The BAC Cave

From the family

2011-06-06T10:57:00.000-07:00

Dearest BAC Cave readers:

The family of Bill Swan regrets to inform that he passed away Saturday June 4th at John Muir Medical Center in Concord, CA. His illness was unexpected, but his passing was peaceful and in the presence of his family. He is survived by his parents, his wife Kathleen and two daughters.

*Update*
A memorial service is scheduled for all who would like to attend, Wednesday, July 6th at 11 a.m. at St Bartholomew's Anglican Church located at 14821 Avondale Road NE, Woodinville, WA 98072.
From the bottom of our hearts, thank you all for your kind words and well wishes.

An Internet Address for Every Light Bulb

2011-05-17T18:11:00.000-07:00

An interesting story here about the increasingly pervasive Internet, in this case individually controlling lights. Consumer-oriented it seems, and at least they have thought about security issues, but it's not clear that it will be integrate well, if at all, with a commercial building automation system or, worse, with an energy management system as described in a Smart-Grid-related whitepaper from the EIS Alliance, titled The Customer Energy Management System (CEMS) for commercial, residential and industrial buildings/consumers. I invite you to take a gander (look) at the paper.

Watching the development of BACnet's lighting control extensions, it's clear to me that while one can easily do "On -- Off -- %FullOutput", there is a whole lot more to lighting control than can be conveyed via a simple Android app. And that's even before you try to go beyond individual control of each lamp -- think about lighting up the house on the way home from the airport, or at least the path from the garage to the bedroom (so I don't have to to flip switches with both hands full of luggage). There aren't enough stoplights between SeaTac airport (SEA) and home for me to turn on the requisite set of lamps remotely, one by one, enroute.

What these folks are doing is something to watch, certainly, but it doesn't seem to me to be the full answer.

And I hope their power control devices are more robust today than the X10 devices sold in the early 1970s; the vulnerability of the old X10 semiconductors (SCRs/Triacs) to filament-lamp-short failures is the main reason I've never installed X10 in any of my residences.

Plug(fest) 'n Play

2011-05-17T09:08:00.000-07:00

(Or "Bowling for BACnet")

It wasn't all work during the BACnet plugfest in Saarbrücken -- the organizers arranged an evening out for the group at a nearby bowling alley. Something quite different from previous plugfests. From the pictures it looked like it was fun, but I had to bow out due to jet lag. (Many thanks to Frank Schubert for the report, title suggestion and photos.)
But now it's over and I'm back in the office (for a couple of days) with reports to write. It's not close to a major airport but I would not be unhappy, though, if we returned to Saarbrücken for the next plugfest -- or a BIG-EU meeting.

Romantische BACnet

2011-05-11T21:22:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, the North American BACnet plugfests, aka "LAN-parties" or "Interoperability Workshops" where representatives from BACnet manufacturers bring their devices (existing, new or still in development) to test with each other in a closed, cooperative and constructive environment, have been nothing like the one this week in Germany.

I will admit up front that, like most Americans, I had never heard of the city of Saarbrücken in northwestern Germany. The travel guides I read barely even mention it; all I heard was "a city in the industrial Ruhr valley," so I didn't expect much. And difficulty in sleeping upon my arrival (leaving this Seattleite "Sleepless in Saarbrücken" -- but it's my fault) didn't improve expectations.

Was I ever wrong.

I had little time to tour, and from this point on it's (almost) all business, but I truly enjoyed my short walking tour around the old town yesterday, with at least a few photos of Saarbrücken with which to remember it. I hope sometime I will be able to return, better prepared.

But that's over and now we're deep into the plugfest testing at the Handwerkskammer des Saarlandes (Saarland Chamber of Crafts -- a great facility, by the way: spacious and comfortable). It's a serious event so, because many of us are competitors, we have to lighten things up a little.

One new jest centers on the general conduct of the event: the testing teams are paired up, two by two, and for a couple of hours test their products together. The tests start with a simple "Can my device see yours on the network?" and (usually) quickly progresses to more testing sophisticated interoperations involving setting up time schedules; trendlogging data; configuring, issuing and acknowedging alarms; and more. But this pairing is now called "speed-dating."

But an important part of plugfests is to foster a spirit of cooperation, and so it frequently includes a friendly dinner together for the entire group.

Frank Schubert noted last evening, following the day's "speed-dating" our intrepid band of BACneteers had settled down to a romantic ("romantische") candlelight dinner at a nearby Italian restaurant.

But now it's early morning, we have another day of "speed-dating" ahead of us, and I must go prepare. "Tschüss" (bye).

Casting our nets wider

2011-05-04T10:45:00.000-07:00

Recent BACnet committee meetings, and this one especially, are highlighting the interactions across varied areas of technology and knowledge. The arena of IT and Internet Protocols (adding support for IPv6, for example) is one area potentially very broad as we search out our direction -- even our terminology is changing rapidly; just minutes ago BACnet-IT was jestingly renamed to BACnet "New Transport Binding" for the latest session's presentation on a demonstration project, based on the discussion & recommendations in the preceding session in the IT Working Group meeting. But this was to be expected.

A bigger surprise came in yesterday's MS/TP LAN working group meeting, on a discussion on expanding the maximum frame size for this low-cost LAN from 501 bytes to 4096 bytes. This technology has been around for some time and well understood - we thought. But IEEE's Kerry Lynn surprised me (at least) when he revealed that increasing the frame size 8-fold would increase the error rate a thousand-fold!

He referenced studies on CRC algorithms from Dr. Philip Koopman (online here), noting that there's a frequent assumption that "other have done their homework" in areas such as this, when in fact they might not have. Characteristics of the CRC-CCITT and other polynomials have been investigated; the following plot shows one result. Kerry will be providing guidance in this area.

"Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings" in public review

2011-05-04T09:46:00.000-07:00

ANSI/ASHRAE/IESNA Standard 100-2006, "Energy Conservation in Existing Buildings," is out for advisory public review until May 25th. (I downloaded a copy just before leaving the office last week.) "Advisory public review" means the cognizant committee is seeking input from the public for updating the standard.

The questions cover a broad range of issues including lighting upgrades and payback periods, commissioning (much potential here, thinking possibly of the International Green Construction Code, which provides an extensive set of specifics related to commissioning), and weather (question below), which is a current topic of discussion in our "buildings" corner of the federally-directed Smart Grid development.

Click here to learn more, and for a link for reviewing and submitting comments.

BACnet Committee in San Francisco

2011-05-03T11:56:00.000-07:00

The BACnet Committee's spring meetings are underway in San Francisco, meeting in the Pacific Energy Center -- a facility that appears to be primarily engaged in energy-efficiency education, but also some research. One of our meeting rooms seems oriented to demonstrating HVAC controls (but with a sign warning folks to leave the sensors alone because a research project is underway).

Thus far the meetings have been heavily focused on comments on proposed changes in recent public review, but other interesting discussions are getting underway, discussions on significant advances in BACnet.

BACnet-2010 is published!

2011-04-29T09:10:00.000-07:00

Hot off the press, BACnet-2010 is now available, in PDF or paper copy.

BACnet Committee meetings next week

2011-04-26T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's not too late, if you're interested in attending. The BACnet committee's spring meeting will be held May 2 through May 6 at the Pacific Energy Center, San Francisco, (next to the Moscone Convention Center). Working groups will meet Monday morning through Thursday morning, and the plenary session Thursday afternoon and Friday morning, as shown below. (The acronyms for the working groups are explained here.)

See you there?

Smart Grid Virtual Summit 2011

2011-04-25T13:25:00.000-07:00

Recently I applied to be a speaker at the upcoming Smart Grid Virtual* Summit 2011 this June, talking about "Customer Energy Management Systems (CEMS)." These are very different animals from what the utilities also call "energy management systems," hence the "Customer" designation adopted by the EIS Alliance for their whitepaper on the same.

It appears my application has been accepted. This will have to be on the agenda when the EIS Alliance folks meet here later this week.

* "Virtual" means it's all conducted online; a benefit considering I'm not sure where in the world I'll be about that time.

ZigBee Smart Energy Profile 2.0 review about to close

2011-04-25T12:52:00.000-07:00

I just received a notice about the ZigBee SEP 2.0 documents posted for pubic review (here) and went to download them -- forgetting I had already done that in response to the initial announcement in March. Still haven't looked at them -- and the review period closes tomorrow!

BACnet preparations

2011-04-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

With the BACnet interim spring meeting just a week and a half away, it's time to make sure everything is ready to go. Looking over my proposal, WS-068, "Elevator Monitoring in BACnet," I found a few minor editorial corrections needed (indentations and text colors), revised them and sent them off to Dave Robin, committee chair, for inclusion in tracking documents and the appropriate meeting folders.

The "companion" (or derivative) proposal, WS-093, "Elevator Structures in BACnet," should give the Application Profiles group something to think about. Their work for so very long has been on how (and what) to model for standard building automation devices such as variable-frequency drives and VAV controllers, but this proposal presents something different: How to group a number of objects (Lifts, Escalators, Elevator Groups and so on) into some kind of a traversable hierarchical system that could span across devices or larger entities.

