How to Enable the Energy Revolution

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This weekend, I read what may be the most important book yet for those transforming today's grid into the Intelligent Grid, and transforming today's buildings and the systems inside them into Smart Buildings. No, it is not Thomas Friedman's "Hot Flat and Crowded", although that work has set the table nicely for discussions of the importance and opportunity of this effort. It is not and of the chap books from the Department of Energy, or the IEEE, or EPRI. It is not one of the many books on environmental eschatology. Nor is it any of George Gilder's visionary history books that bring perspective to technology.

I recommend that anyone involved in these efforts read "The Future of the Internet--And How to Stop It"...

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Thomas Friedman and "The End of Green"

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In a recent blog post titled "The End of Green", Thomas Friedman ponders whether the current troubles in the financial markets will end investments in sustainable technology, particularly in energy. In his conclusion, he writes:

What we are seeing in this crisis is the need for a whole new financial architecture-and people are recognizing that some problems are just too big to solve unless we approach them systematically. As it is with our economy, so it is with our ecosystem: we need a new system, and we are going to have to think things through very carefully and make some hard choices to get it right.

Although Friedman describes the risks and the opportunities better than anyone, in this point I think while his aim is true, his target selection is off...

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SCADA Security, Building Systems, and First Response

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The security of the "internet of Things" and the security of the wider internet are about to collide. The Systems that have been hidden or off line will be on-line. Embedded systems, building systems, power supply and distribution must all change their security model. Eggshell security, the hard shell on the outside and no internal security, will be torn apart not only by the Smart Grid, and all its participants and influencers, but by new models for energy interaction as microgrids, pocket generation, and on-site storage increase the number of participants.
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Buildings, Emergency Response, and Situation Awareness

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This week twenty of us met at NIST to discuss situation awareness during emergencies. The centerpiece of the conversation was the NG911 system, or Next Generation 911. NG911 supports better interaction between call centers, and uses policy-based security to let other local call centers, or even centers in other regions take calls as circumstances and policy require. Private call centers, run by alarm services, can be full peers if local policy allows. Even buildings, and building systems, might act as 911 operators. The conveners asked me to lead an effort to develop a security model for these systems.

Interoperability at this level requires standardization of security, of policy management, and even of building semantics. 911 centers will...

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