tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-70555107884511236282024-03-14T20:54:14.615+13:00Greenstage New ZealandMarket driven change for the planetPhilip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-47641140521570944122021-12-31T13:24:00.003+13:002021-12-31T13:55:37.108+13:00USA<div style="text-align: left;"> As some of you will be aware, the core Greenstage Power team (Max, Matt, John and Philip) have been working with <a href="http://ecogyenergy.com">Ecogy Energy</a> a New York based company for a little while now. For all intents and purposes the Greenstage Power team is now Ecogy Energy and all new distributed energy projects will be carried out under this banner. With Ecogy Energy we have stepped up our ability to accelerate the global transition to renewable energy, we are using Solar PV and other Distributed Energy Resources (DER) to transform the grid. One of our distinguishing features is the use of open source software coupled with proprietary role-based user experiences and business process layers to optimise this whole space. Not only are we providing enhanced user experiences to our customers and our internal team, but we are working to open up opportunities for all parties via advances in the state of the art open source thinking for grid facing services in particular.</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSV_iVs5NxgFPlle-6-9mmkIyRXeSuHo4FAOFtKF-9VYTfybyUbmvwrB9R41xFIr3h20SHRanYLdd5iPT75uKMMBnukSn79PXzkyecg7sx_GKnzoNUkqspzq9dK0ZRxE_hDC8Ry6EqEF9g_LAFkjMdC9MKnBX55Wt6LEHkpEi3MGWGGOX5UNTQNmw9Zg=s839" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="254" data-original-width="839" height="97" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjSV_iVs5NxgFPlle-6-9mmkIyRXeSuHo4FAOFtKF-9VYTfybyUbmvwrB9R41xFIr3h20SHRanYLdd5iPT75uKMMBnukSn79PXzkyecg7sx_GKnzoNUkqspzq9dK0ZRxE_hDC8Ry6EqEF9g_LAFkjMdC9MKnBX55Wt6LEHkpEi3MGWGGOX5UNTQNmw9Zg=s320" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: left;">The need and the opportunity in this space is massive. Most apparent is the need for smart open solutions and tools that will let the industry as a whole move forwards in a productive, secure and efficient manner to unlock the true value in providing dynamic DER services to the grid.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Existing customers in New Zealand are still being serviced via Greenstage Power and you can continue to leverage your existing contact points for any on-going business needs. Just be aware that anything that looks like a less active presence in New Zealand is due to our focus on the US market and our on-going efforts with colleagues in New York and across the US as we work to accelerate the decarbonisation of global electricity grids.</div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />Greenstage Power is a spin off from Greenstage Investments Ltd (Greenstage). It shows what is possible with a clear positive vision of the future, combined with persistence, smarts and identifying the right partners. Greenstage continues to offer services for future-focused business ideas and electric vehicle innovation. We have an updated website coming soon to reflect and communicate this more clearly. Please contact Stephen Morgan on +64 221972074 for any new or on-going enquiries.</div>Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-46603501169951734822020-04-14T12:34:00.001+12:002021-10-17T13:06:17.847+13:00The great pause - Pondering empowerment post Corona virus lockdown<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
During this pause in the human experiment of <a href="https://blog.greenstage.co.nz/2013/11/timing-is-everything.html" target="_blank">infinite growth on a finite planet</a>, we all have time to ponder. Questions like, how should we empower society as we emerge from the <a href="https://covid19.govt.nz/" target="_blank">corona virus lockdown</a> and what sort of benefits might we expect and hope for from this empowerment? </div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hgQvNdfUawk/XpO5rRzc3wI/AAAAAAAAOGM/s9uvXRmmhnUDDu4_HsHYQD5rKlwVvTNRACLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/airspeeder.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="900" data-original-width="1600" height="180" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-hgQvNdfUawk/XpO5rRzc3wI/AAAAAAAAOGM/s9uvXRmmhnUDDu4_HsHYQD5rKlwVvTNRACLcBGAsYHQ/s320/airspeeder.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Something to hope for or just an interesting picture?<br />
<a href="https://airspeeder.com/" target="_blank">Airspeeder</a> motorsport - a mixture of science fiction and gaming</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Let's take a moment to further explore empowerment of individuals, how might we do this and what results might we expect. There are already some pretty well understood candidates (and logically it seems many have self reinforcing aspects for the goal at hand), here are some good examples:</div>