(Think "City of Hong Kong" -- "Building 123 Main St" -- "Tower 5" -- "Elevator Group 3" -- Lift 2" and you might get an idea.)

It could be a fun time in the meetings week after next.

And then I'm off to Saarbrücken, Germany, for the European plugfest the week after.

Almost ready for that too: today I registered the Alerton devices I'm bringing with the Customs and Border Protection folks, down at the King County International Airport in Seattle. (Until this week I didn't even know we had a "King County Airport," much less an international one!) The officials didn't seem impressed by all the advanced BACnet technology embedded in the little plastic boxes on DIN rails. And they didn't seem like they wanted to hear about the increased comfort and lower operational costs these little boxes could give them, or what the Smart Grid would soon do for them, or...

Oh, well.

Mark that date (BACnet Academy London)

2011-04-20T14:12:00.000-07:00

Right on the heels of the BACnet Forum London came the announcement of the BACnet Academy London to be held October 25, 2011. Details soon to be available here.

LEED for Healthcare approved

2011-04-19T09:00:00.000-07:00

The green building newsletter world lit up this week with the announcement that LEED for Healthcare has finally been released. It addresses aspects of healthcare facilities that were not well handled by LEED for New Construction.

Reportedly among its prerequisites are minimizing the use of potable water for cooling medical equipment, and "eliminating mercury" (does this include a prohibition on CFLs & fluorescents? -- I guess I will have to wait to see). For the latter, I learned a new acronym we'll no doubt see more often, and not just in new LEED systems: PBT, for "Persistent Bioaccumulative [or] Toxic" chemical. Plus there is a new prerequisite: removal or encapsulation of hazardoous materials.

Looks like I will have more new reading ahead, including the UK's BREAAM Healthcare along with the US' LEED for Healthcare. It will be interesting to see if there are elements to be included in future energy talks.

Nice photo

2011-04-18T20:01:00.000-07:00

Thanks to my friend and colleague Frank Schubert, who has a good eye, a photo in front of the Thames last week. Almost as chilly as back home in Seattle, but without the hail, sleet and snow.

BACnet Forum London

2011-04-13T07:52:00.000-07:00

BIG-EU committee meetings ended yesterday. Now at the BACnet Forum London, delivering my talk "Energy Standards and Energy Efficiency." I don't have numbers but the turnout seems to be quite good and the interest level high.

"Travel to exotic locations..."

2011-04-11T07:10:00.000-07:00

Big Ben (and the other major sights might be only a mile west of today's meeting of the BIG-EU
Executive and Advisory Boards, regarding BIG-EU business, but one would be hard put to tell it from here.

I usually finish the quote in the title with "... and sit in hotel meetings rooms." Though technically this meeting room is not in a hotel, it's a distinction without a difference.

New BACnet addenda in public review (3/25 - 5/09)

2011-04-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

The announcement is probably buried deep in the email that accumulated while I was away the last couple of weeks, so I just learned that a new set of BACnet addenda have just gone out for public review, beginning March 25th and ending May 9th. These addenda are as follows:

Addendum 135-2008ae, 2nd PR (public review)
- Physical Access Control, Access Door object, new enumerations for Door_Status and Lock_Status properties

Addendum 135-2008ak, 1st PR
- Define explicitly-required ranges for Device Instances and MAC Addresses
- specify 'abort-reason' for specific situations in Clause 5 Transaction State Machines
- Add a Serial_Number property

Addendum 135.1-2008j, 1st PR
Addendum 135.1-2008l, 1st PR
Addendum 135.1-2008m, 1st PR
Addendum 135.1-2008n, 1st PR
- Improve, clarify, revise, generalize, correct, update, replace and add tests

Addendum 135.1-2008k, 1st PR
- Add new manual MS/TP tests

Most of these, obviously, modify the BACnet testing standard, ASHRAE 135.1-2009, and thus are most likely to be of interest to BACnet manufacturers.

This is, possibly, the last opportunity for the public to review and comment on these proposed changes. If no comments are received, public acceptance is assumed and they will be published as additions to the standards. You can review and comment here.

BACnet Forum London -- still time to register

2011-04-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

There's still time to register for the free BACnet Forum London next week, April 13th. Click here, and see you there.

SGIP meetings underway

2011-03-29T06:49:00.001-07:00

The Spring meeting of the Smart Grid Interoperability Panel is underway, beginning with the Governing Board meeting this morning. Leading off with reports from electric utility organizations and the White House.

Smart Energy public review

2011-03-25T15:36:00.000-07:00

Just what I needed -- more documents in public review to be read. The ZigBee Alliance just announced another public eview Of its Smart Energy Profile v2.0 (announcement at link, with links to documents). Something to read aboard the airplanes next week, I guess, but it'll be interestung to see what changed.

European Plugfest is a GO

2011-03-24T08:30:00.000-07:00

...for me, at least. The word came down yesterday morning that I am to represent Alerton at the European plugfest in Saarbrücken, Germany. As noted on BACnet International's (B.I.'s) BACnet Events Calendar, this will take place May 11th through the 13th.

It was difficult to figure out how to arrange this, since the BACnet Committee meetings were tentatively scheduled the following week, traditionally leading off with the testing-related working groups (B.I.'s BACnet Testing Labs working group and the BACnet Committee's testing & Interoperation group). For those of us from North America this posed a problem; we could not fly home from Europe until Saturday and then we would have to turnaround and fly out (to San Francisco) on Sunday for the start of meetings Monday. It can be done, but back-to-back trips like that are risky, and we'd all be heavily jetlagged besides.

But last week BACnet Chairman Dave Robin changed the meeting dates to May 2 through 6, and this changed the whole picture. For my part, I will be able to fly home from the meetings Friday afternoon, spend Saturday & Sunday at home, and fly off to Europe on Monday (arriving Tuesday for the plugfest beginning Wednesday). East Coast folks attending both will have it a little more rough, at worst with only Sunday spent at home.

So I now have to fill out and submit the application, and start arranging my trip.

But it will be good. The plugfests are always interesting affairs. They're closed to the public to help foster a spirit of cooperation between groups who compete in the open marketplace (in the world of BACnet interoperability, we all win when our devices work together). There is always something to be learned, even for companies such as Alerton who have been BACnet for a very long time. And for new BACnet companies and new development teams, there is a lot that can be learned from others about the downside of making assumptions when developing.

As a participant in these events since sometime in the 90s, I have long urged all BACnet manufacturers to come and participate in these plugfests. The European plugfest is held every other year in the spring, the North American every year in the autumn. Nobody has ever, I think, come away without at leats one or two surprises.

The deadline to apply is tomorrow; if you are even considering attending I recommend sending an email ASAP to the BIG-EU Office, requesting a copy of the Invitation and Registration Form.

Hope to see you there!

When Models Collide

2011-03-22T07:02:00.000-07:00

..is not a book by Wylie and Balmer, made into a movie in 1951 with a remake underway, though I am sure that's a lot more exciting than the conundrums (conundra? the word is not definitively Latin) facing the ASHRAE/SPC 201 ("Facility Smart Grid Information Model") committee this week.

Our four Rapid Development Teams (Load, Energy Manager, Meter and Generator) are meeting to compare and align the models we've been developing for these four areas, the underpinnings of the entire "Facility" (residential, industrial and commercial buildings) model that represents the end consumer of the electricity generated and conveyed by the electric grid. These models are necessary for working out the details of the data communications that will alter the ways in which energy is generated and consumed, for greater energy efficiency and make best use of existing infrastructure.

This is not an easy task. For example, the image here is a (UML) diagram of a draft of the Energy Manager model -- as one can see this is no simple model. And drawing the lines between models is not easy either; if one were to look close up one would find elements of the Load model (electric loads -- those that must remain on 24/7 and those that can be reduced or turned off if need be) engrained in it.

On top of that, these models being developed were built on initial use cases, models and data elements drafted by the Energy Information Standards Alliance (aka EIS Alliance) over the last year and a half. This was to provide a structure that would allow various models developed independently to be more readily harmonized.

But even that wasn't perfect, as this diagram seems to show (but to be fair, an extra couple of "load classes" were accidentally slipped into an energy manager model, though this wasn't revealed until a detailed analysis was performed of the alignment between two models regarding loads.

We have our work cut out for us.

Mark your calendar

2011-03-17T13:12:00.000-07:00

BACnet Committee Chairman Dave Robin just announced the spring meeting of the BACnet committee. For the second time ever, an "interim" meeting (i.e. spring or fall) of SSPC 135 will NOT be on the East Coast. (The first time was in 2002 when it was held here in Redmond, courtesy of a local BACnet manufacturer.)

The meeting will be held May 2 through May 6 at the Pacific Energy Center, San Francisco, (next to the Moscone Convention Center). Working groups will meet Monday morning through Thursday morning, and the plenary session Thursday afternoon and Friday morning.

Hmmm... since it will be difficult for East Coast folks to get home Friday at a decent hour, I guess they'll have the afternoon and evening to tour.

