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

Social interactions will define success of Electric Cars

June 27, 2008 in Electric Cars, Markets and Innovation, Smart Grid

This was the post I started writing a couple days ago until the first paragraph just metastasized to fill up the page. Once we have more than a few electric cars in town, then those cars will be potentially the biggest stress on the grid. The peak stress on the power grid starts during the afternoon, during heat-of-the-day air conditioning and work, but it continues through the early evening. Offices are still turned on. Programmed houses are kicking in with their air conditioning in preparation for their owner’s arrival. Families are cooking dinner. The power grid is still working nearly as hard as it can. Now let’s posit the electric cars coming home, drained from ...

Electric Cars will not be useful for Demand-Response

June 25, 2008 in Electric Cars, Smart Grid, Zero Energy Buildings

If a performing electric car were to arrive today, with adequate batteries at reasonable cost, it could well push today’s non-transactive energy infrastructure over the edge. Usually I write about intelligent building agents; when I write about the power grid, it is to discuss transacted energy purchases between those agents and an intelligent transaction grid. Today, I am going for those transactions on that grid, but leaving out the building. But first, a little on the building with cars. There a lot of hopeful scenarios in which peak shaving...

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.