<ul>
<li><a href="https://basicincome.stanford.edu/about/what-is-ubi/" target="_blank">UBI</a> providing individual freedom and hence more room for creativity </li>
<li><a href="http://benefitof.net/benefits-of-free-education/" target="_blank">Free Education</a> to degree level, hence encouraging and satisfying a thirst for knowledge</li>
<li>Government using and encouraging <a href="https://opensource.com/resources/what-open-source">Open Source</a> and <a href="https://www.data.govt.nz/open-data/what-is-open-data/">Open Data</a> </li>
<li>Prioritise <a href="http://www.gdc.govt.nz/assets/Strategies/Walking-and-Cycling/11%20Benefits%20of%20Walking%20and%20Cycling.pdf" target="_blank">walking and cycling</a>, hence improving health, fitness, mobility, community connections and happiness</li>
</ul>
Plus, what if we combine these with wise long term environmental and economic goals (<a href="https://www.kateraworth.com/doughnut/">doughnut economics</a> style):<br />
<ul>
<li>Encourage and support <a href="https://thespinoff.co.nz/business/04-11-2019/with-the-walls-closing-in-regenerative-farming-is-a-way-forward-for-agriculture/" target="_blank">regenerative agriculture</a></li>
<li> Strive towards a <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20180220043534/https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-06/green-dream-risks-energy-security-as-kiwis-aim-for-zero-carbon" target="_blank">100% renewable electricity supply</a></li>
<li>Electrifying <a href="https://at.govt.nz/projects-roadworks/electric-trains/" target="_blank">rail</a> and <a href="https://driveelectric.org.nz/individuals/ev-models-and-where-to-buy/" target="_blank">road</a> transportation (apart from maybe some aspects of emergency services)</li>
<li>Restoring the health of our <a href="https://www.doc.govt.nz/nature/habitats/freshwater/habitat-restoration/">rivers</a> and our <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2020/apr/01/oceans-can-be-restored-to-former-glory-within-30-years-say-scientists">oceans</a> </li>
</ul>
With this new world fully embraced, what might this look like over time:<br />
<ul>
<li>A healthy environment in balance with human society?</li>
<li>Increased local capabilities and resilience?</li>
<li>Increased time for important stuff like friends and family?</li>
<li>High levels of innovation and hence productivity? </li>
<li>Increased focus on digital tourism and digital sports events (e.g. where digital experience is the product, think visually realistic and <a href="https://sunlive.co.nz/news/238960-triathletes-ride-on-through-virtual-racing.html" target="_blank">physically active esports</a>, think <a href="https://arl.co.nz/" target="_blank">virtual spectator</a> mixed with photo realistic virtual experiences extrapolated to <a href="https://www.nzgeo.com/vr/" target="_blank">tourism</a> and new <a href="https://www.electrichybridvehicletechnology.com/news/motorsport-electrification/airspeeder-worlds-first-electric-flying-car-racing-series-closer-to-take-off.html" target="_blank">high tech sporting</a> areas)?<br />
</li>
<li>Increased <a href="https://www.pantheism.net/scientific-pantheism-reverence-of-nature-and-cosmos/" target="_blank">reverence</a> for nature and the outdoors (where international tourism for pure physical outdoor experiences becomes a premium highly sought after product)?</li>
<li>Increasingly complex and interconnected local society (more holistic)?</li>
<li>A more equal society? </li>
<li>Increasing richness in art and culture? </li>
<li>Increased general interest in wondering about life, the <a href="https://writings.stephenwolfram.com/2020/04/how-we-got-here-the-backstory-of-the-wolfram-physics-project/" target="_blank">universe</a> and our place in it?</li>
<li>People are energized and alive with tangible opportunities to participate and thrive in society?</li>
<li>A society that treats Earth as our valued and cherished home, but increasingly looks <a href="https://www.spacex.com/vehicles/starship" target="_blank">beyond our home planet</a> for the future?</li>
</ul>
I'll leave you to ponder these questions or to create your own list of thoughts and ideas. Either way, I'm sure you will continue to make good use of your very own and very valuable corona-induced dilated time bubble. <br />
<ul>
</ul>
<ul>
</ul>
Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-39729908871286519412019-09-06T21:23:00.000+12:002020-05-13T17:14:35.100+12:00IndiaIndia is currently in a massive <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-48961525">government lead push</a> to transition much of its transportation fleet to electric vehicles.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.ixenergy.in/">iXEnergy</a>, an innovative New Delhi based company have been pushing ahead with their own EV and hybrid vehicle technology development plans. Just this week gone the iXEnergy team have completed hybrid bus commissioning for their second OEM customer. Well done to all the team!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jZwN1gqv_vE/XXIfaQlH6GI/AAAAAAAALuI/54ogdgmS9j8MKSpXQQDF2k1B3L6OAvwjQCLcBGAs/s1600/Team2019_960x156.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="156" data-original-width="960" height="65" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-jZwN1gqv_vE/XXIfaQlH6GI/AAAAAAAALuI/54ogdgmS9j8MKSpXQQDF2k1B3L6OAvwjQCLcBGAs/s400/Team2019_960x156.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Chris and the iXEnergy team</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<a href="http://greenstage.co.nz/">Greenstage</a> and <a href="http://scottdrive.co.nz/">ScottDrive</a> are proud to be supporting iXEnergy on this journey. Every little bit helps as India and the world transitions towards a cleaner and more economic transportation fleet. Well done to everyone involved and keep up the good work.Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-2534281586303507152018-08-05T17:18:00.000+12:002019-06-19T16:18:25.237+12:00Commentary on Electric Vehicle adoption in NZPrice is no longer a barrier to electric vehicle (EV) adoption. In fact, in New Zealand I would argue that price is now a driver for EV adoption if you are willing to look at the numbers.<br />
<br />
For city driving, it now makes obvious sense to replace your petrol powered vehicle with an EV. If you are driving a petrol powered car an average of 70 km per day, 6 days a week, then depending on your vehicle's fuel efficiency, its easy to be spending $50-100 per week on gas (in NZ petrol is currently around $2.30 per litre).<br />
<br />
As well as this obvious saving, you will also be saving the wasted time and effort of going to a service station each week when the petrol tank needs topping up (with an EV, you just top up at home each night).<br />
<br />
With some second hand EV's from Japan now available for less than $NZ 10,000, savings on petrol can very quickly pay this back (I'll let you do the sums). Plus if you are buying this EV instead of an equivalent petrol powered car, the savings are immediate.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-va83VdeUXhI/W2Z9TeQGtHI/AAAAAAAAHFM/zlz_U9dKBAYYCD58wwcOGx1Svnx3BzgVQCLcBGAs/s1600/imiev_small.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="644" data-original-width="943" height="218" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-va83VdeUXhI/W2Z9TeQGtHI/AAAAAAAAHFM/zlz_U9dKBAYYCD58wwcOGx1Svnx3BzgVQCLcBGAs/s320/imiev_small.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">EV - no need for weekly visits to the service station.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Driving without the concern for the high cost of fuel, driving without the concern for the stinky butt smoke emanating from the rear of your car, driving without the concern of the upcoming or overdue oil change!!? A return to driving just for the fun of it, what's not to like.Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-71187370717289885522018-02-15T13:04:00.000+13:002019-06-19T16:18:09.898+12:00Testing the generic Modbus Device pluginOne of the cool plugins recently being tested for SolarNode is called "Modbus Device", it allows admins to add new hardware that supports the Modbus RTU and TCP protocols. Check out this <a href="http://solarnetwork.net/v4/testing-the-modbus-device-plugin">link</a> that describes using the Modbus Device plugin to talk to a thermopile <a href="https://www.campbellsci.com/blog/pyranometers-need-to-know">pyranometer</a>. It's a pretty quick and easy process in terms of supporting a new industrial scientific instrument.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VUzvx7pdaIM/WoTUwe6CIqI/AAAAAAAAG7Q/qWzKoXZA21sKVi6Mefd6QjMzWTwVOaxdwCLcBGAs/s1600/Pyranometer.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="162" data-original-width="225" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-VUzvx7pdaIM/WoTUwe6CIqI/AAAAAAAAG7Q/qWzKoXZA21sKVi6Mefd6QjMzWTwVOaxdwCLcBGAs/s1600/Pyranometer.jpg" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pyranometer - measures irradiance (<span class="nowrap" style="white-space: nowrap;">W/m<sup style="font-size: 11.2px; line-height: 1;">2</sup></span>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
We see this device as extremely relevant to tracking solar array performance. Knowing quantitatively how a pyranometer is measuring sunlight near a PV array means that you have a metric for what you should expect from the array in terms of kilowatt-hours (kWh) generated. We expect to be able to use these irradiance figures as an input to <a href="https://github.com/SolarNetwork/solarquant">SolarQuant</a> (our non-linear energy data analysis engine) and then to inform admins as to whether actual performance is stacking up. That means extracting more value from your solar array!<br />
<br />
