With sustainability rising in importance, architects have been evolving in their thinking of projects, viewing them not as individual buildings, but as active parts of the global energy smart grid.
Energy-smart buildings are critical to our country’s sustainability. Industry experts estimate that $1oo-165 billion is being invested in modernizing and adding intelligence to power grids across the United States over the next 20 years. More than $33 billion has been included in the 2009 American Recovery and Reinvestment Act for smart grid, energy management, renewable energy, and other forms of energy research. The expected result: a flexible, easy-to-manage, nationwide smart grid.
Much research is focused on Distributed Energy Resource (DER) systems or “micro-grids,” because they are intended to make standalone facilities as autonomous as possible, rather than reliant solely on public power grids.
From Promising to Practical
A major hurdle in the deployment of this promising technology lies in how to control energy consumption, energy management, and real-time switchovers from one power source to another. As more organizations explore supplementing their utility power with on-premise power generation, they need a way to monitor the micro-grid’s power quality utilization, and capacity in real time so they can offer excess capacity to the smart grid.
Fortunately, some technology companies are developing software platforms for the on-line management and control of next-generation hybrid power infrastructure, incorporating both traditional utility power and on-premise power generation such as solar power, wind turbines, and battery storage.
Known as power analytics, these software systems create a model-based power system and apply that model in a real-time environment. This approach allows for extensive what-if simulations based on actual conditions for energy management (including power usage effectiveness or PUE), as well as for arc flash and overall power cooling, space management, conditional alarm management, and other situations. These software systems will monitor all transactions between public electric service and micro-grid infrastructure and maintain rate and pricing information, as well.
If the industrialized world is going to be successful in using alternative energy sources to address the fragility of the national power grid, micro-grids are a promising solution. The real challenge, however, is controlling the transition from one energy source to another without putting the reliability of the micro-grid at risk. Power-wise, it is the ultimate high-wire balancing act.
In the very near future, certain software companies will be instrumental in removing the greatest obstacle hindering the widespread use of alternative energy: using power analytics to choose when to safely empioy energy sources, such as solar or wind, without trading off the reliability of utility power. Such technology will aid architects significantly with the design options they can offer their clients.
Originally published 4th quarter 2009 in arcCA 10.1, “Parametrics and IPD.”
