Transactive Energy and Farm to Plug

I just got back from the Third International Conference and Workshop on Transactive Energy in Portland. There is wide consensus on the inevitability of transactive energy even as there are struggles as to how to get there.

Transactive energy was initially conceived of as a way to set spot market prices for electric energy (power) during times of peak demand or temporary supply shortfall. Transactive energy is based on the path-breaking research of Clearwater and Huberman at the Xerox Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) published in 1993. At PARC, they created moment-by-moment thermal markets to manage data center cooling; an agent on each server bid for the cooling it needed. This approach eliminated hot spots and reduced energy costs even as it eliminated the need to develop ever more complex control and sensing strategies.

Distributed energy makes the problems of effective grid operation worse. Distributed energy refers to the developing model in which every node on the grid is potentially a power source as well as a power user, driven largely by renewable energy such as solar photovoltaics (PV) and wind. Distributed energy changes the centrally managed, essentially hub-and-spoke distribution model in which energy flows down into what is potentially a two-way peer-to-peer network over the same infrastructure. Sites which contain Distributed Energy Resources (DER) can choose whether or not to come to market at any moment. Transactive energy is the developing means to manage this growing complexity.

Distributed energy is local, so distributed energy markets (and prices) must be local. Traditional local prices in power, referred to as locational marginal pricing (LMP) or nodal pricing is based on physical limits of the transmission system—a single bottleneck can affect all “downstream” points. LMP can be set centrally, calculated based on line physics and historical use. DER potentially places the power sources downstream of the congestion, and alongside the power customers. Nodes containing DER can decide whether the energy available is used to support the grid or internal purposes. Only actual markets and set clearing prices for DER.

There is no effective ownership of DER without local storage. Without local storage, grid nodes are always price-takers. Grid operators have a strong and legitimate interest in throttling how much DER is dumped onto the grid at any moment. Without local storage, grid operators must be able to turn off DER, i.e., set when a node can come to market. Even if a node invests capital in DER asset, if a third party determines what prices the node must take for the product of that asset, and controls when that asset can come to market, then the owners of that node cannot be said to own the asset.

Local markets will not really work without local storage. Local storage is necessary to create actual economic ownership of DER.

The best use for DER is and will always be local consumption. A building need not be Net Zero Energy (NZE) to consume power locally first. Use energy locally first. The next best use for DER is to store energy locally, perhaps for later consumption on site. Any excess, or any deficits in local power can then be made up through market operations. This is the essence of the new power movement, sometimes called Farm-to-Plug.

IOT Apps and Competition for Resources in Seattle

Tomorrow, I am talking about a Resource Framework for the Internet of Things (IoT) at the summit of the AllSeen Alliance.

Traditional consumer programming has concerned itself with only a few resources, i.e., RAM (memory), storage (disk space), and communication (network speed). These programs live atop operating systems and device drivers that engage directly with physical things.

Third-wave Apps in the IoT, though, deal directly with resources. The second wave of the IoT, what I call the Internet of Sensors, may measure resources, but Apps are not competing for resources except, perhaps, bandwidth to report them. Two measurements of air temperature do not compete. And one does not “use up” the temperature that the other one wants.

Third-wave IoT Apps do things, and can only do things to the extent that have access to resources. Resources may be electrical power or heat or water or water pressure, or anything that the systems controlled by an App need to support their purposes.

Some resources exist as a fixed pool that is then drained over time. Other resources may have a steady supply over time. As other IoT Apps require the same resources, the size of the pool varies not by the schedule of its own ebb and flow (think power provided by Solar PV), but the supply changes as other Apps consume the same resources, or perhaps can even be induced to supply more of that resource. Resource availability, the net of supply and demand, is always changing over time.

With a predictable budget for a given resource at any moment in time, Apps must avoid interfering with each other. Sometime this is a competition, but often it may be as simple as avoiding the time that other Apps are using the same resource. Two Apps that use the same resource at the same time may both fail if there is a shortage of resources adequate for simultaneous operation. This is a problem of a moment in time. If one can delay its operation, or the other can accelerate its operation, they may be able to perform all functions, to get access to all of the resource each needs, by simply avoiding each other.

Traditional solutions to this problem posit a master controller, a single controlling program that understands each application and its needs. This works best when all systems and apps are provided by the same manufacturer, and the systems work together as slaves do: on command, as directed, and interchangeably.

With a resource framework, we hope to define a framework within which Apps in the same space can negotiate for resources over time. We can use the specifications built for Smart Energy, to negotiate power use and supply, for other commodities as well.

Leaving IB-CON with Microgrids and DC Distribution in mind

I write (and post,you have to be amazed at the technology we so take for granted) this on a plane flying away from a great IB-Con, the REALCOM Intelligent Buildings Conference. It is a trade show like no other, with deep involvement of both the technology leaders in Real Estate, i.e. CIOs and CTOs of the largest REITs and those that would sell to them. The panel discussions were embued with new issues tied to deep adoption of IT not only into the corporate operations of estate, but into the operations of the hidden systems within.

Deep analytics and deep security concerning embedded systems, BAS and others were recurring themes this year. There were frank discussions of using the BAS to get to corporate information, and of using hacks to destroy building internal operations. There was just enough White Hat “think like a hacker” to keep the talks interesting.

