Wise grid

From Reframe

Current revision as of 21:42, 14 March 2008

Today green building is recognized as key to lower emissions and operating costs and an eventually much lower ecological footprint. Wise grids link green buildings together.

wise grids - district energy, smart homes, and load shifting

The emergence of technologies that put power and big (broadband) bandwidth on a single wire (USB, DC-powered Ethernet and AC-wired BPL) as IEEE standards in 2008Q1 are radically and permanently changing the way building utilities are designed and provided to the end user. In the same way industrial and office building control systems became unified under SNMP, home and MURB control systems are likewise being unified. While phone, surveillance, control and media (TV, Internet, radio) networks will likely remain physically separate, they will be based on exactly the same underlying technologies with different optimization and security profiles. They will be connected only at the points where users present credentials (doors) and at external communication points where multiple streams of monitoring, control and data are switching onto more than one network to permit instant failover and avoid a single point of failure in communicating with external service providers including municipal service providers (water, sewer, fire, public health, police and so on).

These buildings will be extremely easy to monitor, heat and cool, and will be in high demand among real estate porfolio holders including some who operate 'wise grid' franchises and are seeking to augment rent income with utility income that can be gained at little or no risk.

Despite this demand, and the ease of financing unit or whole-building acquisition with 'green' mortages (that reward lower utility bills), real estate specialists on their own (without a franchised operating framework and supporting services) are poorly equipped to undertake a 'wise grid' deployment. Power companies are much better positioned but are conflicted and lack the expertise and are often prevented by regulation from offering services that compete directly with telcos, cablecos, or security monitoring companies. Telcos and cablecos have no non- information product on which to piggyback 'dark fibre' optic buildouts or directly subsidize services that have yet to prove their value to the customer - or which may violate their obligation to provide equal service to all as a 'common carrier' or challenge their data management capabilities (especially with respect to user privacy).

A more trusted, more skilled, more local, provider of a unified power and control service (called a 'smart grid' when applied to a large area), operating as a franchise with the backing of an insurer and bonded services, can also provide privacy-sensitive services like credential verification and key management which no large corporate provider can. By remaining relatively small and serving only clusters of nearby buildings that can be managed on a part-time basis by a single resident contractor and if desired a local backup contractor, a 'wise grid' doesn't unwisely scale its operations to the point of having any conflicts of interest or difficulties managing privacy or to the point of not caring what its customers think (an inevitable problem of any large or public utility).

Haldane's principle, from biology, states that systems do not become large because they are overly complex - rather they become overly complex because they are too large to be operated by the systems that work when they are small. Wise grids remain small enough to be run by the people who live within them, with outside help only required in emergencies. They are much more resilient and put much less load on public services in a disaster.

power and control 2007

• reducing peaks, shifting loads pays off but not enough to motivate big investment
• disconnected devices, e.g. thermostats or freezer timers, only on high-watt devices
• dissimilar phone, control, cameras, TV, IP networks - using incompatible wire/control
• incompatible proprietary software/protocol
• hard to specify unit or building policy
• no single authentication or identity key
• access and ownership of wires disputable

power and control 2012

• dynamic rates that represent underlying cost
• rolling brownouts as reaction to system instability
• market-like demand controls to flatten loads
• great replacements for energy wasting devices
• unified network SNMP / iSCSI / IPv6 / wire
• power and data on same wire (802.3at, 1901)
• separate networks with unified monitoring
• easy to specify policies, deploy and test
• unified but factored credential keys/locks
• media (Internet, radio, TV) provided over IP
• all wires in building are owned by its owner

the wise grid

• exploits local sensors to detect environment
• 'data fusion' to create complete heat profile
• buildings respond like plants to sun/heat/wind with real time sensors and uplinks to weather monitoring and prediction services
• gathers SNMP over AC (1901) and DC (802.3at)
• uses wireless sensors (802.15.4) judiciously
• uses credentials to anticipate usage pattern
• connects multiple networks at locks/monitors
• can easily isolate any compromised subsystem
• is deployed at discretion of building owners and coordinates disparate service providers
• can accomodate multiple providers of similar services and even unify the similar offerings

