An Overview of the IEEE Color Books

This paper is intended to serve as an overview of the IEEE Color Book standards series. Because each of the 13 books deals with a different aspect of electrical power production, distribution, and utilization in industrial and commercial power systems, it can be an intimidating process to sift through each book trying to determine its applicability. Furthermore, the rapid globalization of the power industry now requires familiarity with numerous technical standards, including those developed by the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) and the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE). Each of the 13 Color Books is summarized in this paper, with specific coverage of the area(s) of application for each book. This paper is specifically intended to serve as a companion to the Color Book panel session held at the 2000 IAS Annual Meeting in Rome, Italy. Persons desiring more information on the IEEE Color Books are encouraged to contact the persons responsible for each book and visit the “standards.ieee.org” web site. Information on how to contact the working group chair for each Color Book, at the time of the writing of this paper, is provided in the Appendix.