But I found this statement from the Pacific Energy Center interesting:

"The Pacific Energy Center offers educational programs, design tools, advice, and support to create energy efficient buildings and comfortable indoor environments. Most of our efforts are focused around commercial buildings..."

I hope I can get a tour.

Relief

2011-03-16T10:04:00.000-07:00

The results of the ballot for Smart Grid SGIP Secretary were announced this morning, and along with several other candidates I'm off the hook. This is a bit of a relief, actually, because it's becoming more clear that this year is probably the one in which I'll make the most technical contributions. I am free to continue to do so, but running again next year is still on the table.

We will have a runoff ballot between two candidates starting at noon today. Both are excellent candidates and it will be difficult to choose.

One week remains for BACnet public reviews

2011-03-14T11:26:00.000-07:00

As noted early February, there are 3 BACnet addenda in a 45-day public that ends in a week. These are as follows:

Addendum 135-2008ad: an 11-part addendum of miscellaneous changes.

Addendum 135-2008af: a 32-part addendum (this is a record!) of miscellaneous clarifications, improvements, changes and extensions. Most changes are to BACnet's alarm generation system, resulting from several years of "Alarm Summit" meetings.

Addendum 135-2008aj: Add backward-compatible support for IPv6.

You can download and comment on them here. Anyone can comment; you do not need to be an ASHRAE member or a member of the BACnet committee to submit comments.

I strongly encourage BACnet technical folks to review these proposed Addenda for any issues that the committee might have overlooked. If they conclude public review without comment, they will be deemed to be approved and will be published as part of the BACnet standard.

Conflict

2011-03-14T10:13:00.000-07:00

The Latest issue of BACnet International's "Cornerstones," a free monthly industry newsletter, is out. If you haven't already, I might recommend subscribing.

Through this issue I learned that, sadly, I'm not going to be at this year's Facility Decisions conference in Las Vegas, scheduled for October 11-12. At that time I anticipate being in our BIG-EU meetings in Rome instead, and particpating in our BACnet Forum Rome.

In this issue BACnet International made a call for speakers for the conference, with session title and summary/learning objectives, by March 21st. This should be an opportunity for some. For me it's a pity, because I had been looking toward a new talk pulling together energy (efficiency), Smart Grid and BACnet, though I plan to still pull together material for this and am continuing to update "Energy Standards and Energy Efficiency."

If you're at NFMT in Baltimore this week, do visit BACnet International at Booth #1383 and say hi.

Low-level churn

2011-03-07T13:12:00.000-08:00

I had been thinking things were unusually quiet in the BACnet world, but an email Sunday changed that. When I was committee chair I tried to at least keep the pulse of the activities of all our working groups, though there was too much for one person to actively participate in everything. I may have dropped off some working group email lists, though I don't recall actively unsubscribing, and generally I haven't been paying attention to groups in which I'm not actively involved, such as Lighting.

But yesterday Dave Robin sent out the latest draft of a proposal to the IT working group. The part of the Subject line I could see in the Outlook pane grabbed my attention with the words "experiment" and "Atom" (processor?) in it. I just had to see what was going on so I opened it. First item, he was addressing both the XML and IT working groups, and I've not been involved much there. Then I saw the attached document included "New BACnet-WS Services" in the name, opened it and... Holy Cow! These folks have been BUSY! It would take quite some time to digest all this.

After that I went back through my emails and saw other groups have been busy as well. The spring meeting is going to be an interesting time when all this work bubbles up.

Over 500 BACnet Vendors IDs

2011-03-02T13:58:00.000-08:00

The BACnet.org site notes that the number of issued BACnet Vendor IDs has now passed the 500 mark. The graph showing the growth is worth a look: check it out.

One of FIVE!

2011-03-02T12:50:00.000-08:00

Jeny Dowlin, on the SGIP Administrator Team, just sent congratulations to the SGIP Secretary nominees -- all five of us! It looks like a good slate of candidates too, so maybe I can relax. We're being given an opportunity to review and revise our bios before tomorrow's general announcement, so I won't name names.

Engineering Week

2011-02-25T20:45:00.000-08:00

We're at the tail end of the 2011 Engineer's Week and at lunch today at Alerton we had a little competition ("Edible Cars Contest"), open to all. Won by the women in Marketing for range past the launch ramp and vehicle durability. (Sorry, guys!) Photos and details later.

But while exploring some music videos this evening we came across a recording of Frankie Armstrong singing a Peggy Seeger song, Gonna Be an Engineer, that I remember from sometime way back when.

When I was in college, women engineering students were rare; a decade ago in China I was stunned to see that half the engineers there were women. But things are changing here. So, in the spirit of Engineering Week, I dedicate this posting to elder daughter Beth, bona-fide and degreed engineer in her own right, and younger daughter Heather, on her way.

Enjoy.

Doomed

2011-02-25T14:43:00.000-08:00

I was talked into throwing my hat into the ring to be secretary of NIST's Smart Grid Interoperability Panel (SGIP), formed in response to the Energy Independence Security Act of 2007 to define and develop the Smart Grid.

That is a major effort, as one can see here.

In the last meeting, in December, it was announced that the SGIP now had 634 member organizations (572 US, 28 Canada, 34 elsewhere), represented by 1750 individuals.

I am warned this is no small task; if elected, the time required will mean I will have to give up some other committee assignments, if only for the year's term (not renewable) for this assignment.

And writing my bio for this nomination was, um, interesting. The three decades spent at NASA and developing embedded systems are over -- just a quick overview of my participation on various industry committees' executive boards took a paragraph.

But maybe I'll be lucky and there will be other nominations. The current secretary is a really tough act to follow.

If there are, please vote for the other guy, okay...? [grin]

I guess that was inevitable...

2011-02-24T09:57:00.000-08:00

...in tough economic times, cities are still building "green" but are foregoing the label (LEED). Story here.

Tough week

2011-02-15T19:09:00.000-08:00

I'm in a training class this week, and have to say it's not an easy go. There is a tremendous amount of material to absorb in four very full days before The Test, and between that and a battle with the state legislature (trying to keep some legislators from making an expensive mistake -- I read bills much like I do BACnet change proposals: what can go worng???), there isn't much left over. I might get to my work email in the evenings but that's about it; by 4 PM I've been approaching "dead in the water."

On the other hand I think I am "done" with Olympia for the week, or maybe they're "done" with me, so now I can focus more on the class.

The class material is fascinating. I've long had one perspective on solving certain building automation issues, and now I am seeing a second -- similarities and differences.

I'll be back when my brain clears...

BACnet International AHR Expo presentations

2011-02-10T13:01:00.000-08:00

I just received the latest email edition of BACnet International's newsletter, Cornerstones announcing, among other things, the availability of the powerpoints from the BACnet International sessions at the AHR Expo last week. Take a look.

This is great for me because I was so tied up with BACnet and Smart Grid meetings I wasn't able to sit in on the others, only catching the tail end of Steve Tom's "BACnet to the Rescue: Interoperability Saves a Troubled LEED Project."

(And ahem, I have one up there too. If you download and find it useful, drop me a note.)

Speaking of journals...

2011-02-08T12:33:00.000-08:00

I haven't been keeping up on the publication of the various BACnet Journals, so I was a little surprised when I received a copy of the latest BACnet Middle East Journal in the mail today. Very nice!

(Not related, but I've been working on a very curious BACnet routing issue and had hoped to post before now, but I need verification of one surmise first.)

BACnet International Journal 2

2011-02-04T13:33:00.000-08:00

Early this week I was handed an "advance" copy, hot off the press, of the second BACnet International Journal (page link). I checked with the good folks at BACnet International and learned there's a PDF online.

It's an excellent publication; from amongst the wide variety of topics and authors (truly international in scope with its mix of North American and European authors) I highly recommend David Fisher's "BACnet: To Be is To Grow" perspective on BACnet and its standard.

And while you're there, I would suggest signing up for BACnet International's newsletter, Cornerstones.

BACnet Addenda begin public review

2011-02-04T09:19:00.000-08:00

3 BACnet addenda begin a 45-day public review today. These are as follows:

Addendum 135-2008ad: an 11-part addendum of miscellaneous changes.

Addendum 135-2008af: a 32-part addendum (this is a record!) of miscellaneous clarifications, improvements, changes and extensions. Most changes are to BACnet's alarm generation system, resulting from several years of "Alarm Summit" meetings.

Addendum 135-2008aj: Add backward-compatible support for IPv6.

You can download and comment on them here. Anyone can comment; you do not need to be an ASHRAE member or a member of the BACnet committee to submit comments.

The really fast track

2011-02-01T08:03:00.000-08:00

Some years ago a change proposal of mine set a record for being fast-tracked: reviewed for the first time in a working group early in the meeting, it was voted for publication formatted as a public review addendum before the end of the meeting.

Pulling together the pre-publication drafts of the addenda about to be published, I discovered a new record had been set.

Now the usual process for getting a change proposal published used to be to have it reviewed and approved in a working group, then reviewed and approved for inclusion in a poublic review addendum, then an official vote for public review of the assembled and formatted addendum (which contains 1 or more change proposals).

