardization bodies so that they are adopting our specification and making it become part of their standard portfolio. And therefore, DMS in fact is behind the curtain doing the standardization work and once we are more or less done then we are of course giving it to our members, but pushing it into those international standardization bodies for all the all the others that may not want necessarily to be DRMs members so that they can take advantage of those standards published by those other internationally recognized standardization bodies. So, this is how the LMS is collaborating. However, the LMS with its own activities, remain the guardian of the compliance and compatibility against the standard whether it is published by the LMS or whether it is bodies by those international standardization body because we guarantee the certification of the devices

Jim Frazer
right. So, Sergio, I understand and I heard loud and clear that there are you know three I call them you know, up and coming or current areas of interest heat supportive heat pumps, supportive Evie chargers, support of of, you know, off grid generation wind and so on. And I understand I believe I understand that DMS focuses on a functional profile for applications Yes. So when you have a old let's say the electric vehicle charger, because that example comes to mind. Um isn't it a challenge to have individual drivers proprietary drivers for each supplier of inverter or heat pump? Or are you seeing more of a movement that I guess is happening in the Evie charger world with standards like ocpp 2.0? Are you supporting one particular you know communication and functional profile for each of those devices? Or do you have to write all your own drivers?

Sergio Lazzarotto
So, first of all, what GLMs is doing is always standardizing how those devices do integrate into the grid. What does it means everything which has been standardized by the electrical mobility ecosystem, which is the connectivity of the car and everything that has been done by OCP and so forth. This is not our world, we are not we are not putting our hands into this landscape. What we are enabling it is the the connectivity between the Evie charger and the Smart Meter, which does not exist which nobody today have been standardizing this is what so basically, we are filling this gap. Because if we don't do that, the only way you will be able to integrate as an example and Evie charger into the demand response will be from the top by heading the demand response aggregator that will share the data with the public utility and understand how they can use the data. But you know what, while this could be working, it's it's a cumbersome, it's a cumbersome path you are taking, why do you want to bring up the data from the Smart Meter and then pass them on the other side and then take them down into the Evie charger. While you do have the two devices which are sitting one next to the other 110 meters away. He doesn't make sense, he doesn't make sense from how much it will cost to everybody to transport those data, how difficult is going to be to manage these data transportation and sharing those those data because of the different type of ontology that each one of the other words they have decided to use and so forth. It will be much better to do these data exchange locally at the level of the edge. So, then this is what we are talking about data sharing at the edge this it is what it is about. This is exactly what it is sharing the level of the edge. Now the LMS of course is one but do we pretend that all those devices are going to speak the LMS? Of course not. I mean, we are not now used to think that everybody or the manufacturer of the EHRs are they're going to implement the LMS that will never happen, there will be people that will have an energy management system, which will connect with, I don't know, matter and will drive the Evie charger via matter, therefore is the end of the game. No, but GLMs is doing them, what we will do, we will expose those data via dedicated generic companion profile end, if needed, we will map those data against those other protocols, which we believe are those that are the most relevant. The only difference if we do that is that because we are exposing the data, and we are mapping the data, we guarantee the cybersecurity of the grid, because the grid is a strategic infrastructure, and we should not open the door to anybody to come into the grid into the grid in a way and in another because the more devices will connect to the grid, the more application will connect to the grid, the higher the cybersecurity is going to be.

Jim Frazer
Yes, this has been a tremendous discussion so far. Let me ask you what what challenges does GLMs face in the future or today in gas and electric and water.

Sergio Lazzarotto
Let's say that historically, those industries or industries, which are as I said the beginning highly regulated, and most of this time, the key players that nuance nowadays are private companies, they are privatized companies, they used to be government companies. And therefore, the mindset of these these company is really slow moving. And because it is slow moving, it is on one side, it is a certain advantage. Because when you are making investment of 10 years, 15 years, 20 years, better, you are smart moves slow moving, and you think well what you are doing, but on the other side, it is in contradiction with the evolution of the telecommunication technologies, and with the data exchange technologies and the capabilities on doing data analytics. And here, the difficulties that the LMS is facing today is how can you reconsider g8 this mindset of slow movers with the needs of the telecommunication technologies into the data analytics, that is working with a tempo that is completely different? How can you reconsecrated the two together? This is the main difficulties that CMS is facing today. But guess what I mean, we are really those that are bridging these two worlds. So if we don't do the job, nobody else is going to do it. Right. So we have exactly.

Jim Frazer
So what do you see for the future? For D? LMS?

