Energy

Smart Buildings, Smart Energy, and the Road Ahead

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I arrived in Chicago for the AHR show with the early Sunday morning budget flight crowd. I was not surprised that most of the van worked with HVAC. I was gratified to be recognized by Terry Reynolds of Control Technology. Terry told me that he was using oBIX in his jobs. "We are just starting to crack things open" he observed. We compared notes on projects ranging from the UNC EBMS (Enterprise Building Management System) to the New York City public school energy management system.

He went on to ask me of what is going to drive adoption faster. I think there are five elements of smart energy that are now...

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Natural Gas and Perfect Power

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We are misusing natural gas in our power plants. Guided by strong emotions and the search for the quick fix, we are reducing the long term reliability and sustainability of our energy infrastructure. When well meant but bad decisions reduce the common good, we call it the tragedy of the commons. Technology and modern public interest groups let us recreate the tragedy of the commons on a larger scale.

Perfect Power is what Kurt Yeager and the Galvin Electricity Initiative call their version of the smart grid. Perfect Power assumes that the national power grid will not and cannot be made reliable enough for the digital world. Attempts to make the grid reliable cost a lot of money and waste a lot of power. Attempts to make the grid reliable interfere with the grid being the most efficient market place of energy possible, and able to accept innovation, diversity, and change. Perfect power reliability starts in the home and building...

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The Talmud and the Smart Grid

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I received an animated Christmas card in e-mail from a leader in demand-response last month. The e-card used flash animation to explain demand-response. The flash animation told a tale of demand-response during a holiday season. Santa and his sleigh flew into a transmission line, causing power shortage. DR aware equipment rapidly responded to signals sent out. DR-aware Christmas lights dimmed just a little. DR-aware electric menorahs turned off every other light. The animated card told a story that demonstrated that demand-response could be efficient, effective, and doubly offensive.

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Smartgrid Basics: The Supply Side Problem

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Last week the Smartgrid-discuss group opened up within OASIS, introducing power grid technologies to the architects of e-commerce and internet security standards. Some of the latter are trying to understand the problem, and learn the jargon. I wrote this as one of a series of posts introduce the issues in a simplified, almost cartoon form.

The North American power grid is the world’s largest robot. It was imagined in the 30’s, designed in the 50’s and has been built out and patched ever since. Some very bright people have done extraordinary things to retrofit the system with digital descendants of the original analog controls. It is very much less stable...

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