Automating this process is what is going to count - check back here for an update on SolarQuant development, there are more interesting developments coming up soon....John Gormanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298059444501967909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-75277654221293529442017-10-24T10:46:00.003+13:002017-11-17T15:05:19.638+13:00SolarQuant gets a push forward from University of AucklandOne of the exciting developments at Greenstage Power has been some collaboration with University of Auckland on our experimental machine learning module called SolarQuant. This is the stand alone app server that takes consumption or generation data and aims to learn how that energy flow happened, based on the context of when it happened and what the environmental conditions were at the time. We had a visitor to New Zealand from MIT Engineering named Paige Studer, and she was instrumental at giving SolarQuant a push forward. We interviewed Paige below on the project:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tTBol9nid2Y/We5c3gAk2YI/AAAAAAAAIL8/hYpRjaDZgjoPrq5bUra60lsrzQ8GUSv6wCLcBGAs/s1600/paigeStuder.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1200" data-original-width="1600" height="240" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-tTBol9nid2Y/We5c3gAk2YI/AAAAAAAAIL8/hYpRjaDZgjoPrq5bUra60lsrzQ8GUSv6wCLcBGAs/s320/paigeStuder.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<style type="text/css">p { margin-bottom: 0.1in; direction: ltr; line-height: 120%; text-align: left; }</style>
<br />
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<b>Tell us a
little about what you worked on at UofA</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
During my time at
the University of Auckland, I had the privilege to work on
SolarQuant, which is a program that is working to accurately predict
a building’s energy consumption given a set of inputs such as time,
weather, temperature, etc. When I arrived at the UofA, the current
state was that SolarQuant could take inputs and a building’s energy
consumption to find weights for each of the inputs. Then given only
the inputs and found weights, it would map how closely the calculated
energy consumption matched the actually energy consumption. The next
step was to see if we could get similar results by taking predicted
inputs, getting a calculated energy consumption, and compare it with
the actual inputs with actual consumption.</div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
One of the main
factors in being able to do this was formatting the predicted weather
so that it looked the same as the actual weather, with the exception
of a type id showing that it was predicted and not actual. The
predicted weather was taken from Norwegian weather, in the form of an
XML file. The program would go through the file and find entries
that had all of the information that we needed and added them to an
initial array. This array with the predicted weather data had
problems, such as not being sorted, having repeating information,
etc. This initial array needed to be cleaned up and adjusted to make
it look like real data. A second array was constructed so that the
time of each prediction was in chronological order and separated by
thirty minutes, without any repeating or missing times. Once this
was completed, the program would go through that array, create
weather datum objects and place those objects into a database to be
used in the future.</div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
Because the
future weather in the database looked the same as actual weather in
the database, we could use it on the SolarQuant platform. From here
the program takes the future weather data, downloads it, and instead
of training it on energy consumption, it skips straight to the
questioning stage since it is the future there is no energy
consumption to train off of. After this, John was going to add his
code and we would hopefully see predicted energy consumption and
eventually compare this with actual energy consumption for the same
time period.</div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<b>Do you think
it will work?</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
Yes, of course I
think it will work! Theoretically it will, so if it doesn’t right
away it would be due to some bugs in the code that can be fixed. I’m
very excited to see where it goes in the future once it is working,
because there are some pretty cool applications. One in particular
that I find to be interesting is if we can accurately predict the
weather and a building’s energy consumption, given a solar/battery
system, you could potentially become smarter at when to charge and
discharge your battery.</div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<b>As a developer
what are the challenges SolarQuant is going to have – what should
we get ready for?</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
I think that
SolarQuant will only be getting better and faster, and that it will
be important to stay flexible and be able to adjust with the program.
