The once-fanciful notion of the intelligent building is becoming both feasible and affordable. By Robert Wolsey A few decades ago, the idea of lights that turned on automatically when you entered a room seemed like science fiction. For example, an occupancy sensor connected to a BAS can control lights, and it can also control temperature and airflow, alert security staff to intruders, help rescue crews locate occupants in an emergency, and even determine the floors at which empty elevators should wait to pick up passengers. The BAS can span several buildings, no matter how far apart, so that an entire college campus, or even all the worldwide facilities of a multinational corporation can be monitored and controlled from a single workstation. DDC components are available for virtually every type of electrical or mechanical system, and DDC signals can be transmitted via anything from radio signals to the Internet.
Utilities promote load shifting to reduce total peak demand.
Through the use of the modules, companies and homeowners can program their buildings to save energy, and the utility can send and receive DDC signals over the power distribution system to moderate electrical demand interactively, which, in turn, can save customers about 10 percent on electric bills. Xerox Corporation's Palo Alto Research Center has come up with a novel way to allocate heat and air conditioning to its offices. The agents are computer representatives for office areas. They are built into the software, and they can bid against agents in other areas. For example, perhaps offices on both the first and second floors are becoming warm.