Enterprise to Grid in Atlanta

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I have been working toward the Grid Interop event in Atlanta this week and have had little time to post. This is the second Grid Interop event,sponsored by the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the US Department of Energy (DOE) and organized by the GridWise Architectural Council. Aside from my own presentation there, there are numerous events and reports that I am as associated with that also have their end point there.

One of these is an open work shop on standards for e-Commerce, the Enterprise, and the Grid being hosted by OASIS and NIST in the evening. We hope to come out of it with a common road map for the key standards ahead. All are welcome, not just conference attendees.

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DC, Service, and Bacteria

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Regular readers know I am intrigued by DC (Direct Current) power systems in buildings. This fascination was born while examining a data center UPS system several years ago. The potential efficiencies shouted out to me. This week, I found something new that fueled my interest.

Most consumer devices are DC powered. That brick outside your laptop is to convert AC (Alternating Current) power to DC. Your television has a similar brick built inside it. That annoyingly large plug on your cell phone charger is another AC/DC converter. The digital world is a DC world. The exceptions in your homes are...

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Flying home from yet another meeting

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No one was sitting in my row on the small three-seat per row plane I left Boston in and I slid over to the windows while keeping my aisle seat. I began typing my thoughts leaving the member meeting of FIATECH, gloomy musings about the day.

We headed out to sea from Logan airport before turning south, as the high-rises along the harbor glittered into light against an orange sunset. The low-lying clouds in the distance made a lilac backdrop to the twinkling lights in the multi-level parking deck...

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Highlights from the FIATECH Member Meeting

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These have been a couple busy, challenging days at FIATECH, extremely dense in information and conversation. FIATECH is the consortium for the application of IT to Capital Projects. FIATECH was instrumental in the rapid progress of the National Building Information Model Standard (NBIMS). FIATECH is also a national clearing house for information about applying developing technology to construction, including the use of mobile computing and RFID. I am not going to write of either of those today.

FIATECH is home to a far reaching project, now known as IDS-ADI. The IDS (Intelligent Data Sheet) defines coherent collections of data about classes of equipment. These data sheets include ontologically significant metadata to define the contents and meaning of each attribute. ADI project is an effort to complete and deploy systems based upon...

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