However, I could not find Addendum ah anywhere in my meeting files. As best as I can tell it was seen and revised in a working group, then sent to the entire committee and voted for publication review as an addendum, the (editorial) formatting to be subsequently applied. This went so fast that the committee never saw the addendum draft -- the next time it appears in the record, it had been published.

Impressive.

Las Vegas Wrapup - Published

2011-01-31T14:29:00.000-08:00

The winter BACnet meetings have come to an end (the Smart Grid meetings continue), after 4-1/2 days and the committee chair now has a boatload of new work on his plate, processing documents approved or revised by, or submitted to, the committee -- not to mention trying to get BACnet-2010 published.

We received a report during the meeting that four new addenda have been approved by ASHRAE for publication. These are:

Addendum ab: MS/TP Baud Rates

Addendum ac: Using BACnet "Date" and "Time"

Addendum ag: BBMD B'cast Storms, and trend-related BIBBs

Addendum ah: Remove ReadPropertyConditional service

If you're developing BACnet devices that use the MS/TP LAN, use BACnet "Date" and "Time" for anything, use "Annex J" BACnet/IP, or are contemplating using the ReadPropertyConditional service, you should read these when they're published.

Missed meetings

2011-01-30T12:59:00.000-08:00

I had had a day full of meetings planned, but it's not working out at all as I had planned. The morning's series of IP, IT and XML working groups would have been interesting, but due to another last-minute meeting I was only able to be present for the last 15 minutes. The series was clearly of interest to many folks, especially those working on the Smart Grid -- all the chairs were taken. (This photo shows a half or so of the people.)

This afternoon will be much the same; pulled away a half-hour into the first session. But I'll have to draw the line at the BACnet Elevators working group meeting I'm conducting at 4 PM.

And sometime I hope to have enough time to gather the materials for the first of the announcements from these meetings.

Did we just miss an anniversary?

2011-01-28T06:08:00.000-08:00

Waking up this morning (yes, it's that early and no, I'm not always thinking about things BACnet though sometimes it seems like it) I realized it's been 15 years since the introduction of BACnet to the general public at the AHR Expo of 1996 with an interoperability demonstration involving several manufacturers. I took a quick tour around BACnet.org and BACnetInternational.org and saw thing. Hm.

Maybe it's just that so many of the old guard have moved onwards and upwards.

BACnet testing, day 2

2011-01-28T00:19:00.000-08:00

The Testing & Interoperation Working Group (TI-WG) met in the Las Vegas Conference Center to follow on the work product of the BTL-WG, reviewing and approving 5 proposed addenda (comprised mainly of tests developed within the BTL-WG) to the BACnet testing standard (135.1-2009) for review by the entire committee.

11 years of BACnet testing

2011-01-27T18:49:00.000-08:00

It's hard to believe how far we've since the initial launch of the BTL-WG In January 2000. Its mission: to develop a BACnet testing program to counter the FUD ("Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt") of "They say it's BACnet but is it REALLY BACnet?" With a testing program that kicked off years ago with the simplest devices and now extending to the most complex controllers and workstations, we've come a long way.

Not that we're done, by any stretch. Many of the tests we've developed are being rapidly rolled into the BACnet testing standard; others are being reviewed and revised. And we have our work cut out in merging and unifying the testing and process between the two BACnet teting labs.

The committee's numbers have never been large: today's meeting with 14 members, from Europe and North America, is pretty typical.

But today's meeting was notable for the fanciest location yet, in the Vdara Hotel & Spa in Las Vegas (a LEED Gold building) -- although this picture didn't quite capture that.

"Saving the Smart Grid"

2011-01-25T10:46:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to prepare for the upcoming five days of BACnet meetings, but the Smart Grid keeps intervening. Somehow I wound up on a mailing list called "Public Utilities FORTNIGHTLY," which is a very interesting and educational look into the world of the energy utilities. This morning's issue has an article I found an interesting read, "Saving the Smart Grid: Hype, hysteria and strategic planning".

Now it's back to the BACnet Elevator proposal, scheduled for 4 PM Sunday (the Elevator and MS/TP working groups just switched meeting times a few minutes go).

"Why American utilities will overpay $2 billion for smart meters"

2011-01-21T09:10:00.000-08:00

Thanks to today's CABA Newsbrief I saw an article with the above title (click on the title to see it all), beginning:

Why are American utilities spending twice what the Europeans do for smart meters? Why aren't they using joint standards and joint procurement to achieve economies of scale and drive down prices?

This screw-up will squander at least $2 trillion over five years. Who will foot the bill? As the old joke goes, one of three groups – ratepayers, consumers or taxpayers.

$2 billion may be understating things

Update: Francine has a great link in the comments.
An American friend working in Europe tells me the typical cost there is $40 per meter (plus $15 for the communications by the way). In America, he says, typical prices are $110 to $120 per meter (and about $50 for the communications). ...

Not 100% clear on what these "smart meters" do, other than communicate meter readings back to the utility in order to eliminate human meter readers.

One thing is clear: they're not "Smart Grid" meters. At least not the Smart Grid being developed by NIST's Smart Grid Interoperability Panel under White House direction. We are still defining the data and interfaces for residential, commercial and industrial buildings! So in a few years these meters might have to be replaced anyway.

The Russian Standard

2011-01-19T17:42:00.000-08:00

Things have been pretty quiet on the BACnet front, hence the long silence. Much of my work time is being spent on updating my "Energy Standards and Energy Efficiency" talk with voluminous new source materials, as well as wrestling with Powerpoint 2003 issues. The rest of my work time is spent in way too many teleconferences -- with today's BACnet-IT call almost missed thanks to a calendar disconnect between Outlook and the cellphone. And with our state legislature now in session I'm now busy off-hours watching them and trying to keep them out of trouble. So although Andrey Golovin had sent me a proposed draft of the cover of the Russian BACnet standard, I didn't get to it until today.

I think it's pretty cool. Even if I can't read much of it (but I can read more of this than I can of the Japanese, Chinese and Korean translations -- at least I can sound out a little of the Cyrillic alphabet; the first word is very obviously "Protocol"). I think Andrey said he's bringing a copy to Las Vegas; if so I will be very interested in seeing it.

BACnet в Россию

2011-01-12T11:18:00.000-08:00

I hope that automated translation is correct for "BACnet in Russian." Andrey Golovin, Executive Director of the BACnet Interest Group - Russia (BIG-RU) announced this morning that BACnet-2008 has now been translated into Russian, and that an agreement has been made with a Russian standards body to make BACnet a Russian national standard.

Congratulations, Andrey!

This has to hurt: "California County Bans SmartMeter Installations"

2011-01-07T18:13:00.000-08:00

Just checked in on the Slashdot (techie) site and saw this:

kiwimate writes:
"Marin County in California has passed an ordinance (PDF) banning the installation of smart meters in unincorporated Marin. Among the reasons given are privacy concerns associated with measuring energy usage data moment by moment and the potential for adverse impact on emergency communication systems used by first responders and amateur radio operators. The ordinance also comments that 'the SmartMeters program ... could well actually increase total electricity consumption and therefore the carbon footprint,' citing 'some engineers and energy conservation experts.'"
The ordinance also mentions "significant health questions" raised about "increased electromagnetic frequently radiation (EMF) emitted by the wireless technology in SmartMeters."

Privacy is a big topic in the SGIP Smart Grid development effort, one not yet fully resolved, but this has to be an "ouch" for the folks involved.

More material

2011-01-05T17:00:00.000-08:00

Some discussions yesterday bumped my planned perusal of the "International Green Construction Code" (IGCC), now in its second public review, up in priority. A very interesting read -- it seems a little rough in places but I'll be submitting public review comments later. For now, though, its material aligns well with my upcoming energy efficiency talk and is in some areas more thorough than my 14 or 15 other sources.

I have been through it to flag areas to return to for specific items in my talk; tomorrow (between BACnet testing and Smart Grid teleconferences) I'll start in on the details.

Las Vegas meeting schedule

2011-01-04T15:38:00.001-08:00

Committee chair Dave Robin mailed out the BACnet committee's meeting schedule, with room assignments, for Las Vegas later this month.

The cryptic working group acronyms are defined here; "SSPC" indicates the plenary sessions of the entire committee" and "BTL" indicates the BACnet Testing Labs working group, which is being arranged and announced independently. These are all in the Las Vegas Conference Center, next to the Las Vegas Hilton. As a reminder, the meetings are open to all interested parties.

If you click on the picture you'll get a larger, legible version.

Update 1/25: EL and MSTP have switched times. EL-WG will meet Sunday, and MSTP Saturday.

All Quiet on the BACnet Front

2011-01-02T16:24:00.000-08:00

My BACnet Gmail account, now subscribed to the BACNET-L list, has been amazingly, or unsurprisingly, quiet the past couple of weeks, though my cellphone alerted me to an e-mail from BACNET-L in the wee hours of Christmas Eve morning. I suspect that will end tomorrow as folks return to the office -- though I still have one more day of holiday to go.

Happy New Year

2010-12-31T15:00:00.001-08:00

Speaking at ASHRAE!

