Our traditional sources of power production have come primarily from hydroelectric dams, nuclear power generators and coal or natural gas fired power plants. As the population steadily increases and as more facilities come online, the demand for power will also increase. Our existing power production will require some form of increased capacity to meet the critical demand during daily peaks of power consumption. This increased capacity may be in the form of importing power from another source or building more dams and fossil burning power plants. To decrease the future capacity requirement, an option is to decrease demand by adopting the Future Smart Grid.
The efficiency of the Future Smart Grid will reduce the need for increased capacity with the use of Intelligent Middleware. Power producers will be required to offer incentives to their clients in return for a guaranteed decrease in consumption when required, especially during critical demand peaks. In some cases the incentive will be enough to reschedule industrial operations into low demand periods. This decrease or load-shedding can be achieved by rescheduling, reduced lighting, cooling and heating as well as turning off non-essential loads. Intelligent Middleware on both the supply and the demand side communicate and coordinate to accomplish this task. On the supply side of power production, Intelligent Middleware integrates and coordinates wind farms, solar arrays and other renewable energy sources as the first stage of power supply. This effectively conserves stored or potential energy sources such as hydroelectric dams or fossil burning plants. Collectively Intelligent Middleware will take advantage of knowing when and where power is available. For instance, North America's peak demand period travels from east to west. Weather, events and the state of local economies modify the amplitude of the peaks. On the demand side, Intelligent Middleware communicates when and where to commence load shedding in order to achieve a granular reduction of power demands. Granular reduction is the collective sum of all participating Intelligent Buildings shedding a small portion of their demand when required. This collective sum contributes towards a large reduction of power output on the supply side. Aside from the power producers requirements of guaranteed load shedding, Intelligent Middleware may be instrumental in reducing current demand penalties. Intelligent Middleware resides within the IT Department and integrates all available building systems into one user friendly web based interface. Intelligent Middleware schedules load shedding of non essential lighting loads, reduces fan speeds, and also reduces energy devoted to heating and cooling loads to accommodate the required demand reduction while maintaining comfort levels within parameters in the Intelligent Building.
Alongside building systems personnel, IT Departments combine to play an integral role in the integration and ongoing support of Intelligent Middleware. The interface is a web based graphic control of all applicable building systems accessible from most platforms including personal portable devices such as iPhones® and laptop computers anywhere there is internet access. The convenience and functionality of Intelligent Middleware combine to provide building systems personnel with state of the art real time control of their buildings and places them in the forefront of the Future Smart Grid. | |
