International standards are playing a crucially important role in all industries for rational production, international terminologies, safety and health protection, measurement, analysis, quality control and environmental protection, particularly in the energy field, where standards for the interfaces in energy flows are indispensable, such as electric connectors, fuelling devices, calibration methods and electrical safety. Of particular significance is the SI system of units and the OSI standards which allow the world-wide harmonization of data exchanges and computers. International standardization is shared between the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) for all non-electric matters, founded just after World War II as the successor to ISA and the much older International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) both based in Geneva, Switzerland, in the same building. Besides the specific standards for petroleum, coal, nuclear and hydro-power, solar energy, wind-power, hydrogen and the vast field of electricity, the energy standards series ISO 13600 allows the characterization, analysis and comparison of all energy systems and soon will issue a global energy statistics and planning matrix for the transition to environmentally-sound sustainable economics. These standards allow integrated resource planning, including all new renewable options, such as the increasingly important direct and indirect solar energy, co-generation, hybrid systems, small decentralized units, bio-energy, ambient temperature use by heat pumps and substitutions of muscle-powered systems or vice versa, besides the more efficient production and use of conventional finite and renewable energy-sources. (C) 2003 Published by Elsevier Ltd.