2010-12-29T16:29:00.000-08:00

One advantage of a year-end vacation is being able to catch up on things. Last week I was plowing through e-mail and decided to look at BACnet International's new monthly industry newsletter, "Cornerstones." (You can sign up for it here.)

In it was a note about the BACnet International education track during the upcoming AHR Expo. I remembered I had put my hat in the ring when BACnet International called for speakers, but I hadn't heard anything more. So I clicked through to see who is speaking on what, and there are a number of interesting topics including energy efficiency, green buildings and the Smart Grid. Not to mention BACnet ("BACnet 101" sounded like it would be a David Fisher topic, but it appears not). The only problem is that my meeting schedule is now 100% full from Thursday morning through Tuesday afternoon, with possible short breaks on Sunday.

But then, at the end I saw a title that sounded familiar: "Energy Standards and Energy Efficiency with BACnet." Hmmm... It took a while before I found that if I clicked on the title I got all the information, and yup, I'm speaking. All I can guess is that the notice got lost in my little laptop/email fiasco in November. And for the time, I think it overlaps two concurrent meetings but oh well.

Date: Tuesday, February 1st
Time: 3:00 pm - 4:00 pm
Room: N103
Exhibitor: BACnet Intl.
Description: As the demand for more energy-efficient buildings has grown, the number of ways for achieving more energy-efficient buildings, and saving money, using their building automation systems have also grown. Many successful strategies have been incorporated into ASHRAE and LEED standards and guidelines. This session will look at the various strategies presented in these standards and guidelines, and how they have been successful in the real world.
Cost: FREE
How To Register: No Registration Required
Speaker: Bill Swan, LEED AP, Buildings Standards Initiatives Leader, Alerton

Now all I need are the master slides.

Back of the BAC Cave

2010-12-29T13:38:00.000-08:00

With some time off at home at year's end I've been able to catch up on a few small projects. One is sort through pictures taken during the year. Among them were some new shots of the BAC Cave, showing off the new "basket" lamp given by my sister to balance the one she gave me soon after my office became the BAC Cave (years prior to this blog). Thanks, Jin!

A Merry Christmas to you all

2010-12-24T09:08:00.000-08:00

From dark and grey Seattle -- but at least we don't have Europe's snow and travel problems. Remember those travelers this holiday.

The problem of repeated requirements...

2010-12-17T14:40:00.000-08:00

...in standards is well-known. As the BACNET-L list was reminded today by a little discussion about the Subscribe-COV service.

We received a question from Vamsi Krishna noting that Clause 13.4.1.5 reads, in part:

"If both the 'Issue Confirmed Notifications' and 'Lifetime' parameters are absent, then this shall indicate a cancellation request. If the 'Lifetime' parameter is present then the 'Issue Confirmed Notifications' parameter shall be present."

The question was what a device should do if only the 'Lifetime' parameter is absent. This caused a bit of discussion about whether this situation was even intended, or what should be done since it was not stated. Then Coleman noted that Clause 13.14.2 handled this:

If the 'Lifetime' parameter is not present but the 'Issue Confirmed Notifications' is present, then a value of zero (indefinite lifetime) shall be assumed for the lifetime.

But when I read 13.14.2 in its entirety I noted that it also repeated the requirements of 13.4.1.5. Clearly the three sentences belong together, but having two of them appear earlier led people, myself included, to stop at the first clause with these requirements.

The author of this material was even then an experienced standards writer, so I can only assume it was a cut&paste error. But it sure caused some confusion.

Feedback for Analog Output objects

2010-12-08T15:09:00.000-08:00

Trying to get through my email backlog, I saw a very good question from Jörg to the BACNET-L list (probably unanswered because it was sent just before a 4-day holiday weekend here in the U.S.): Why isn't there an optional Feedback_Value property in the Analog Output object?

As I answered in part on the list, in order to implement it in the way it is done on the Binary Output object one would also need Deadband and Time_Delay properties, different from the ones already present, in order to implement a COMMAND_FAILURE-like algorithm. Not that that's a bad thing. This might be a useful type of alarm.

Some of the work of the "Alarm Summit" group might provide a way to do this fairly easily perhaps and without new properties. But that work remains in the Objects & Services group for now. It's a big step and I can understand if folks are cautious about it.

Catching up is hard to do

2010-12-07T15:20:00.000-08:00

Back in the office, and finally back to my e-mail that I've been cut off from for weeks. It's not too bad now on Day 2 -- I'm down to only 172 unread e-mails.

But I also missed some deadlines; in part because I couldn't work on them for a time, in part because without Outlook I didn't know the deadlines. But two of the biggest items are now done and delivered: a piece on the Smart Grid for a high-school textbook, and an article for the upcoming second edition of the BACnet International Journal.

Now I have to go dig out some statistics on BACnet testing. After that, I am more or less caught up except for what might be in those 172, nope, it's 173 now, unread e-mails.

In the dark

2010-12-02T06:44:00.000-08:00

The plenary sessions of the meeting are signaled not only audibly with chimes but by dimming the lights, particularly in other areas of the ballroom. But in this conference they're going nearly to black and for extended periods of time. A bit difficult for those of us who, for various reasons, wind up in the adjacent vendor area near the only available wall outlets. (For my part it's been to complete the graphics for a description of the Smart Grid for a colleague's green building textbook.)

The other fellow at my table had the solution: his laptop has a built-in LED to illuminate the keyboard. What a great idea.

Grid-Interop 2010

2010-12-02T06:30:00.000-08:00

Today is the third (or for some folks the fourth) day of Grid-Interop 2010 here in Chicago. My second Grid-Interop, though I gather it's the fourth. Last year's event featured the kickoff of NIST's Smart Grid Interoperability Panel, which brought a number of new folks and organizations into the Smart Grid development effort.

The numbers keep growing: it was announced Tuesday that we now have 1750 members and 634 organizations involved, 10% from outside the U.S. It seems we have a quite significant number of members from Japan, with the possibility that in some specific areas Japan may be a little further along than the SGIP, but to at least one member from Japan I had to explain the ANSI consensus-building standards process, which includes representation by various areas of the industry -- it is easier to move faster without such a process. One hopes those a little further down the road can share their experiences that we might learn from them.

A question remains about progress, one year out from the start of the SGIP. I missed the detailed review Tuesday due to an offsite BACnet meeting, but I gather some of the "Priority Action Plan" groups (PAPs, fast-moving narrowly focused ad-hoc groups) have delivered or about to deliver their work items, which then are passed on to standards groups to handle through the standards process. Others are having a more difficult time.

Perhaps some of the difficulty lies in the ways of measuring progress. From my perspective of one small corner of the Grid, the commercial-building consumer of electricity, there has been significant progress made at least in the area of how such buildings will interoperate with the utilities ("the other side of the electric meter"). Though it seems what while I've been absent from my e-mail a new building-grid interface has been defined (to parallel the "Energy Services Interface" developed over the past year), along with a new acronym. I hope to catch up today.

But in other areas, from others' perceptions, there has been less progress. Since "Smart Grid" is not officially described in any way, many are co-opting it for different visions and products -- not all of which are necessarily different from the overall perspective the SGIP is developing, but which could be important components of it. Most of my active participation occurs today and tomorrow -- it will be interesting.

The dog ate my e-mail

2010-11-30T19:38:00.000-08:00

This blog's American readers will recognize the old excuse for homework not being done. Mine's a wee bit better -- the wayward laptop finally returned home Wednesday, repaired and re-imaged, but it wasn't until I had re-set it all up over the holiday weekend and I tried to access my e-mail Sunday night before flying out I realized I had a problem. And I confirmed it yesterday from the airport on the way out; my corporate VPN connection had not been configured.

To be fair, I seem to recall the process requires my participation but I've been busy enough in BACnet and Smart Grid meetings (I managed to have both today), not to mention sitting on airplanes, that IT and I have not managed to connect.

On the other hand, being disconnected for a day or three more after two weeks' absence can't increase the pain that much. Plus it's giving me time to write the article and textbook piece on BACnet and Smart Grid that are overdue due to traveling without the laptop at all for too long.

Where I know there are issues I am making contact through this blog's e-mail address; once private and acquired just for the purposes of creating the blog, I fear it will never be the same again.

So if I don't respond to your e-mails, you now know why. The dog ate my e-mail.

Puzzler (event notification timestamps)

2010-11-23T12:11:00.000-08:00

Speaking of things going worng, I was handed a puzzler during the plugfest last week and don't know the answer. I'd asked for it to be e-mailed to my Gmail account because I don't have access to work e-mail right now, and it was duly sent. I plan to forward it to the BACNET-L e-mail list, but my Gmail account is not subscribed and I have to wait for the list admin to add it -- I hope he is not on vacation! So I'll initially just post it here for the BACneteers checking in and follow up on the list when I have access.

There exists a device that, due to hardware limitations, does not have a hardware clock. However, the device is able to initiate Un/ConfirmedEventNotifications. The question is: what should the device do for the timestamp parameter of event notifications issued after the device starts up but before it receives a UTC/TimeSync to set its software clock? The options seem to be:
1. Suppress event notifications until the clock is set?
2. Use sequence number until the clock (date and time) is set then switch?
3. Use sequence number only?
4. Start the clock at January 1, 1900 until it is set?
5. Hold the clock at January 1, 1900 until it is set?

