Reducing Electricity Bills For Buildings With XML

Roland Piquepaille writes "Even if new buildings are connected to Internet, they usually don't communicate between themselves. And when it comes to electricity, these buildings are selfish and consume what they want without any coordination. Now, an XML-based system developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is using Web services to collectively adjust power usage to variations in price. In 'Internet ups power grid IQ,' Technology Research News reports that the system was successfully tested for two weeks on five commercial buildings. 'Beyond price, systems could be programmed to respond to changes in air quality or to tap into sustainable energy sources.' You'll find more details, pictures and references in this overview. [Additional note: The system described here is completely different to the one mentioned in Slashdot last March in Building the Energy Internet.]"

What is this, 2001?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure this is very nice work but the description is the most bogus hyperventilation about XML I've seen in years! What next, Reduce Electricity Bills With P2P?

Misleading headline

[Thng]

Yeah, it's a bit misleading. Basically, all they're doing is telling the building up to the moment energy prices, and they're dynamically adjusting power consumption based on the price levels ($.30 and $.75/hour) , whether it's turning the A/C up a degree, or dimming lights (speculation).
The XML isn't a magic bullet in this case, but more like the right tool for the job, which is information interchange across systems.

In addition, it sounds somewhat similar to what many companies have for off-peak electricity, where you give the power company authority to selectively shut off appliances (electric heat, water heaters, etc) when demand (and usually price) is high. The difference, it seems, is that this is much more fine-grained in control, and it will likely be the end user's choice.

Wow! An efficient market!

[StateOfTheUnion]

I actually surprised that more of this hasn't happened already. Large consumers such as manufacturing sites and steel mills often have contracts with power companies that include clauses for load shedding (eg. during the months of May-August, the power company may require running at reduced up to 20% reduced load (from contractual maximums) for no more than X hours is any rolling 3 week period). For this concession, the company in question is given a price on power consumed year round.

This voluntary load shedding based on a price that moves sounds like an even more efficient marketplace . . . price goes up with demand (given a limited supply), those who are unwilling to pay the new price or in economist speak, those whose opportunity cost is less than the new price reduce consumption. It sounds like a great scheme . . . only those who are willing to pay more (or whose opportunity cost is high) consume more during peak hours. It has the potential of balancing load, creating a more efficient market, and reducing the overall cost of electricity to society.

(disclaimer . . . I fully recognize that a perfectly efficient market would be socially and morally impractical . . . one should not jerk the rates for electricity in Houston TX on a hot day for people that depend on air conditioning . . . especially not for someone like an unhealthy fixed income pensioner . . . But for those that would see a rate credit or savings to their bottom line . . . it sounds like a win win situation to me.

OASIS TC: oBIX

[dubbayu_d_40]

A new TC has been formed at OASIS for this very purpose: Open Building Information Exchange.

Control systems such as LonTalk and BACnet are pretty unusable by enterprise class developers. However the data contained in these systems is extremely beneficial to enterprise IT.

www.oasis-open.org/committees/tc_home.php?wg_abbre v=obix

centralised building lighting control

[throwaway18]

Large buildings in the UK often have addressable lighting fixtures. I suspect they get put in as standard when a large building gets rewired these days. The main use is to automatically turn off all the lights in the evening.
There is usually an untidy pile of desktop computers in the security room or the maintanence guys office thats runs it.

I'v seen a poor electrician wandering around a big building for months. The labourers who installed the fittings took all the caps off the fixtures and threw them in a big pile. The serial numbers were on the caps. The electrician would fiddle with the computer,
wander off for a couple of hours and return with the news that fitting 4732 was in a cuboard somewhere.

I can't see any reason for buildings to talk to each other. Brownouts are unheard of here in the UK, you get the full voltage or very ocasionally nothing. I suspect it is due to the use of 240volts, less current is needed for the same power so less voltage drop due to the resistance of the wires.

Lighting control is in the hands of electricians. Good luck getting them to use XML and configure things so buildings interact with each other.

Why wasn't this done befor energy deregulation?

[michaelmalak]

Isn't it obvious that the first step to having a free market is having published prices?

Until your XML-enabled thermostat, XML-enabled X-10 command center, or XML-enabled ADT Security Panel reports out the current $/kwh, energy should not be market-priced to the minute. Somehow, California missed this in its great experiment.

Even better

[marnargulus]

It would be great if we could set this up, and have multiple power suppliers for an area. The XML would automatically determine the lower price and order from that vendor for a month. Companies would "bid" for large areas, and power prices would drop. The only problem would be if too many people did this and forced the more expensive power companies out of business.

Yeah, Load Shedding...

[the_skywise]

Like another poster pointed out, Load Shedding is done to great effect to help curb power use. The Best Buys' in my area subscribe to this by cranking up the temperature in summers to lower AC usage and/or by turning off half the lights.

But I don't see how this is going to work in office buildings. Turn the AC down in my office by even a few degrees and it gets unbearably hot. The office also has few windows and only one set of fluorescent lights per office, turn out the lights and we cna't do any work.

What's that leave, the company water fountain?

"Fountain's off"
"Oh, must've been a price increase for power this morning..."

Re:Price changes?

[iabervon]

Probably not in general, but if you have a large complex, it might be. MIT, for example, has a cogeneration power plant, which produces chilled water, steam, and electricity. The demand for various products affects the rate that the generator has to run, which affects the amount of the others produced. So MIT electricity prices change every 10 seconds (there's a web page which updates at that rate), based on how much other stuff is being used. Furthermore, MIT is on the city grid, and buys any power over what the generator produces at a higher cost. If more than 20 MW are being used, then the amount used affects the percentage that's locally produced, and therefore the average cost.

So, if it's winter and the heat is on (requiring the generator to run full power), and campus is using less than the 20 MW produced, it makes sense to run the freezers longer such that they'll require less power later when the campus is using more power.

Re:OASIS TC: oBIX

[Dan the Control Guy]

Not true, we use a web server and mySQL to make all of the BACnet stuff, (both IP and MS/TP) available to the back end stuff. Its all Java up from there and I have used Python and Perl to do the same thing.

Re:What is this, 2001?

[TimTheFoolMan]

Actually, both of the things you've mentioned become truly important when you're talking about getting data OUT of a variety of proprietary systems. More to the point, Web Services/Soap calls standardize a data access control API for client applications to use, eliminating the transport layer as a consideration.

Real world example? HVAC company A provides an XML/Web Services interface to allow external systems to query it for energy usage (given the external system is able to validate itself). HVAC company B does the same thing. Now, the external system from Energy Provider C can gather data from A and B without having to dive into any of the myriad of proprietary protocols that those companies would normally use for such data, and can make demand load/limit adjustments, customized billing, and so on, based on that data..

The real trick is convincing both companies (A and B) that it's in their best interest to provide this non-proprietary interface. While many vendors are pushing neutral protocols, such as BACnet or LON, those aren't really high-level enough to work with at the enterprise level and beyond. For that, you need something like XML/Web Services, so you can eliminate protocols, and have some reasonable chance at interpreting the data.

Does that help?

Tim