What can the Smart Grid learn from Building Automation Systems? Although the scalability of the two industries differs, the general principles and fundamental goals remain the same.

Nirosha Munasinghe MBusIT BSc BE (Hons) (Melb) Contributing Editor

The smart grid is evolving at a rapid speed with billions of dollars of investments and many players entering the market to capture a niche. The building automation system (BAS) industry has grown at a significant rate in the last decade driven by open protocols and web architecture.  Two different industries but one fundamental goal of sustainability to achieve energy efficiency while preserving global commodity resources. What can the smart grid learn from the BAS industry? What are the similarities”?

 

Over the last decade building automation systems have transformed from “just another piece of equipment in a building” to a proactive system which has become the fundamental driver to energy efficiency in buildings. BAS have evolved from simple analog systems on separate networks to large networks integrated to corporate IT networks with data served via web architecture.  Applications have transformed from simple desktop software to enterprise based web applications with large capacity for data capturing. Open protocols, led by BACnet and LonWorks have been the key driver for the evolution.  The plethora of data from the various metrics of the buildings has opened up a market for data management and mining to display useful data to the correct audience at the right time. Open source projects such as Project Haystack are leading the way.

In a macro level the smart grid journey has similar parallels to the BAS growth over the last decade. The fundamental concept of the smart grid is the automation of the power distribution model to distribute power smartly and control the usage from the utility to consumer. This includes the automation of substations to end consumer meter management systems to publishing useful data upstream to the both retailers and consumers via web technology. 

 

Although the scalability of the smart grid solutions are much larger compared to BAS solutions, the primary purpose and high level architecture remains the same. Therefore, what can the smart grid learn from the BAS industry?

• Get the Basics Right: Prosperous niche business opportunities can lure a vendor to design and develop solutions at a rapid pace to outdo the competition. The key to a competitive advantage for a vendor is a differentiated product either by new technology or features. Therefore it is natural to devote large resources to develop the differentiated feature leaving limited resources for the fundamentals. We have seen too many BAS vendors deliver cutting edge solutions but having issues with the fundamentals. For example the implementation of the PID loops is the backbone of building automation and control. However, how many vendors have a logical and user friendly mechanism for tuning these loops? Not many. Therefore it is vital the smart grid vendors implement the basics not only correctly but also to be second nature to the user. The smart grid concept is not about introducing brand new product or technology; it is adding another layer to the power distribution model that has existed for 100 of years. For example the primary functionality of an electricity meter is collection of KWH usage of a premise. Therefore when introducing automated meter collection mechanism, the fundamentals of data accuracy and reliability must be maintained.  As with BAS development of a digital direct controller, the basic concepts of robust implementation of real time clocks, watch dogs, data read storage, ability upgrade firmware, future expansion of memory banks etc… must be designed with great thought and care. As the scalability of the grid solutions is in the millions of nodes in a network it is vital the fundamentals are right and robust to avoid millions of dollars in losses and backlash from the end users.
  

• Open Protocols:  The backbone of the BAS growth has been the introduction of the open protocols. The smart grid space has introduced and is using new high and low level open standards such as IEC standards, openADR and Wimax. It is vital the smart grid vendors evaluate the “End to End” compatibility of the protocols when making protocol decisions to a product range and the future compatibility for integration with other vendors. Avoid any proprietary protocols when possible. The thought of introducing proprietary protocols for a vendor is tempting from the business perspective thinking as it can lock in the customer to its product range. However, the BAS industries have proven the future business opportunities from open protocols far outweigh the view of locking in the customer. The BAS industry has clearly demonstrated that open protocol products can integrate and share data with other industries to open up a plethora of business opportunities to provide value added solutions to the customer, on top of its core product range.
  

• [an error occurred while processing this directive] Web Architecture:  All the smart grid solutions should be designed with web based architecture. Many BAS vendors transformed solutions from desktop based applications to web based solutions by adding layers and hooks, allowing marketing to promote web base solutions. However in practical use these applications had many flaws compared to pure web architectural design such as limited functionality and having to use both the web and desktop web application to complete the solutions, increasing project deployment time and causing user frustration.  As with the open protocols, the web architecture will also provide future business opportunities to the vendor by integration.
  

• Commissioning:  The fundamental issue in the BAS industry is the lack of commissioning of the solution. In the building construction life cycle, BAS is generally the last piece of work to be completed and combined with reduced construction programs, limited commissioning durations and a lack of expert personnel collectively leads to poorly commissioned systems.  The smart grid industry will face similar pressures for tight time lined programs. The industry needs to develop standards to govern the original specification and commissioned results to make sure required work is operating as expected. But more importantly greater resources need to be devoted for the process.
  

• Change Management:  Technology is evolving at a pace where the general human being cannot keep up its growth.  Therefore it is vital to change management procedures to educate the stakeholders, especially the end users of the products. The smart grid and BAS solutions are just a technological enabler for the goal of sustainability. The stakeholders will need to know how to use the technology but more importantly accept the technological change to achieve the full goal. The objective and its benefits need to be communicated clearly and concisely to the users.
  

The smart grid will be an exciting and rewarding journey over the next decade. As it continues its growth, it can learn from the BAS industry in many ways to not only get the solutions right but to do it better. Although the scalability of the two industries differs, the general principles and fundamental goals remain the same. 

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