For instance, one thing that John and I had talked about was
possibly using a different weather source for predicted weather and
how to handle it. Do you make one function that can handle all
different weather sources, make a function for each weather source,
etc? Being open to change in the code and sources in the future will
make a difference in how well SolarQuant will continue to progress.
I think one idea that John reiterated that was helpful is we want to
walk before we run, meaning let’s make small additions/changes and
make sure that works before progressing. We don’t want to write
all this code and have it not work without us knowing why.</div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<b>Did you like
NZ? We heard you went bungy jumping!?</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
New Zealand was
absolutely awesome! I loved meeting new people, learning about the
Maori culture, and especially loved the adventure atmosphere of New
Zealand. On the weekends I was able to go on lots of side trips, my
favorite being Queenstown where I did the Kawarau Bridge bungy jump,
Waitomo black water rafting, and sand boarding while I was visiting
the Bay of Islands.</div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<b>What are the
next plans, where to?</b></div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="_GoBack"></a>
I will begin working at a solar energy company in Southern California
that specializes in getting schools solar energy, often in the form
of carports. I will be an Assistant Project Engineer there, and I
hope to learn more about solar energy projects, continue to grow my
skillsets, and make a positive impact on the community. </div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fkCfseF1g_4/We5fU72-BhI/AAAAAAAAIMI/I6E5HsT6huQ3eIjtmdPpxD5NCmEsCCAWwCLcBGAs/s1600/solarQuantPrediction.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="610" data-original-width="1329" height="293" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fkCfseF1g_4/We5fU72-BhI/AAAAAAAAIMI/I6E5HsT6huQ3eIjtmdPpxD5NCmEsCCAWwCLcBGAs/s640/solarQuantPrediction.png" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">SolarQuant comparing predicted consumption (blue) with actual (orange) consumption after training on 1 year of data</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<br /></div>
<div style="line-height: 107%; margin-bottom: 0.11in;">
<i>Some of the results from Paige's work coming in are shown above in a
screenshot of the SolarQuant interface. The trained network predicted a
time series in light blue here, and the actual power consumption is
shown in orange. Thanks once again to <a href="https://unidirectory.auckland.ac.nz/people/n-nair" target="_blank">Dr. Nirmal Nair</a> at University of Auckland ECE who made this possible! And developers can checkout SolarQuant as it progresses here: git@github.com:SolarNetwork/solarquant.git</i></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sHK6oGf6KNY/We5h5yFNhvI/AAAAAAAAIMU/8zvgPEzwIoMAZMK7SlZc89PpxwT9LtPpQCLcBGAs/s1600/University_of_Auckland.svg.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="458" data-original-width="1280" height="114" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-sHK6oGf6KNY/We5h5yFNhvI/AAAAAAAAIMU/8zvgPEzwIoMAZMK7SlZc89PpxwT9LtPpQCLcBGAs/s320/University_of_Auckland.svg.png" width="320" /></a></div>
John Gormanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298059444501967909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-14902786746170995922017-05-28T21:25:00.001+12:002017-10-25T11:43:51.417+13:00FreeBSD with Poudriere on ZFS with custom compiler toolchainThe SolarNetwork main infrastructure has always run on <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/">FreeBSD</a>. FreeBSD is great for allowing packages to be built with options suited to how you want to use it, by building packages from source via the <a href="https://www.freebsd.org/ports/">ports tree</a>. FreeBSD has evolved over the years since SolarNetwork started to distributing binary packages via the <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><a href="https://www.freebsd.org/doc/en_US.ISO8859-1/books/handbook/pkgng-intro.html">pkg</a></span> tool. That can save a lot of time, not having to compile all the software used from source, but doesn't work if some package needs a different set of compiled-in options than provided by FreeBSD itself. Additionally, I'd been compiling the packages using a specific version of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clang">Clang/LLVM</a> rather than the one used by FreeBSD (originally because one package wouldn't compile without a newer compiler version than used by FreeBSD).<br />
<br />
Fast forward to now, and FreeBSD has a tool called <a href="https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki">poudriere</a>, which can compile a set of packages with exactly the options needed and publish them as a FreeBSD package repository, from which any FreeBSD machine can then use to download the binary packages from and install them via <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pkg</span>. It's a bit like starting your own Linux distro, picking just the software and compile options you need and distributing them as pre-built binary packages.<br />
