Responding to the COVID-19 epidemic and dangerous air quality due to seasonal summer forest fires, an increasing number of organizations are deploying networks of indoor air quality (IAQ) sensors in their buildings. For most organizations, the deployment of IAQ sensors involves three primary challenges: 1) an assessment of air flow in their building(s), 2) a decision about how best to collect IAQ data (via wired or wireless networks, e.g) and 3) the development of a plan to incorporate the new IAQ data into their existing procedures and processes related to facilities management. Several forward-looking organizations are examining how the open-source Eclipse VOLTTRON technology can enable their organization to integrate new IAQ data with data collected by existing systems in their buildings (e.g., Building Automation Systems).

ACE IoT Solutions, Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI), Oak Ridge National Lab (ORNL) and several utilities are working on a project demonstrating the value and viability of open source home energy management systems. The project, funded by the Department of Energy’s Grid Modernization Initiative, serves to highlight the critical role of CTA-2045, an open communications standard for appliances such as electric water heaters. In this post, we examine the CTA-2045 standard, a workhorse enabling the smart, grid-integrated home of the future.

Grafana, an open source analytics and monitoring solution, has accepted ACE IoT’s React-powered SVG Panel plugin. The free plugin is available on Grafana’s website and on GitHub and is already being used by a wastewater treatment plant and by off-grid solar energy facilities to provide compelling visualizations of real-time operations data.