I don't like #1 and 5. #2 would be okay except it makes assumptions about the client device that might be invalid. #3 is safest but loses the time information. #4 again makes assumptions about the client device.

Dear readers, what do you think is the best answer?

When things go worng

2010-11-23T11:47:00.000-08:00

It was suggested that I should post about the year's "fun" in traveling, but this month alone beats all the rest. It started with the work laptop failing to boot the night before a trip (and due to a snafu we're trying to clear up, it has not reappeared -- I hope it will be back before I fly out Monday for Smart Grid meetings). But I had backed it up just before the crash and have recovered files for one task in front of me: writing a piece on the Smart Grid for a high school textbook.

That was followed by my Android phone no longer connecting to PCs for file transfers, though it was useful for reading documents in the BTL-WG meeting (courtesy of FTP download). Sunday I learned its USB port had failed and the store swapped it for a new one -- now I have hours ahead to reconfigure it. And hours I have, since we're shut in by snow (icy streets and hills are a bad mix).

So, on reports of the Seattle highways being a mess, I went to install the Washington State Dept. of Transportation app on the Android. Then I opened it...

...but why is it giving me information about Tulsa?!? It's looking like it's going to be a loong day..

Surprises

2010-11-21T08:34:00.000-08:00

Well, the plugfest is long over -- but not for the R&D groups, who'll be working to resolve issues found during the plugfest. Being hampered by the lack of a working laptop at least gave me time to ask around about surprises others encountered during the plugfest and sadly, there were a number.

But then again, not all the devices present have been tested and bear the BTL Mark. I know some of things found, such as a router that apparently does not respond to a Who-Is-Router-To-Network message (but which routes nonetheless, leading to different results from workstations with different network discovery procedures), would have been discovered in BTL testing.

Another surprising response I saw in a previous plugfest (but there was reason for the form of the response) was handled correctly by a client workstation, even though from network traffic it looked like it wasn't. (There was more --much more-- but some items might identify the manufacturer, which is against plugfest privacy rules.)

Until everybody's devices bear the BTL Mark, and maybe even then, plugfests are going to remain important.

And even if we hadn't found anything at all with our devices, we found issues with other (untested) implementations it's comforting to know that we did make it more likely that other devices will work with ours when installed in the field -- fewer unwelcome surprises ahead.

(Looking forward to the BIG-EU plugfest in Saarbrücken, Germany, in May. What will I find there?)

A new plugfest standard?

2010-11-18T05:53:00.000-08:00

One could hope... We've not always had even the continental breakfast, but the to-order omelets were a surprise. (If I'd known I might have ordered a lighter dinner last night.)

Roundtable

2010-11-17T17:42:00.000-08:00

One of the more fun elements of the BACnet International plugfests is the round-table, a semi-chaotic event where everyone participating plugs into the same set of networks and starts testing, ad-hoc or pre-arranged.

Big LAN

2010-11-17T08:17:00.000-08:00

Today there are a couple of "round-tables" running, for ad-hoc and group testing sessions. An interesting feature of one was set up by Steve Karg: an MS/TP LAN with 117 devices. Unfortunately a still photo doesn't convey all the blinking lights.

2010-11-16T12:13:00.000-08:00

The biggest yet, with 98 people in 51 teams.

Plugfest prep

2010-11-16T06:53:00.000-08:00

It's still a few hours before the plugfest begins but setup is well underway. Sadly, without my laptop I did not have the schedule so I set an alarm to be ready to go at 8AM, instead of sleeping in. Oh well - at least I now know why I didn't see many BACneteers in the hotel last evening.

But they're here today, checking in with Sarah.

Honey, I shrunk the laptop

2010-11-15T15:15:00.000-08:00

Carl was amused when he saw my setup for reviewing documents in today's BTL-WG meeting. And made a comment along the lines of the heading on this posting. But to my surprise it worked fairly well, though I could apparently have only one document at a time open. (And, sad to say, not a computer-locked PDF such as the BACnet standard.)

But we made significantprogress today and are laying out the path ahead and how we can accelerate the current pace of test development. Which will mean more work for yours truly (it's that or quit the BTL-WG, but with almost 11 years invested in that I don't want to do that); hopefully it still be in a relatively slow period of Smart Grid development activity.

Less waste, more efficiency

2010-11-15T05:21:00.000-08:00

So I'm here at the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North on a gray rainy day, getting ready for today's BACnet Testing Lab working group meeting - which includes learning more of this Android phone that's going to replace my dead laptop today. Amazing, actually, I remember the Osborne machine of 30 years ago: integrated keyboard, 25x80 char display, dual floppies, CP/M, and no larger or heavier than a small suitcase - luggable computing. And while Swype is nice for texting (and blogging) I predict it will no more replace mechanical keyboards than did the blocky capacitive keyboards of the early 80s.

But I digress. During the BACnet committee meetings in Atlanta three weeks ago folks mentioned the hotel soap cakes with the centers cut out. Obviously a move to cut the waste of unused soap (are there laws regarding the disposal or recycling of used soap cakes?), but it looked odd. The Westin has a better solution: thin cakes of green soap in the shape of a leaf. How green.

On to the meeting...

Future Alerton ad?

2010-11-13T06:01:00.000-08:00

Alerton's sales conference has a future theme element. I was amused to see this ad in today's "daily" -- looks good, Larry!

Dead in the water

2010-11-10T15:49:00.000-08:00

Traveling. Dead laptop. Soon no data signal. Oh well.

Update: Surprising what you can do with an Android phone!

New blog photo

2010-11-05T17:35:00.000-07:00

Frequent visitors to this blog will no doubt notice a change to the photo on the right. I've never been happy with the previous photo but it took a combination of:
- buying a taller tripod,
- being home and in the office,
- a camera that shoots in RAW mode (saves the unprocessed image captured by the camera sensors),
- time of day when it's dark outside,
- the office across the hall having its lights off,
- and time for manual photo post-processing
in order to get a better picture for the blog. This is what you'd see if you stopped by the BAC Cave.

"If It's Fall This Must Be Atlanta."

2010-11-05T15:01:00.000-07:00

The latest issue of ASHRAE Journal's supplement, "BACnet Today," and subtitled "The Standard That Never Sleeps," is out and readable online.

With a great commentary by BACnet committee chair Dave Robin, titled "If It's Fall This Must Be Atlanta." If only it were that simple; in a teleconference today I was trying to remember whether I'd participated in a Smart Grid document review last week -- but that memory was keyed on where I was last week and I couldn't remember. Outlook says it was Atlanta, the second of three visits this fall. I'll be back week after next for the plugfest, following the Alerton sales meeting in Virginia.

It looks like there are some interesting articles in it (then there's mine). If you're an ASHRAE member (it's only available to same), it should be worthwhile reading.

A new job for the resumé

2010-11-05T09:13:00.001-07:00

Another day and the air-handler still isn't fixed. We've had to open a number of doors for ventilation, which is helping downstairs but not up. As I am camped out in the Small Conference Room with a clear view of the hallways from the lobby entrance I now have an additional job: Hall Monitor.

The Importance of V

2010-11-04T16:55:00.000-07:00

This was the view from my temporary office this morning, across eastern Redmond to Education Hill, when today's BACnet Testing Lab working group teleconference began, first in the day's lineup. (I am in the imaginatively-named "Small Conference Room," so as to distinguish it from the "Medium" and "Large" conference rooms.) A beautiful sunny autumn day out there.

At lunchtime I stepped out to the library to finish next week's powerpoint because I needed more room to spread papers than the little table here provided -- and was quite sorry I'd worn a jacket, much less long sleeves. The fall colors said it had gotten rather cold while I was away, but today it was a beautiful sunny and warm autumn day out there.

So why a temporary office, with blinds that need to be readjusted as the lighting outside changes (unless I just close them)?

It's all due to the 'V' in HVAC: Ventilation. As in, we haven't had any since the little background hiss in the BAC Cave quit yesterday morning and didn't come back on. The air-handler bearings had failed. And there began a lesson about buildings for many of us here at Alerton and Trend.

This building is like many built in the early 90s: no operable windows, no natural ventilation, and few doors. Without Ventilation we have neither Air-Conditioning or Heating. (Except in one area.)

Despite that, the heat buildup yesterday wasn't too bad (other than for me in the BAC Cave). But it was warming noticeably on the second floor, which has no outside openings.

Today was worse, thanks in part to the stronger sun. Perhaps the CO₂ levels are up too, because some folks are complaining of headaches. (I've often wished I had a CO₂ meter, especially for when the airline turns off the cabin air when we reach the gate -- and leaves it off! I also wish I knew what ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 161-2007, "Air Quality within Commercial Aircraft," says about that odious practice.)

Hopefully the air-handler will be fixed by morning, providing us with blessed Ventilation (and Heating or Air-Conditioning, if either is needed).

Not so very green...