But what really stands out at REALCOMM in the focus on emerging technologies. Jim Young and Howard Berger have a genuine interest in start-ups, identifying the ones that could do a lot of good, and helping them to meet their early hurdles. New companies may get coached on messaging and presentation. They go out of their way to introduce potential risk-takers with the new technologies. I have even listened in as companies just out of angel funding get coached through their next steps. The unseen services these two provide are immense.

On the other side, they create a real community among the technologists on the ownership side of real estate. Some come back year after year to challenge each other with the changing world of real estate. I have written here before of the challenges of setting up start-up office for millennials, of coffee shops and food trucks replacing the in-house conference rooms and in-house sandwich shop.

Some of these owners have set up their own coaching for new tenants, helping them with marketing, and financial planning, and other topics the young founder of a new venture may not know. At one level, this is raw self-interest, for a tenant that goes out of business is a tenant that breaks his lease. But at another level, and I think a truer level, it is a commitment to helping other flourish, so long as they learn and work hard, so that we all flourish. And I think this commitment and community starts with Jim and Howard.

My most immediate concerns this year were microgrids and semantic frameworks, as well as the Energy Mashup Lab. These topics are no surprise to my regular readers.

A moderated a microgrid session with CleanSpark and Stem, two technical companies with quite different focuses. Because another vendor, an early start-up, dropped out, I expanded my own comments on personal microgrids. What was remarkable was how each participant agreed on the big issues, the big benefits, and the driving forces. As an industry, microgrids are now know where they are going. Years ago, I moderated similar sessions, and the speakers were coming out of the labs, with vision, but not yet much delivery. Today, either of them, and maybe a dozen more vendors, can deliver systems out of the box.

Those systems are quite different though. They share a commonality of benefits: lasting reduction of energy risk, capabilities to work with real energy markets to reduce costs, a capability of consuming local storage for local purposes rather than the dead end of net metering, and privacy and security for the building and its occupants. The prices are coming down, leading to three-to-five year ROIs on pure energy costs without pricing the other elements. The risk is now low. The question is now moving toward “Does a microgrid make sense in this state with these regulations?”…and regulatory frameworks are starting to predominate. Keep an eye on these technologies, because if you have a site with greater than average price risk, or reliability risk, or security risk, you should be considering a microgrid now.

At the end of the day, I finished in a discussion of low voltage DC lighting. Again, long-time readers know I have been enthused by this technology for five years. It is now coming to market (LumenCache) with standard parts, standard high-performance LEDs, modular component s anyone can install and maintain. I hope to learn more about this company and its products in the weeks ahead.

Which makes me look ahead. Is it time, at last, for the eMerge alliance, and for DC-based distribution inside the building to come to the fore? Storage (batteries) are DC. Solar PEV is DC. Digital electronics and LEDs are DC. With less need for heat shields and conversion, LEDs are cheaper, safer, and more reliable. Without the need to convert from DC to Ac to DC (storage) and from DC to AC to DC (storage to use), there is a 30% “free” increase in efficiency. With enough distributed energy generation, DC power, as Edison thought it should be, may be back.

That’s all for now. I’m tired and travelling.

Math and Power and the System with No Name

Every once in a while you run into something that just does not fit into any categories. The world welcomes a better mousetrap, but won’t even consider a mouse dispatcher that sends the mice outside to mow the lawn. We all want things that fit the categories we know. It is hard for a new category to make our purchasing lists.

For the last year, I have been talking to a company that manages energy based on math. The founder created new math to understand how dolphins process signals over time. We create three dimensional models based on what is effectively instant access to shadows and shapes. Dolphins assemble three dimensions based on time-delays in echoes—sound is much slower than light. The founder then applied this math to digital processing of power.

Normal complex-instruction set computers are slow to do certain kinds of math. We all use special-purpose vector-processing CPUs to do graphics (“graphics chips”). In a similar way, this mathematician had to come up with special-purpose CPUs to analyze and fix power in real time. But what does it mean to digitally fix power?

These novel CPUs are now built into special purpose computer systems that take the normal dirty power we all get and make it look as much as possible like the idealized model of a three dimensional power wave. This redefines what we mean by dirty power. Normal power conditioning creates “trapezoids”, power shapes that only mimic a sine wave. True digital power quality is something quite different. And we don’t have a name for what it is.

I have written here before that the effects of digital power quality can be pronounced. Florescent lights stop humming. Motor vibration is reduced and heat generation is reduced. A closer look shows subtler effects. Power output of motors is increased. Impedance is reduced and harmful power harmonics are reduced. Outside the device, power factor tends toward one, which may reduce power bills.

A large facility with a motor load reduced power requirements by 20%, according to a 3^rd party engineer monitoring a trial. Data centers have seen power requirement reduction of 10%, as harmonic stresses are reduced. High-rises with digital power conditioning on each floor may not need to upgrade neutral throughout the building.

Sites close to the Carolinas, where 3DFS is headquartered and can monitor installations closely, can experience something new. But 3DFS is a startup, and their product is not a better mousetrap. It is something else. It is power conditioning based on novel advanced math. And for too many of us, we start the day hoping there will be no math required.