Daedalus was the mythical engineer and artificer of the classical world. What would he do with digital tools and digital concerns?

Making Smart Energy Less Exceptional

February 11, 2011 in Decomposition & Disint..., Microgrids and Distrib..., Smart Grid

Yesterday, I presented the NIST B2G (Building to Grid) group with a proposal to simplify integration within buildings and between buildings and the grid by relaying on existing well-defined, and well known web services standards. The feedback was surprisingly positive. Now I have to consider how to get it into the Energy Interoperation specification.

Energy Interoperation was conceived of as the market and situation awareness gateway for...

A Microgrid of One

November 12, 2009 in Decomposition & Disint..., Intelligent Buildings, Microgrids and Distrib..., Re-thinking things, Services, Smart Grid, System Architecture, Zero Energy Buildings

The target of smart grid communications, particularly in collaborative energy space, should always be the microgrid. Some microgrids may contain a single home, or commercial building, or and industrial site—those are irrelevant details. Microgrids have a number of systems inside them that must work within the economic environment of that microgrid—and I am thinking of old economics, before the distinction of economics and ecosystem arose. Some microgrids may have a single entity inside, say a legacy BAS (Building Automation System), but the unitary microgrid is merely an artifact of...

New Daedalus

Daedalus designed buildings, automated statues, and built wings for human flight. Daedalus worked by eye and hand, his designs scratched with a stylus on wax tablets. Until recently, we merely perfected his means of work, using better pens, and paper, and finally drawing on computers.

It is only recently that we have begun to leave the methods of Daedalus behind.

Simulations and digital twins guide each decision. Intelligence, or at least behaviors, imbue each system and device. Cyberphysical systems replace household servants and chauffeurs, operate factories, and manage energy logistics. The most pressing concerns are how intelligent systems and buildings will respond to us, and to each other.