AutomatedBuildings.com - Editorial Comments November 2008

November theme is …making sense of it all at Grid-Interop. This is the second Grid-Interop conference www.grid-interop.com/2008 focusing on Interoperability technology for the electric grid, and will be the first time that the conference is held in partnership with the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

In our cover picture the perplexed look on some street art in Montreal gives a sense of the bewilderment that we are all feeling. Jack McGowan asked if we would make the November issue our Grid-Interop issue and many of the presenters at the event have joined in to help us make sense of Grid-Interop and provide a sneak preview of what you might learn at this event. If you are unable to attend the event our November issue will provide you a toe hold on how important Grid-Interop with complex and simple Building to Grid relationships are going to be.- (B2G for short)

Be sure to read Jack’s opening article Energy & Controls as he provides insight to the fact that B2G starts with Demand Response, a multi-billion market that requires automation technology to work, but will expand to a broad-based opportunity for system manufacturers and integrators to really make money from energy.

Under the 2007 Energy Independence and Security Act (EISA), NIST has the primary responsibility for coordinating development of a framework to achieve interoperability of Smart Grid devices and systems that includes protocols and model standards for information management. Interoperability is a key challenge to achieving the vision of the Smart Grid. Find out how B2G and the NIST Workshop lead by David Holmberg NIST expects to come away from Grid Interop with an initial per-domain roadmap of what interoperability issues matter and specific action items to address the interoperability standards' gaps and weakness or overlaps.

Carol Geyer, Director of Communications,OASIS explains; How do eCommerce technologies, including contracting, reliable messaging, security, and the application of Service-Oriented Architectures (SOA) fit into the energy and buildings world? in her article ECommerce, Buildings, and Energy

From the article Blue, Buildings, and Energy comes this observation "According to Werbach, each decision and each transaction should be made mindful of price, purpose and process—and the benefits of economic growth can be guided by the ethos of sustainability. He named this new synthesis Blue, invoking the earth as seen by the astronauts."

Be sure you understand The Virtue of VirtuaWatt^TMwhen directly connected to Constellation Energy and the Independent System Operator (ISO), VirtuaWatt^TM allows customers to login to view a projection of their load and specify what hours they will be able to decrease power below their projected load and at what price. This feature provides customers the opportunity to participate in markets where incentives have been established for curtailing load on a real time basis.

In Jim Butler of Cimetrics article The Smart Grid and Ongoing Building Commissioning He advises; Savvy building owners are saving money now while positioning their facilities to take advantage of future smart grid opportunities.

Toby Considine provide insight to where overall interop may be going in his article Transacted Energy End Games

Be sure to read The Three Little (BACnet) Pigs A Modern Day Fable of Building Systems Integration by Andy McMillan, President and CEO, Teletrol Systems Inc. & President BACnet International

As always lots of new products, plus be sure to check our event calendar to see the number of events we have in our future.

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.

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

Tell our sponsors you saw their ad on the AutomatedBuildings.com web site and thank them for supporting your free access to evolving Automated Building Industry information. Click on their ads and view their valuable products and services. Please review all Our Sponsors.

October's issue speaks to the radical changes occurring in our industry at many levels. Our cover picture shows global thinking with an aggressive Building to Grid project where the Building and Electrical grid lines blur. For more on this project click here; Positive Energy Building in Masdar, Abu Dhabi.

Our North American reality is that our coal fired steam driven Electrical Grid has become a liability not an asset as it was once perceived. As we now know the miles of installed telephone wire complete with its Dilbert administration have also become a liability in allowing us to grow a leading edge wireless communication system like most of the third world. The electrical grid is broken and extremely fragile and can only be shored up with interactive building control technology that will greatly increase the intelligence of the existing grid. This process is going to involve a bit of dinosaur tipping to make utilities understand the urgency of the call for change. Much work is required by all but we who have control of the North America building energy use have the most to do.

[an error occurred while processing this directive] Jack's article The NewEnergy Paradigm has a reference to NewEnergy in the title which has a double meaning because energy is new again, but also because the NewEnergy Alliance seems to be at the heart of a large number of opportunities. Anto talks in his article Buildings and ET about the past week and how energy leaders gathered in Washington DC and New York to try and understand the future of energy. In Tom's article The Enemy Within he discusses; Despite the building industry’s efforts to place a greater emphasis on improving energy efficiency of buildings, the dreadfully slow pace of improvement is resulting in an ever widening gap between what is attainable and what is actually being attained.

In Andy's column Building BACnet he advises we also need to accelerate development in the BACnet community to address new requirements and accommodate new technologies.

In Paul and Ira's column Selecting the Systems Integration Contractor They advise the process that we use involves a formal “Request for Proposals” (RFP), allowing us to gather information and evaluate it in an impartial manner.

While defining The Demand Response Horizon Leighton J. Wolffe states The next frontier for DR is to move beyond curtailment to leveraging the power of building automation systems

An interview on Intelligent Buildings by Mike Williams tells us how implementing an intelligent building can result in a significant improvement in system operations, increased efficiency, and provide high-level tools for facility assessment and optimization.

In a interview with Ron Zimmer Convergence of Green and Intelligent Buildings he explains that the intent of our research is to provide documented evidence and build tools that can be used to educate and influence end-users, building owners, architects and contractors that a greener building can be achieved using intelligent technology.

All of these views plus the other October Articles, Interviews, and Columns speak to Our New Energy Paradigm

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