between power and builder

• neither powerco nor builder
  • have any expertise in controls or devices
  • understand SNMP - monitoring is up to user
  • anticipate uses - services are too generic
  • want responsibility for network/IP problems
  • can compete with telco, cableco or customer
  • want to own batteries, NOC gear, small generators, thermal storage facilities
• there's a gap between them requiring service
• powerco is in conflict of interest with any customer seeking to minimize energy usage
• hundreds of systemic motivations for builder to simply build large building cheap and go

who else can't do it

• telco and cableco can't subsidize with energy or control services - aren't trusted with security or safety sensitive tasks
• unit-holders don't have expertise for control and building supervisors can't do it reliably
• adjacent buildings often acquired by one group for speculation, easier promotion or combining but it's rare to actually have many for long
• municipalities can't deploy service selectively but have to advance lowest common denominator
• nonprofit institutions (public housing, co-ops) are good testbeds but have vulnerable residents or broken governance processes or staff bunkers

district energy, media, control

• can serve its district for 72 hours in a crisis and possibly longer by neighbourly cooperation
• franchises control, surveillance & monitoring framework from insurance or portfolio company
• deploys proven technologies to many buildings in one neighbourhood, hosted in best basement
• is typically managed by a resident contractor
• specifies or installs several separate nets
• specifies and installs low energy use devices
• resells/insures compatible equipment/services
• bulk-buys phone & media (TV, radio, Internet)
• performs credential verification for insurance
• saves auditable encrypted records of incidents
• bills for utilities and services thru building
• displays interim bills on web or in-unit meter

everyone's happy

the happy resident

• will be unaffected by any service outage less than 72 hours in duration, as a building goes autonomous
• identifies themselves only minimally to systems
• can easily limit control over unit to other users
• can easily set multiple profiles for their own use
• uses their own cell phone as a 'universal remote'
• is insured against phone or net connection abuse
• is informed of every use of any wireless protocol
• usually won't notice energy or water conservation
• sees immediate savings from any changes of habits (proven to result in savings of up to 30 percent)
• pays one itemized bill for all utility services (even water if it's unified under same controls)
• is easily removed from unit even if unconcious in an emergency - fire and police overrides provide a civil-rights-safe monitored access to the unit

the happy city

• can ignore 'wise grids' for up to 72 hours in crises as they manage themselves and call for help they need
• saves substantial greenhouse gas, water, sewer usage
• minimizes effort of tracking crimes on wireless nets
• minimizes fire risk, enables access of firefighters
• can quickly adapt control approach to all municipal services including water, power and perhaps others
• can accept residents' credentials throughout city to simplify access to public space, library, school
• can pay for social housing to be equipped with same services with greenhouse gas credit and taking some percentage of the utility savings from a contractor
• can deploy similar facilities in its own offices to better enable telework and shared offices under user control without potentially problematic monitoring (lacking the controls built in to protect privacy)

the happy powerco

• makes more money per watt but sells fewer watts
• reduces need for capital investment in generation
• can cease problematic peak generation (coal, oil)
• can operate nuclear plants at full power most of the time, significantly decreasing nuclear waste
• reduces need for networking expertise to what is required to provide bulk bandwidth or dark fibre to reseller putting IEEE 1901 signals on 110 VAC and provides redundant connection (via wireless)
• reduces difficulty of balancing grid in areas of sophisticated demand management: can motivate any 'wise grid' to reduce or increase demand or even to release stored or generated energy to the grid
• can focus on large scale projects it knows better

the happy builder

• builds then either sells or keeps collecting rent
• if held/rented, wise grids absorb operating risks
• if sold, investors in wise grids will want to buy buildings already designed and wired for services
• can advertise 'green' buildings with low power use
• can sell condo units for higher than market prices
• can rent units for much higher than market prices (either equipped or not) including shorter term rentals due to flexible hotel-like keys/credentials
• can actually operate building as a minimal hotel if this proves practical, e.g. contractors live within while building is finished, beta-testing equipment
• qualifies units or buildings for 'green' mortgages based on significantly lower utility usage & bills
• participates in phone & media (TV, Internet, radio) revenue without taking operating or support risks

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