<br />
Finally I took the time to set up a FreeBSD build machine running poudriere (in a virtual machine) and can much more easily perform updates on the SolarNetwork infrastructure. There was just one major stumbling block along the way: I didn't know how to get <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pourdriere</span> to use the specific version of Clang I needed. There is plenty of information online about setting up <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">poudriere</span>, but I wasn't able to find information online about getting it to use a custom compiler toolchain. After some trial and error, here's how I finally ended up accomplishing it:<br />
<br />
<h3>
Create toolchain package repository</h3>
Poudriere works with FreeBSD jails to manage package repositories. Each package distribution uses <a href="https://github.com/freebsd/poudriere/wiki/pkg_repos">its own jail with its own configuration</a> such as what compiler options to use and which packages to compile. The first task is to create a package repository with the toolchain packages needed, in my case this is provided by the <a href="https://www.freshports.org/devel/llvm39"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">devel/llvm39</span></a> package. This toolchain repository can then be installed in other poudriere build jails to serve as their compiler.<br />
<br />
Once poudriere was installed and configured properly, the steps looked like this:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Create jail</span>
poudriere jail -c -j toolchain_103x64 -v 10.3-RELEASE
mkdir /usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/toolchain_103x64-options
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Create port list (for this jail, just the toolchain needed, devel/llvm39)</span>
<span style="color: #ffb054;">echo</span> <span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span>devel/llvm39<span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span> <span style="color: #ff9d00;">></span>/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/toolchain-port-list
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Update to latest (each time build)</span>
poudriere jail -u -j toolchain_103x64
poudriere ports -u -p HEAD
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Configure options</span>
poudriere options -j toolchain_103x64 -p HEAD \
-f /usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/toolchain-port-list
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Build packages</span>
poudriere bulk -j toolchain_103x64 -p HEAD \
-f /usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/toolchain-port-list
</pre>
<br />
After quite some time (llvm takes a terribly long time to compile!) the toolchain packages were built and I had nginx configured to serve them up via HTTP.<br />
<h3>
Create target system package repository</h3>
Now it was time to build the packages for a specific target system. In this case I am using the example of building a Postgres 9.6 based database server system, but the steps are the same for any system.<br />
<br />
First, I created the system's poudriere jail:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Create jail</span>
poudriere jail -c -j postgres96_103x64 -v 10.3-RELEASE
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Create port list for packages needed</span>
<span style="color: #ffb054;">echo</span> <span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span>databases/postgresql96-server<span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span> \
<span style="color: #ff9d00;">></span>/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/postgres96-port-list
<span style="color: #ffb054;">echo</span> <span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span>databases/postgresql96-contrib<span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span> \
<span style="color: #ff9d00;">>></span>/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/postgres96-port-list
<span style="color: #ffb054;">echo</span> <span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span>databases/postgresql-plv8js<span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span> \
<span style="color: #ff9d00;">>></span>/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/postgres96-port-list
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Configure options</span>
poudriere options -j postgres96 -p HEAD \
-f /usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/postgres96-port-list
</pre>
<br />
Second, install the <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">llvm39</span></span> toolchain, using the custom toolchain repository:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> chroot into the build jail</span>
chroot /usr/local/poudriere/jails/postgres96_103x64
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> enable dns resolution for the build server (if DNS names to be used)</span>