Sergio Lazzarotto
Well, that's, that's a tough question. depends, depends how many years I'm gonna see continue to remain in the LMS. So that will be the difference between a short drive and a long time? No. Definitely, you know, as I said, I've been having a unique experience with USB, and with Bluetooth Low Energy. I do remember at the beginning in the Bluetooth words. The Bluetooth was developed by the telco companies, Nokia Ericsson, Motorola, these were the guys that were developing that head did develop Bluetooth for the mobile telephony. And when we started to have the discussion with these guys, they wanted to enter into the PC landscape. But at that time, Bluetooth was done in conceived by the people which were coming from this industry, which means they were used to have a mobile phone and you are charging the mobile phone every single day. Now if you take this technology, which was the Bluetooth one and you put it into the PC ecosystem, can you asked people to charge a mouse, a headset or a headphone every single day. This is what we used to do at the very early stage. But it you know, it's from a usage viewpoint and use it more in a viewpoint. It's not, it doesn't work. And therefore, we changed. And we worked together to adapt the technology evolution to the usage model, which we are the one foreseen into the PC or the consumer, electronic. And look at today. So we finalize this, it was 2005. And today, we are more or less 20 years after, and we have more than 5 billion of devices, you know, installed around the world, that, you know, people don't care anymore. They buy a headset, they buy a headphone, they buy a boomer speaker, they you know, they connected with work seamless, no brainer, you know. So, of course, the LMS is not touching this consumer ecosystem. But up to a certain extent, I'm asking myself the question, why would this not be possible in the energy landscape? There are no reason the technology are there, the competencies are there. And, you know, the market leaders, those who are making the market happening are there as well. The only thing that is eventually something that can trigger this to happen. It is really to change the paradigm of the standardization. Instead of standardizing business that you have created. you innovate through the standardization. And this is what makes the big difference. When we started USB, when we started Bluetooth, we started with a white page, nothing was existing. And we said okay, this is the market we have, this is where it is today. This is where we want to go to tomorrow, how can we go there with a standard, not with a technology with a standard, and we define the standard, then people develop the technologies implemented the standard into different type of technologies. And you see the result today. So I believe that this is feasible as well into the energy and water ecosystem. So my dream is to see maybe in five years from now, or 10 years from now, this plug and play connectivity that can occur with you know, any recharge, if you go into Best Buy, and you buy an Evie charger, that is a you know a consumer appliance, you buy it, you don't care anymore, you connect it to your smart meter, and it does the job, you know. So this is what, what is my dream? Are we going to be able to get there? I don't see why we shouldn't be able to get there. I think I think that if people want we can make it out.

Jim Frazer
That's fascinating. And actually, Sergio, this has been the entire almost hour we've had here has been very fascinating. In our last few minutes left, what advice do you have for industry peers for for other users? What's what closing thoughts might you have for our audience today?

Sergio Lazzarotto
Well, what I would, what I would recommend to the people is don't be scared by standards. And don't believe that standards are activities done by you know, old Burdett engineers that are almost in the garage track. That is not what it is. Start that's innovation can coexist and can exist through standards. So I am really encouraging as all the young people that are in the university doing research that are in the startups do not hesitate come with your ideas into the standardization bodies. And because of the power, the standardization body has to influence the market, your idea can even become a bigger thanks to these standardization efforts. So I would really encourage you know, people to come into the standardization bodies and be active, participate to the standardization. If you are around the table, then you can influence how the standard is developed. If you are not around the table, you have nothing to say take it or leave it.

Jim Frazer
That's great Sergio. Thank you. Again, this has been really truly just a thought provoking and very insightful. An hour that we've spent together. Lastly for audience if they would like to reach out and contact you, how do they find you on the internet? Well,

Sergio Lazzarotto
you can go into the LinkedIn and there is the DMS page, you can go to the DMS page. Personally, myself I am as well on the internet, you can contact me on LinkedIn as well. Or even on the DMS websites dms.com You can go there you can get in touch with the different also, if you wish to subscribe, become a member or if you wish, as well to, you know, have answers to certain questions. Feel free to contact the people via the DMS website. There are different addresses there are so the chairman and the Secretary of the digital different working group can be touched into the DMS website. And I would really encourage the people to go and see what DMS is doing on our website to understand what we are doing.

Jim Frazer
Well, once again, audience our guest today has been Sergio Lazar roto of the D LMS user Association. Thank you Sergio.

Sergio Lazzarotto
Thank you very much for having invited me. It's it's our pleasure.

Jim Frazer
We hope to see you again when you have some additional developments in the next few weeks and months. And we look forward to our audience again on the next episode of the sustainability podcast. Thank you for joining us today.

Sergio Lazzarotto
Thank you very much

Jim Frazer
Thank to our audience for joining us today. We look forward to seeing on on future episodes of The Sustainability Podcast