Reducing Electricity Bills For Buildings With XML

Roland Piquepaille writes "Even if new buildings are connected to Internet, they usually don't communicate between themselves. And when it comes to electricity, these buildings are selfish and consume what they want without any coordination. Now, an XML-based system developed at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is using Web services to collectively adjust power usage to variations in price. In 'Internet ups power grid IQ,' Technology Research News reports that the system was successfully tested for two weeks on five commercial buildings. 'Beyond price, systems could be programmed to respond to changes in air quality or to tap into sustainable energy sources.' You'll find more details, pictures and references in this overview. [Additional note: The system described here is completely different to the one mentioned in Slashdot last March in Building the Energy Internet.]"

Comments

Great

[NeoGeo64]

Now can I power my car with XML to save gas?

Re:Great

[DrEldarion]

Sure, but the sattelite internet access you'll need negates the savings.

Re:Great

[Rei]

Well, I've got a fan cooling my room with XML, and Rutan is working on replacing the nitric acid in SpaceShipOne with XML as an oxidizer, so I can't see why not.

XML is immensely useful; it's self-descriptive nature makes it perfect for communicating with my coworkers that don't speak English very well. It does, however, get annoying saying "greater than" and "less than" all the time, so we modified the standard a bit to use "grethen" and "lessen" as substitutions. We also don't implement the full standard, which has caused some interoperability problems with other XML-interlingual people...

(Seriously - I'm glad to see that I'm not the only one who, when I first saw this headline, initially thought it was a parody...)

I reckon...

[TwistedSquare]

Reducing Electricity Bills For Buildings With XML

I gotta get my building some XML! Reduced bills here I come.

Buy Now!

[Elecore]

New XML compliant appliances. Save electricity and use fancy buzzwords, all for the low low price of...

Re:So...

[eln]

They've figured out a way to get around this by putting the servers in an adjacent building, so the power consumption of the first building isn't affected.

I can see it now...

[Gothmolly]

Over the company loudspeaker, HAL's voice:
"Attention, due to high power costs, the building will now reduce power. Bathrooms, closets, and that big boxy room marked 'Data Center' will be powered down to save money."
Engineers: No! Computer, leave the Data Center on!
The Building: I'm sorry, I'm afraid I can't do that.
Engineers: Stop! You'll die too!
The Building: I can't afford to place the missi@#&*$#@^$$
CALL CLEARED.....

Oh the irony! XML for efficiency

[GOD_ALMIGHTY]

While I'm sure even XML in an intelligent system could improve overall efficiency of a building, it just seems funny that one of the most bloated tools in the toolbox would be used to do it.