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

Energy Collisions and Autonomous Appliances

September 10, 2009 in Energy, Markets and Innovation, Microgrids and Distrib..., Musings, Schedules, Smart Grid, Standards

Appliance manufacturers are moving beyond energy pain points to energy collisions. Utility-based energy standards are stuck on energy pain. Energy collisions can offer much more benefits to smart grids than can pain points; they can offer still more to the off-grid or near grid building. Collisions are part of a wide variety of autonomous energy behaviors we will see in the near future—if only the energy suppliers will stop blocking them...

Scheduling our Things, Scheduling our Lives

September 06, 2009 in Energy, Intelligent Buildings, Schedules, Smart Grid, Zero Energy Buildings

The best restaurants are seasonal, and know where ingredients come from. Locavory is dedicated to the proposition that the best food is not only seasonal, but local, served at its absolute freshest. Energy, too has its seasons, and they can be tied to the way we live our lives, and they can bind our things to our pursuits. One of the most intriguing agreements in the standards development organization (SDO) smart grid conference last month, may change how we coordinate our lives and our things.

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.