ASHRAE has formed a committee to develop a standard communication for energy management and control systems (EMCS). The goal of being able to connect control equipment from any vendor and make it work as part of an integrated system will not be achieved until tests to determine conformance to the standard are developed. This paper is the first in a two-part series addressing the question of testing conformance to an EMCS protocol. Reviews international efforts to develop procedures for testing conformance to computer communication protocol standards. A particular variation of the "coordinated abstract test method" (ISO 1987c) is proposed as the best architecture for testing conformance to the ASHRAE protocol. This approach will minimise the burden placed on implementors by the conformance test without sacrificing the ability to conduct thorough tests. No direct access to layer boundaries will be required, and integrity of the implementor's software can be maintained. The proposed structure of the ASHRAE protocol lends itself to this approach because only one additional protocol service and one standard object type will need to be added.

KEYWORDS: testing, energy management, controls, communicating, standards, USA, compatibility.