<span style="color: #ffb054;">echo</span> <span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span>nameserver 192.168.1.1<span style="color: #3ad900;">'</span> <span style="color: #ff9d00;">></span> /etc/resolv.conf
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Copy /usr/local/etc/ssl/certs/poudriere.cert from HOST</span>
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> to /usr/local/etc/ssl/certs/poudriere.cert in JAIL</span>
mkdir -p /usr/local/etc/ssl/certs
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> manually copy poudriere.cert here</span>
</pre>
<br />
Then I configured <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pkg</span> to use the toolchain repository via a <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/poudriere.conf</span></span> file:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;">poudriere: <span style="color: #e1efff;">{</span>
<span style="color: #ffee80;">url</span><span style="color: #e1efff;">:</span> <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"http://poudriere/packages/toolchain_103x64-HEAD/"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">mirror_type</span>: <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"http"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">signature_type</span>: <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"pubkey"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">pubkey</span>: <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"/usr/local/etc/ssl/certs/poudriere.cert"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">enabled</span>: <span style="color: #ffee80;">yes</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">priority</span>: <span style="color: #ff628c;">100</span>
<span style="color: #e1efff;">}</span>
</pre>
<br />
The URL in this configuration resolves to the directory where poudriere build the packages, served by nginx. Next I installed the toolchain, explicitly telling <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pkg</span></span> to use this repository:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;">pkg update
pkg install -r poudriere llvm39
<span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> clean up and exit the chroot</span>
rm /etc/resolv.conf
<span style="color: #ffb054;">exit</span>
</pre>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">Now I can configure poudriere to use the toolchain by creating a <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">/usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/postgres96_103x64-make.conf </span>file with content like this:</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Use clang</span>
CC=clang39
CXX=clang++39
CPP=clang-cpp39
DEFAULT_VERSIONS+=pgsql=9.6 ssl=openssl
</pre>
<br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;">The next step is what took me the longest to figure out, probably because I had not studied how poudriere works with ZFS very carefully. It turns out poudriere makes a snapshot of the jail named <b><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">clean</span></b>, and then clones that snapshot each time it performs a build. So all I needed to do was re-create that snapshot:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-size: small;"> </span> </span></span><br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Recreate snapshot for build</span>
zfs destroy zpoud/poudriere/jails/postgres96_103x64@clean
zfs snapshot zpoud/poudriere/jails/postgres96_103x64@clean
</pre>
<br />
Finally, the build can begin normally, and the custom toolchain will be used:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;"><span style="color: #e1efff;">#</span> Build packages</span>
poudriere bulk -j postgres96_103x64 -p HEAD \
-f /usr/local/etc/poudriere.d/postgres96-port-list
</pre>
<br />
<h3>
Update target system to use poudriere repository</h3>
Once the system's build is complete, it is possible to configure <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pkg</span> on that system to use the toolchain repository via a <span style="font-size: x-small;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/poudriere.conf</span></span> file:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;">poudriere: <span style="color: #e1efff;">{</span>
<span style="color: #ffee80;">url</span><span style="color: #e1efff;">:</span> <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"http://poudriere/packages/postgres96_103x64-HEAD/"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">mirror_type</span>: <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"http"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">signature_type</span>: <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"pubkey"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">pubkey</span>: <span style="color: #0088ff; font-style: italic;">"/usr/local/etc/ssl/certs/poudriere.cert"</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">enabled</span>: <span style="color: #ffee80;">yes</span>,
<span style="color: #ffee80;">priority</span>: <span style="color: #ff628c;">100</span>