2010-11-02T16:24:00.000-07:00

I'm speaking next week at the Alerton International Sales Conference in Virginia, delivering an abbreviated version of my talk on energy efficiency publications (standards, rating systems and design guides) and building automation systems. I wanted to update it with a new version of one of my source publications, so I started the usual routine of identifying material by printing out the publication -- to be followed by a long session with highlighters and Post-Its (to flag pages).

Unfortunately it's a "locked" PDF and as I learned once again, you lose a lot of control with a locked PDF. Once upon a time (25 years ago) I would have printed such a document "4-up" (4 pages per sheet, double-sided) but my eyes are no longer that good so I set it to simply print double-sided. But no, even that isn't possible; all I could get was one sheet per page, single-sided, and a big enough stack of paper that it will require its own binder for storage.

At least this publication doesn't have the word "green" in its title.

You're traveling too much when... (#2)

2010-11-01T09:19:00.000-07:00

You return to the office and your supervisor sports a beard he didn't have the last time you saw him...

Georgia Tech T-shirts

2010-10-29T12:05:00.000-07:00

Apparently BACnet Chairman Dave Robin made a comment this week about attending Georgia Tech and all he go was a shirt. As a result, Coleman, Stuart, Mike and Carl bought t-shirts from the bookstore and all wore them today.

I think it was Stuart who said, "And they only cost us five dollars!"

(Thanks to Steve Karg for the photo!)

BACnet meeting - last day

2010-10-29T07:48:00.000-07:00

Today is the last day of the autumn BACnet meeting, with a bit more than an hour to go. I was bit late due to having overslept (I hate alarms, but if I overslept I needed it -- and to tell the truth my health hasn't been the best this week).

I arrived just in time for the conclusion of discussion and vote on an Interpretation Request I'd submitted last week pursuant to a short discussion on the BACNET-L e-mail list week before last. (Note to Guillaume Girard: you will have to store both forms.) This leaves an issue on the table for a more general discussion, but that will be for another time.

It's been a good meeting, but somehow it seems that we've not accomplished as much as we could have. Perhaps that's because the comments from the just-concluded public reviews took up a lot of time.

One thing I noted yesterday -- the tables in these meeting rooms are on wheels and there are lots of power outlets on the floor. This would be a perfect facility for the North American plugfests!

Hot off the press!

2010-10-28T11:20:00.000-07:00

I've been watching for it for a week or two and today it became available: ASHRAE Standard 90.1-2010 (downloaded PDF):

Long day over

2010-10-27T18:27:00.000-07:00

It was a long day, but I mnuddled through. And it went mostly as planned, beginning with a breakfast discussion about the Application Profiles working group, followed by 2 hours of Objects & Services (who grabbed the "ad hoc" time in order to review more comments), then the Smart Grid group.

After lunch I had a Smart Grid teleconference that pulled me away for an hour and a half, but didn't re-connect with the meetings because these were co-worker Stuart's areas and I had to get going on a powerpoint (energy talk, revised and reformatted) due next week.

Then it was pouring rain when we returned to the hotel, then off to dinner a while later. "Cocktail party effect" blasted my ears, but they're recovering already. Back in the room now, resting up for tomorrow with Objects & Services all morning, a one-hour kickoff of the restart of the Application Profiles group, and the beginning of the plenary session ending Friday noon.

Chairman Dave Robin said that ASHRAE's public review procedures have changed in ways that will help us. I will have to get details. Tomorrow.

Standards... and more standards [energy efficiency]

2010-10-27T04:54:00.000-07:00

One of my talks these days is "Energy Standards and Energy Efficiency" (what standards say about how to save energy and money with your building automation system). It covers several ASHRAE and Green Building Institute standards, LEED and other green building rating systems, the ASHRAE Advanced Energy Design Guides and the ASHRAE Green Guide -- and nearly every strategy I've heard so far can be found in these documents.

One problem I have these days is keeping the talk up to date, not to mention adding additional sources such as the U.K. BREAAM green building system, which I gather is the "grand-daddy" of them all. (Those not available in English I have to pass over -- sadly, or maybe not because there are so many national rating systems!)

But ASHRAE recently announced the imminent publication of 90.1-2010, "Energy Standard for Buildings Except Low-Rise Residential Buildings", a major revision of the 2007 version I've referenced in earlier talks. I have approval to purchase and it's (still) due late October. It will be a scramble to incorporate it into the powerpoint due the first week of November.

Then yesterday I received a new draft circulated to my ISO technical committee, ISO/WD ("Working Draft") 16484 Part 7, "Building Automation and Control Systems — Part 7: BACS impact on the energy efficiency of buildings". (ISO 16484 Part 5 is better known as BACnet.) Could anything be more spot on? Sure, it's only a working draft and is likely to change quite a bit before it gets to publication, but I anticipate some interesting reading.

Busy day

2010-10-26T18:17:00.000-07:00

It's not a good sign when a group of us BACneteers meet up for a beer (or whatever) then dinner, but none of us have much energy for anything but to get dinner and crash. And it's only been the second day of five.

But it's also been a pretty busy day. TI (Testing & Interoperation working group) polished off responses to comments on three public review addenda in only 20-some minutes (I am certain this is a record, though there were few comments submitted!) and spent the rest of the morning reviewing and revising two more addenda, containing proposed new tests for the BACnet testing standard, ASHRAE 135.1. Believe me, reviewing standardized tests is a VERY dry and exhausting process.

Not sure what was happening in LA (Lighting Applications) next door, but it sounded like they were experiencing the standards creation process to its fullest extent. (I do not have a report, but hope for white smoke.)

In the afternoon LSS (Life-Safety and Security) were extremely quiet. Not sure what they were cooking up, either, but I'm sure they'll let us in on the secret in due time.

On my side it was a death's march of working group meetings, starting with the MS/TP LAN folks and a very intriguing proposal for new work that involves other standards organizations (I am most interested, but do I have time?). This was followed by the IP (Internet Protocol) group and discussions of IPv6 and more -- though I was out of the room for much of it.

I donated time to IP from EL (Elevators working group) for them to address more work items, which worked out because we finally cleared a major hurdle with the Elevators proposal and in only 35 minutes. (Thank you very much, Christoph, for breaking the logjam!) The work ahead is all on the BACnet side of the Elevators proposal -- the elevator companies have been silent for a few months now on their review.

NS (Network Security) wrapped up the day, but I do not know what they were doing because I was busy writing up and circulating the EL-WG minutes.

If all this sounds exhausting, well, it was.

And the longest day is still ahead of us. It starts with a 7AM hotel restaurant breakfast to discuss new directions for AP (Application Profiles). Following it are meetings of LA, OS (Objects & Services), SG (Smart Grid), and IT (Information Technology) and XML (XML) working group meetings. The way the chart is drawn I'm not sure if the last two are separate or combined meetings.

And when that all wraps up, we still have ahead our traditional committee dinner (no-host) together.

All I have to do is to make it to Thursday...

Big bag of regrets

2010-10-25T13:45:00.000-07:00

The day-long Objects and Services Working Group session has been spent reviewing public review comments already received on three addenda concluding public review: Addenda ac, ad and af. As committee chairman Dave Robin remarked this afternoon regarding the voluminous Addendum af, "This addendum is a big bag of regrets" -- stuff we would have liked to have had done back in 1995.

Thunder, lightning, objects and services, oh my...

2010-10-25T05:49:00.000-07:00

Beautiful day in Atlanta today. The Objects & Services Working Group leads off the week's meetingsi (albeit in unfamiliar surroundings -- the rooms in this Georgia Tech building we've met in for so many years are no more), reviewing responses to public review comments on proposed changes to the BACnet standard. Somehow the pouring rain interspered with lightning and thunder almost seems an appropriate backdrop.

Last day of public review

2010-10-25T05:43:00.000-07:00

The public review comment persiod for a number of proposed changes to the BACnet and its associated testing standards closes at midnight EDT tonight. What's up:
Addenda to Standard 135-2008:
Addendum ac: The (proper) Usage of Dates and Times
Addendum ad: Miscellaneous set of changes
Addendum ae: Tweaks to BACnet physical access control
Addendum af: MANY changes, especially major extensions to BACnet alarms
Addendum ag: Two miscellaneous changes

Addenda to Standard 135.1-2009:
Addendum e: BACnet/IP tests
Addendum f: Test Ack Notification timestamps
Addendum g: Add and change tests
Addendum h: Alarm tests
Addendum i: Improve/update/clarify/add tests

Cruelty

2010-10-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

Up early (3:15 AM) to begin the trip to Atlanta for the BACnet committee meetings this week. Pretty uneventful until I got to the hotel -- or tried to. It's surrounded by the "Taste of Atlanta" event this weekend. It took a long walk around and unwitting entry into the event via an overlooked and unguarded entrance to get to the hotel.

Normally I'd pay for entry, wander around and enjoy the last hour and a half of Taste of Atlantga (it's sunny and warm to boot) -- but my stomach is very upset. Even looking out the hotel room window I see the event. Too cruel.

