Internet of Lights Blog

The edge of the grid and the rise of low voltage distribution automation

Surging demands, unpredictable generation from renewable sources, volatile energy costs, and the emergence of electric vehicles are all real factors threatening to cause grid instability. To continue to deliver high-quality and reliable service, utilities around the world want to know how to better anticipate and diagnose potential problems at the edge faster. At Echelon's Smart Energy Conference, Poul Berthelsen of NRGi, Oliver Bustall of GridKey, Bastien Fischer of Oracle, Per Joergensen of Eltel, Marcos Rizzo of ELO, and Antonio Tortolero of Telvent joined our Michael Anderson on stage to discuss the promise of low voltage distribution automation, identifying real problems at the edge today.

 

LG CNS Keynote@Smart Energy Conference: opportunities with advanced analytics for the realization of a smart green city #smecon

To achieve smarter, more energy efficient cities, an immense amount of data is produced and has become the source of many new opportunities and challenges. LG CNS was a keynote at Echelon’s Smart Energy conference today identifying the issues, and presenting effective solutions and core competencies for the realization of smart green cities and buildings. Dr. Keunhyoung Lee of LG CNS kicked off his session with this great video.

 

Echelon kicks off its Smart Energy Conference in Budapest

Echelon's customers, partners and executives just finished up their first day at the Smart Energy Conference in Budapest, discussing the growing business value of a comprehensive smart grid infrastructure that includes smart metering, smart cities and buildings, and smart street lighting. This year, executives from ADIC, Alstom, ELO, Eltel, Fortum, GreenWave Reality, Gorlitz, GridKey, LG CNS, NRGi, Oracle, PEA, Philips, PMT, Streetlight.Vision, Telvent and many others have joined to share their experience and stories about their grid deployments. More updates to come…check back regularly. #smecon

 

Discussing the smart grid with President Clinton

Our Ron Sege, Chairman and CEO, has been hard at work for the past two days with a thousand other leaders in the United States at the Clinton Global Initiative (CGI) America 2012 event, discussing new ways to finance scalable projects, increase energy efficiencies, and spur innovation. Here's a moment with Ron and President Clinton in the Clean Energy & Efficiency Working Group smart grid discussion.

Join the team to watch CGI America's 2012 closing session with President Clinton today at 4pmCT at: https://new.livestream.com/accounts/376536/CGIAmerica2012

1000 people trying to make a difference in the United States

Just in as CGI America 2012 wraps up their first day...1000 attendees, including our Ron Sege, Chairman and CEO who is part of the Clean Energy & Efficiency Working Group, have made 58 commitments in total, which, when fully funded and implemented, will directly affect the lives of nearly 3.9 million people!

See press release: President Clinton Opens 2012 Clinton Global Initiative America Meeting By Bringing Together Public and Private Sector Leaders to Help Spur the U.S. Economy

The relationship between energy efficiency and jobs

Yes Randi, Chicago is a great town!

This CGI America panel talked about a 3-part approach to infrastructure, which includes jobs and energy efficiency. Since last year's CGI meeting, the AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust Group invested $165M in energy efficiency retrofits, which resulted in 3000 afforable housing units that were retrofitted and 1000 jobs created. There are six more similar projects in the works.

Watch this video to hear more about how energy efficiency leads to more positives in our economy.

The State of Our Union: Opportunities and Challenges to Economic Recovery

Clinton Global Initiative: clean electricity & efficiency with Ron Sege

In 2011, the American clean energy sector grew at a rate of 8.3 percent-double that of the overall economy- demonstrating its critical role as an economic driver. Right now, our Ron Sege, chairman and CEO, is in a closed-door session with 60+ others addressing the electrical spectrum from generation to distribution to consumption. Ron and "the 60" represent the Clean Electricity & Efficiency Working Group to develop new ways to finance scalable projects, increase energy efficiencies, and spur the innovation and adoption of commercial-scale technologies.

DoD talks about utilizing LonWorks technology in all Federal facilities

“Standards-based solutions reduce overall program risk for the government by freeing the organization from the entrapment of proprietary solutions,” said Will White, technical deputy, USACE. “LonWorks solves the interoperability issue by providing connectivity of all systems to a single supervisory monitoring and control system and delivers increased value, improved energy efficiency and the advanced capabilities needed to ease the operation and maintenance of a system.” 

We agree Will...thanks for sharing your thoughts!

Check out LonMark's latest news announcement today regarding the Department of Defense (DoD) publishing the new Unified Facilities Criteria (UFC) 3-470-01, which supports Unified Facility Guide Specification 25 10 10, LonWorks® Utility Monitoring and Control System and the UFC 3-410-02, which supports UFGS 23 09 23, LonWorks Direct Digital Control for HVAC and Other Local Building Systems. Both documents provide in-depth detail on the requirements to utilize LonWorks control networking technology into Federal facilities. 

http://www.lonmark.org/news_events/press/2012/06_new_us_dod_criteria_incorporates_lonworks

New Router 5000 ships

As buildings become smarter, there is an increasing need for automation systems to include a larger number and variety of building control devices. Introducing…the Router 5000 Module! This new product allows OEMs to offer routers that can be used to build scalable and survivable device networks that incorporate the appropriate physical media. The Router 5000 is part of the Echelon 5000 series product line that includes the FT 5000 Smart Transceiver and the Neuron® 5000 processor.

Eliminating device credits for LonWorks-based building systems

Echelon's new OpenLNS Network Operating System is a royalty-free network operating system and environment for developing, deploying, and managing building automation and energy management systems. By being able to work with more devices and eliminating device credits, the entire LonWorks community of manufacturers and integrators can expand their addressable market and increase revenue. Manufacturers can develop applications faster with free tools, such as the new OpenLNS Application Developer’s Kit. Today, more than 300 plug-ins have been built for LNS® by the leading building automation system providers. Integrators can also add more value for their customers as OpenLNS supports more devices, such as all ISO/IEC 14908-1 compliant devices, routers and network interfaces. The elimination of credits puts the integrator and the building owner in charge and gives them the ability to add devices and applications per their convenience without incurring additional cost. OpenLNS beta software is available today and will be made generally available in 2H 2012.