In Tempe, Arizona, work has started on an exciting project that will deploy advanced building optimization strategies in a multi-family residential building complex. The Tempe project is noteworthy for several reasons. First, the project is a cooperative effort between the Tempe building’s owner, FCP® (a privately held real estate investment company based in Maryland) & Tides Equities (a privately held real estate investment company based in California); and Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). Second, and this will come as no surprise to regular readers of our blogs, the project is notable because it will use the open-source VOLTTRON technology to manage the optimization and peak demand limiting applications deployed at the site. Third, the type of applications being deployed at the Tempe site are most often deployed in commercial buildings and not in residential buildings.
Earlier this month, I had the opportunity to interview Scott Hackel and Dr. Xiaohui “Joe” Zhou from Slipstream, a non-profit organization with a mission to accelerate climate solutions for everyone. During our conversation, I asked Scott and Joe about Slipstream and their vision for tackling vexing challenges including accelerating decarbonization and growing the stock of Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs).
We also explored the motivations behind Slipstream’s decision to partner with ACE IoT Solutions and deploy Eclipse VOLTTRON at their building in Madison, WI. Our conversation closed with a discussion of how Slipstream’s evaluation of technologies including VOLTTRON, Kinetic Buildings Synapse, and Prescriptive Data Nantum OS fits into the organization’s broader vision for advancing its mission.
For many industrial facilities, off-site or remote access to data collected by a SCADA system constitutes an unacceptable cybersecurity risk. At the same time, a limited ability to access real-time operations data can create inefficiencies and hinder collaboration. Through a new partnership between EMR Associates and ACE IoT Solutions, utilities and industrial organizations – including the municipal water utility in Portland, TN – are using ACE IoT’s gateways and cloud services to enable secure remote access to SCADA system data.