Substance for Sustainability

To achieve sustainability in our industry we must start with adding substance to the sustainable dialog that is going on. I am extremely pleased that this month's articles, interviews, reviews and AHR Expo New York previews do just that.  We have borrowed Quality Automation Graphics', graphic for our front page. They are a provider of control systems graphic design for the building automation industry and are assisting building controls companies, building owners, and others convey their green message (be sure to read Dan McCarty's article). In addition to providing the substance of change we must effectively communicate our achievements. January is also our AHR Expo 2008 issue with lots of previews, articles and interviews about what you will see in New York. Jack McGowan starts with Buildings at the Epicenter… Don’t miss B2G in New York. and then follows with Opportunities to learn Smart Buildings and the Smart Grid at AHR   As part of the AHR Educational panels there will be two free sessions that are must attend sessions for anyone who wants to learn more.  Steve Widergren invites us to Join the Interoperability Crusade  Please hear this message as a call for arms and join us in the crusade to improve integration and enable an ever-smarter electricity system. Mike Schell tell us ironically, that outdoor air introduction to buildings is one of the few major energy consuming features of a building that is typically not measured or controlled on a real-time basis in his article Using CO2 Feed-Back Control To Stop Costly Over Ventilation

Looking forward Jim Sinopoli provides Eight Predictions for Smart Buildings in 2008 While Paul Ehrlich & Ira Goldschmidt tell us about a New Year, New Beginnings  “We don’t plan to fail, but often fail to plan”. Jim also provides a second article IP Innovation: Clock, Paging and Messaging Systems. How does this industry move forward into the 21st century? Anto Budiardjo, asks in his 4 Questions To Ask & 4 Tasks for 2008 then I chirp in with a reflected review of a very exciting year in the Building Automation Industry as well as providing some crystal ball gazing into what to expect for 2008 with Building Automation Reflections and Projections a feature article from Engineered Systems January AHR issue. In a further preview of 2008 Events Anto and I talk in an interview about a great deal of what’s been talked about related to the future of buildings will start to unfold in 2008.

In addition to our ongoing to show time AHRExpo New York Preview, we have a great collection of interviews adding further substance to this special issue.

Wireless Valve Actuators? Alex Leneveu, Director of Operations, Spartan Peripheral Devices  The market is missing the end devices and we wanted to be the first to introduce this wireless valve actuator.
Controls Vendor Free Edmund B. Richards, President and CEO, Richards-Zeta  Building owners and facility managers now have the ability to select building systems, components, smart equipment, and applications and services by a "best of breed" approach.
Converting Engineered Services into a Deliverable Product  Nathan F. Rothman , President, Optimum Energy, LLC  In the pursuit of clean technologies for industry I came across Tom Hartman and his work and immediately saw an opportunity. The concept was obvious to me. Take what was an engineered service and convert it to a deliverable product.
Innovation Award Winner AHR 2008 Tom Checksfield, General Manager, Tek-Air Systems, Inc  The AccuValve is an air flow control valve used in labs and critical environments for accurate air flow measurement and control.
A North American Trend? Todd Cowles, Americas Sales Manager, Trend Control Systems  Trend grew up in the UK. They’re the dominant player in the controls industry in that country by far, and have been for many years. They are well established in Europe and the Middle East, and the Americas are a huge growth target at the moment.
Russia is Open to Open Protocols Andrey Golovin, Executive Director BIG-RU (BACnet Interest Group Russia) Like everywhere in the world open protocols are dominating in Russia.
Insufficient Marketing  Ron Caffrey, Partner BCS Partners  With all the attention to energy conservation, air quality, occupant productivity and green buildings, why do you feel the market won't grow at a faster rate?

Steven R. Calabrese shares his Tricks of the Trade in Short on I/O? Try This Out!   

Also Paul Ehrlich is organizing a Jan 23 Building Intelligence Tour at AHR Expo 2008 New York, NY check out our event calendar for this and other events.

And of course as always lots of new products

            One-third of the energy consumed is used in buildings.

This statement just crossed my desk; More than one-third of the energy consumed in the United States is used in buildings. This comes from the Environmental Energy Technologies Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.

If you are interested in energy-efficient commercial buildings research you will find their website a useful reference http://buildings.lbl.gov/

The folks at Berkeley provide a great focus to our December issue and why energy has become the focal point of our magazine.

Jack McGowan writes "Energy and buildings are intertwined in a symbiotic relationship, and there is an unprecedented opportunity for automated smart buildings to enhance this relationship. The next frontier for building automation will deal with energy, in particular electricity; and the role that it can play with buildings and the systems within them, to drive reductions in the cost for and consumption of energy." in his article GridWise, Demand Response and a Green AHR.

Jim Sinopoli writes: "Green buildings are about resource efficiency, lifecycle effects and building performance. Smart buildings, whose core is integrated building technology systems, are about construction and operational efficiencies and enhanced management and occupant functions." in his article How Do Smart Buildings Make A Building Green?

Anto Budiardjo states in his article B2G Summit "The increased awareness of climate change, energy cost / reliability concerns and movement to modernize the North American electric grid is heralding a new set of problems for building owners, utilities and the region’s business and society in general." and I in a interview we talk about "on buildings, it was suggested that we convene a summit to discuss the interaction and opportunities for buildings from smart grid." at the Buildings 2 Smart Grid Summit on January 21, 2008, in New York.

Steve Widergren tells us about how Grid-Interop Rocks Industry Silos "Over 160 industry experts assembled in Albuquerque, New Mexico last week to join the GridWise Architecture Council (GWAC) for the first Grid-Interop Forum."

Denis Du Bois Greenbuild is the Future provides this insight with "Enlightened builders and engineers must prove that energy savings are not just another green building tool, but the "big hammer," both economically and environmentally."

Are you ready for 3D? asks Dan McCarty and then tells us to Go Big, or Go Home! with a "WOW, a 46” LCD with a state of the art touch screen and an integrated CPU displaying building control system data."

While MatrikonOPC explores Integrating OPC into Building Automation and If These Walls Could Talk is about Communicating Building Information Across the Enterprise with OPC and BACnet.

The company my daughter works with, Aconex online document management, shows us how to do Information Control for the Full Asset Lifecycle as applied in the Sydney Opera House.

We have also included an article I wrote for Refrigeration Service Engineers Society November Journal called What You Need to Know About GridWise.

I finish up the articles with my Last Building Automation Column for Engineered Systems which has provided me with an industry soapbox to rant on, scolding and generally cajoling the industry while plagiarizing the content of the bevy of authors from our online magazine.

Also as usual lots of new products and our constant flow of industry news.

We have added a new Blog tab to our navigation menu which links to related industry blogs of interest.  We created an Industry online Forum many years before blogging was conceived and have combined these.

Of course the news just keeps flowing thru our web site and RSS feeds daily, and of course the only way to truly find what you are looking for in the vast quantity of information on our site is with our site search engine http://www.automatedbuildings.com/search/sitesearch.htm

Be sure to check our event calendar to see the number events we have in our future.

Lots of information and links in this issue use the menu on your left to explore.

We have been working on improving our web site by reorganizing how we handle the great number of news release we receive daily.  We now provide a News Feed ( Which Needs a RSS Feed Reader ) and have provided a New Our RSS news feed rendered into HTML

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Be sure to check our event calendar to see the number events we have in our future.

As I always say, it is a great time to be in the news business for our industry. 

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