Energy conservation

2010-10-20T12:02:00.000-07:00

Interesting point made in the panel session "C&I and the Smart Grid -- The Realities of Building Automation" (moderated by Honeywell HBS' Paul Orzeske) just now. In a facility of one panelist's company dimmed the lights 30% to reduce demand, and nobody noticed. SO the immediate thought was to go for permanent reduction, but that loses them the ability to gain the utility benefits for shedding the load on demand!

On the other hand, the panel is noting that "employee education" is very effective at getting employees engaged in conserving energy.

This follows on comments earlier in the conference that positive examples help too. Which I find interesting: when I moved into the BAC Cave I turned off the ugly overhead fluorescents and used task lighting instead. Now several other folks (with exterior windows) on my floor are tending to work without their overhead lighting.

Gridweek Day 2: Consumer Engagement

2010-10-19T06:17:00.000-07:00

Today's overall topic is "Consumer Engagement" -- how to engage the consumer in this process called the Smart Grid. As noted by Anto Budiardjo (GridWeek producer) this morning, consumers generally don't think about electricity. And Smart Grid has to be a positive factor in their (our) lives or it simply won't go.

Much of what has been touted as "Smart Grid" has not been well thought out or considered, and misperceptions abound. A couple of months ago I caught up with an old friend, a Seattle-area radio talk show host, and mentioned that I was working on the Smart Grid. "Oh, that thing where they'll come into my house and turn off the A/C," he responded. When I explained that that was one model but that what I was working towards was a system that would provide information to the consumer and let him make the decisions on power usage, he became more interested.

It should be an interesting day ahead, with three different tracks on this topic.

Monday at GridWeek: International Collaboration

2010-10-18T07:47:00.000-07:00

My focus today is on international collaboration on the Smart Grid, the topic of the initial roundtable discussion, and continuing with the day's "international" track. As noted in the discussion, in order for this effort to succeed internationally, we need standards. It was noted as well that we don't know what the end state of the Smart Grid development will look like; different things are being done in different parts of the world and may be adopted elsewhere.

This effort is certainly getting the attention of standards organizations. This morning while riding the escalator up to the meeting floor, a woman ahead of me turned around and exclaimed, "I saw your tweet last night!" She turned out to Gabriela Ehrlich, Head of Communications for IEC (International Electrotechnical Commission), a standards body with which I am familiar though I don't work much with IEC standards (yet -- they have a sizable body of established standards applicable to the Smart Grid). Including her IEC colleagues I met this morning, they had coverage from Europe, North America and Latin America.

The current panel session, "Smart Grid Implementations -- International Overview" features representatives from the U.S., Europe, Asia and Russia. As just noted (live), different countries are developing technologies according to their various needs. Hopefully we can all integrate this for unified global development.

Afternoon update: Networking among the exhibits during the breaks:

GridWeek 2010

2010-10-17T18:28:00.000-07:00

Arrived here in D.C. (the "other" Washington) a few hours ago for the GridWeek 2010 conference this week, representing Honeywell (but not the only one doing so). I have my tracks selected, and it looks like a busy though interesting time ahead.

In the hotel this evening I saw a lot of folks who somehow look like they're here for this conference. I may get some confirmation tomorrow.

Update Oct 18 AM: Setting up...

Oh, for an archivist

2010-10-15T06:58:00.000-07:00

We had a little bit of discussion this week on BACNET-L over the Scale property of the Accumulator object, which provides value and datatype for scaling the object's output. The problem is that it could be an INTEGER or REAL value -- and somebody with an INTEGER application quite reasonably didn't want to support REAL.

So I thought I would dig back into the history of this object, which started around 2000 with similar proposals from the IEIEJ (Japan) and Europe. Unfortunately, the two proposed objects were similar enough that the committee wanted them merged. A couple of mergers and separations later (this from memory), all agreed that the similarity was merely superficial and we had two distinctly different objects: the Accumulator and the Pulse Converter.

But where the Scale property came from, well, I didn't recall it being in the original proposal from Japan.

I went back and looked in my personal proposals archive. Nothing! But fortunately, sometime around 2005 or 2006 I had become annoyed by the ever-growing old proposals archive on the FTP site (for one thing, it slowed down synchronization efforts) and took the time to sort proposals by year and ZIP them -- 2001, 2002, 2003, etc. And that proved really handy for researching the history of this proposal, at least at the granularity of year of filing.

Now there were revisions of the proposal missing, but I was able to piece the history together well enough for a discussion, if not for a absolutely definitive answer as to intent.

But the ZIPped archives end at 2005 -- and I know why: I didn't have time in subsequent years (or at least enough empty time to try to fill it with archival operations). I'm certain that for Dave Robin, current chairman, it's probably worse.

So, unless we get a volunteer to be our BACnet archivist, things won't change. (What? Not me! I may have achieved what Steve Bushby once described "Chair Emeritus" as being "the utter nirvana of being totally useless" but I'm way too overloaded right now with Smart Grid. Ask me again in, oh, three years or so?)

You're traveling too much when...

2010-10-14T16:17:00.001-07:00

...you file 5 expense reports in one day. It would have been 6, but the receipts envelope for one trip was at home.

Plugfest Deadline Oct 15th

2010-10-14T13:40:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow, October 15th, is the deadline to register for the North American plugfest in Atlanta, November 16 - 18, and it is also the deadline to reserve a hotel room at event rates. (Click here for details.)

Miss this one and you'll have to wait six months for the European plugfest, tentatively slated for Saarbrücken, Germany.

I don't remember when I first attended a BACnet plugfest; I have no records of the event. I think it was sometime around 1997, which would also place it before the BACnet.org website's News Archive begins.

The first mention of a plugfest on BACnet.org is of the BACnet Manufacturers Association first plugfest, in 2000, held in Steve Bushby's lab at NIST.

It's come a long way to this:

I've long recommended that manufacturers of BACnet devices come to these plugfests -- including manufacturers relatively new to BACnet, and especially with devices that are still in development. It's far less expensive to detect mistakes and misinterpretations earlier rather than later, and you'll find a friendy, cooperative environment. We all win when BACnet gear just works together.

Hope to see you there.

All Quiet on the BACnet Front

2010-10-12T19:46:00.000-07:00

Hm. Blogspot tells me I've used this title before. Oh well, it's true. I'm not sure what's going on but when our most prolific writer of change proposals (not to mention commenter on same) remarks that he's completely booked, I believe him. And there has been very little eother activity beyond working group conveners announcing their meetings during our autumn BACnet meeting week after next at Georgia Tech. Perhaps they're loading their cannons with extra powder and double-shot (sailing ship reference).

As I've noted recently, the Smart Grid (SG) effort has been chewing up much of my time. I was reminded this evening of a relatively small SG work item (hour or two, I think) I had volunteered for but which had not made it onto my ToDo list and was nearly forgotten. (Said ToDo list is maintained in my weekly report e-mailed to my supervisors whom I rarely see, so it carries a bit of weight.)

And if the SG effort wasn't enough I got called away to HQ for meetings that will have me busy the majority of this week.

But at least it's nice here in Minneapolis, when I do get outside. Warm, sunny and colorful; most unlike Seattle in autumn. Though I do wish they'd dim that sun a bit; it's hard on my troglodyte eyes.

Elevator Up(date)

2010-10-10T16:09:00.000-07:00

It's frightening how much time the Smart Grid effort requires. I've concluded that we're trying to do too much in way too little time and it's only a matter of time until our continued pushing on this rope will lead to a tangled snarl.

But despite that I finally managed to free up a few hours last week to work on the BACnet Elevator proposal, per my notes from the summer meeting, to circulate responses to questions from the meeting and investigate what seemed like it could be a reasonable approach to the "timestamps in Un/ConfirmedCOVNotificationMultiple" notification services issue with which some BACneteers were having trouble -- but as it turns out, that approach gets very ugly very fast.

An e-mail to the EL-WG, addressed to the BACnet side of the working group, was sent out Friday. We'll see what happens. I have heard nothing in months from the elevator manufacturer side of the EL-WG, so it appears that all we have to do is reach a consensus on the BACnet side and the proposal can go to public review.

BACnet Hats

2010-10-07T17:31:00.000-07:00

High up on a cabinet at the rear of the BAC Cave is a row of BACnet hats. Thanks to the good folks at BACnet International I now have a "complete" set of sorts on display.

The first BACnet hats were passed out by ALC back in the 90s. Reading BACnet.org's News Archive it it was in 1999 that they gave out not only caps but jackets (I still have one) that read: "BACnet - A Force to Contend With." Those caps have been traveling the world and in thew BACnet News Archives you'll see them in various locales from the north of Norway to Japan to many other places.

I expect my colleagues will add to the collection from the upcoming ISO/TC205 meeting in Sydney! (Here's your challenge, guys -- this photo is of a real hat on a real camel. Can you bring back a photo of one on a Kangaroo?)

Next was BIG-EU's celebration of its tenth anniversary with its "10 Years of Success" cap (and VERY well put, I'd say!). I wasn't able to attend that event but they kept a cap to give me later. Very much appreciated.

Now I can complement that with a BACnet International cap! Thank you, Sarah, Natalie and the rest of the good folks at BACnet International.