The Consumer Electronics Association (CEA), Arlington, Va., announced the formation of a new committee to advance the standardization of the Modular Communications Interface (MCI) specification. The new standard will benefit manufactures, utilities, service providers and consumers as it creates a path to Smart Grid ready products, the association said.

The MCI specification, created by the Universal Smart Network Access Port (USNAP) Alliance and based on research from the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), will allow manufacturers of consumer products to build Smart Grid ready products that can obtain energy information from digital meters and energy system interfaces regardless of the communication technology used.