The Sunday New York Times has some nice introductory material on smart homes. They skate quickly be prices to devices and the smart grid. They write about putting the homeowner in control. They even show several home panels.
With only one screenshot, I cannot comment on the systems described. One looks more like a home theater console with a dishwasher added. Another allows scheduling of building systems, but gives no sign of interaction with and feedback from the power
Read MoreWe have the PAN where’s the PAG?
One of the edgier concepts in computing has been the Personal Area Network, the network that surrounds a person. Seemingly way out there, the PAN is already surprisingly pervasive. What we need is the Personal Area micro Grid to go with it.
I first saw a PAN in an IBM proof of concept in the mid 1980’s, in which a small computer hidden in the heel of a shoe used body conductivity and perhaps sweat, for all I remember, to transmit information, Wearers of the shoe were able to exchange contact information by means of...
Read MoreOntological requirements of the service oriented grid
We will be unable to scale out the integration of the power grid on a continental scale, to support the diversity of systems currently installed using process oriented integration. We must support even more diversity, from technological innovation as well as from business innovation to achieve the new markets in energy today’s challenges require.
While simple demand-response capable systems provide great aggregate value to the grid, the small-scale benefits they offer seldom make a compelling interest to the home or commercial building occupant. This limits new energy scenarios to small advantages that can be achieved by static regulation. If we enforce participation through regulation, we will only
Read MoreConnecting the Services to Value
There is a fundamental disconnect concerning the systems that manage building performance between what the system integrator can do and what the owner asks for. Building service performance is not handled well during building design because there is currently no accepted way for owners and designers to discuss the services desired and the performance expected for each service in simple general terms. Our construction processes deliver diverse technical systems each discussed using concrete physical attributes whose effects are understood only by those with
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