Skip to content

Frequently Asked Questions

If you have any questions that aren't covered here, please email support@gridfabric.zendesk.com.

What Event Signals and Types should I use?

The following table describes the pre-defined signal types. These are defined in section 8.3.3 of the OpenADR 2.0b profile specification, v1.1. Please refer to that for full descriptions.

Signal Category Signal Name Type Units Allowed Values
Simple levels SIMPLE level None 0,1,2,3
Price of electricity ELECTRICITY_PRICE price currency / kWh any
Price of electricity ELECTRICITY_PRICE priceRelative currency / kWh any
Price of electricity ELECTRICITY_PRICE priceMultiplier none any
Price of energy ENERGY_PRICE price currency / kWh any
Price of energy ENERGY_PRICE priceRelative currency / kWh any
Price of energy ENERGY_PRICE priceMultiplier none any
Demand Charge DEMAND_CHARGE price currency / kWh any
Demand Charge DEMAND_CHARGE priceRelative currency / kW any
Demand Charge DEMAND_CHARGE priceMultiplier none any
Customer bid levels BID_PRICE price currency / kWh OR kW any
Customer bid levels BID_LOAD setpoint power any
Customer bid levels BID_ENERGY setpoint energy any
Storage-specific resources CHARGE_STATE setpoint energy any
Storage-specific resources CHARGE_STATE delta energy any
Storage-specific resources CHARGE_STATE multiplier none 0.0 - 1.0
Set the load LOAD_DISPATCH setpoint power any
Set the load LOAD_DISPATCH delta power any
Set the load LOAD_DISPATCH multiplier none any
Set the load LOAD_DISPATCH level power Integer between -10 and +10
Relative value load control LOAD_CONTROL x-loadControlCapacity none 0.0 - 1.0
Relative value load control LOAD_CONTROL x-loadControlLevelOffset none non-zero integer
Relative value load control LOAD_CONTROL x-loadControlSetpoint none any
Relative value load control LOAD_CONTROL x-loadControlPercentOffset none -1.0 - 1.0

Why isn't my VEN receiving the event?

  • Check that the event is targeted either explicitly to the VEN or to a target that is associated with the VEN (see targeting).
  • Check on the event timing, especially the time zone. If the event ended more than 4 hours ago, Canvas will archive the event and it will not be included in the distribute events payload.
  • Make sure that the event has been published.

Why am I not receiving report data from the VEN?

First make sure that the VEN has registered a report by clicking on the Reports tab within the VEN. If there are no registered reports, then a report request will not be sent, so make sure to check your VEN settings and ensure it will register a report.

VEN Registered reports

If there are registered reports, check to see if the report request is being generated as expected, which you will see in the same section as above.

Report Request Generated

If you do not see the report request being generated:

  • Ensure that the your report request matches the values in the report as expected (see here for more).
  • Report requests are generated when reports are registered, so if you created your report request registration after the VEN initially registered you likely will need to force the VEN to re-register reports, for example by cycling the VEN off and back on, or queuing a re-registration using the Registration Tab in the VEN settings.

If the report is being requested but no data is showing up in Canvas, click into the registered report that you expect to see the data for, and scroll to the bottom to see when the last data point was sent and what it was, ensuring that data is in fact being sent and it is in the right format (non-numerical data will not show up in the chart).

Report last data point sent

If the report request was configured properly but data is not being sent by the VEN, review the VEN logs and/or settings to make sure the VEN is sending the right data.

How do I find the VEN certificate fingerprint?

The fingerprint is a hash of the TLS certificate generated using a common hashing algorithm. Canvas uses SHA-1 hashes by default, so unless you have changed the settings you should use SHA-1.

Using the openssl command line tool, you may use the following command to find the SHA-1 hash (replacing certificate path variable with the path to your certificate):

openssl x509 -in <certificate_path> -fingerprint -noout

Keychain access on mac will also allow you to inspect a certificate, and will show both the SHA-1 and SHA-256 hash of the certificates.