System Architecture

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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Working with the Wind in Chicago

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Chicago has long been known as the windy city, for its promises of its politicians and the quantity of its conventions and conferences. Next week, there will be a lot of wind surrounding the AHR Expo, the largest conference anywhere dedicated to the efficient movement of air, and thereby the biggest energy-related conference of the year. Numerous engineering and energy related conferences and meetings will be in town to take advantage of the more than 50,000 attendees. I, too, will be blowing into town, giving some talks, participating in some meetings, and planning still others. This may be the last time I am in Chicago until March, so drop me a line to schedule a meeting if you want to discuss plans or alignment while I am there.

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Smartgrid Basics: The Demand 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 the second of a series of posts introduce the issues in a simplified, almost cartoon form.

Building systems have traditionally been invisible and uncontrollable. They have been managed to reduce costs with no real focus on the service they are providing. They have grown up in sandboxes, using their own peculiar protocols. These protocols are deep and technology specific, and often without effective interface. These systems are operated, when they are operated by process specialists.

Building occupants rarely have a precise understanding of how these systems affect their business. They may know exactly what...

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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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