<span style="color: #e1efff;">}</span>
</pre>
<br />
Then I copied the certificate from the build host to the file as configured above. I no longer want to use the default FreeBSD packages on this system, so I created a <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">/usr/local/etc/pkg/repos/freebsd.conf</span> file to disable it, with the following content:<br />
<br />
<pre style="background: #002240; color: white;"><span style="color: #ffdd00;">FreeBSD</span>: <span style="color: #e1efff;">{</span>
<span style="color: #ffee80;">enabled</span><span style="color: #e1efff;">:</span> <span style="color: #ffee80;">no</span>
<span style="color: #e1efff;">}</span>
</pre>
<br />
Done! Now, after running <span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">pkg update</span>, all packages will install from the poudriere repository, and I no longer need to compile the software on the system itself.Matt Magoffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05821965053121219155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-70963074838028776692017-05-26T13:04:00.002+12:002018-11-26T10:38:12.544+13:00VivaTech 2017This year <a href="http://www.greenstage.co.nz/">Greenstage</a> will be at <a href="https://vivatechnology.com/">VivaTech</a> in France from June 15th to 17th. We will be sharing our distributed energy solutions with the world and showing off our latest and greatest R&D.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yEoGLTL-VgQ/W_sWLTMGkUI/AAAAAAAAHJ0/4D2sc1Djmt4SRpdClDd0zLe4tbpZCKqrwCLcBGAs/s1600/Vivatechnology-Paris-Startup-Connect-2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="631" data-original-width="1135" height="177" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-yEoGLTL-VgQ/W_sWLTMGkUI/AAAAAAAAHJ0/4D2sc1Djmt4SRpdClDd0zLe4tbpZCKqrwCLcBGAs/s320/Vivatechnology-Paris-Startup-Connect-2.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Viva Technology</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
If you are planning on coming along, check us out in the VivaTech Vinci Energy Lab.<br />
<br />
See you there!
Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-7512336685563745372017-01-10T09:44:00.001+13:002017-05-26T15:26:28.345+12:00Carbon Budget<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><iframe height="360px" src="https://www.mcc-berlin.net/fileadmin/data/clock/carbon_clock.htm" width="600px"></iframe></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Courtesy <a href="https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/about.html">MCC</a>, for more information see: <a href="https://www.mcc-berlin.net/en/research/co2-budget.html">Remaining CO2-budget</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-13102300410919755502016-12-11T19:51:00.003+13:002017-05-26T15:23:44.017+12:00SolarQuant: Experimental Deep Learning for SolarNetwork : Part 1<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<b><br /></b></div>
<div dir="ltr" style="line-height: 1.38; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-top: 0pt;">
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Experiments with Energy Signatures</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">One of the interesting aspects of energy management is being able to react to trends in your energy flows to optimise the way energy is used at your home or business. Understanding the patterns in a building’s energy use allows energy managers to plan and scope the kinds of energy sources needed and figure out how much money that energy will cost them today and in the future. Until recently, this has been something studied by local authorities and planners within large corporations or organisations. However, as rooftop solar systems are becoming more and more common, these energy flows are something you can actually inspect yourself. With <a href="http://solarnetwork.github.io/">SolarNetwork</a>, we’ve demonstrated easy and affordable ways to roll-out energy monitoring across your home or business, using a variety of devices. Once that data is stored in SolarNet, the cloud repository, you can also get to it via the SolarQuery RESTful API from just about any development platform you choose. What we are experimenting with now is one of those applications which we’re calling SolarQuant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">SolarQuant is an application server being written in PHP and MySQL, accessing a non-linear neural network program called emergent. The aim is to produce a "point and shoot" application server that can watch the data coming from a SolarNode - whether it is a single circuit or multiple circuits - and develop an "energy signature" to characterise how energy is used or generated at that location.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><a href="https://grey.colorado.edu/emergent/index.php/Main_Page" target="_blank">emergent</a> is only one of many open-source “deep learning” applications that “learn” based on the examples within a prepared data set. The method of how a neural network works, as I understand it, is that it is a software able to find patterns in data after being exposed to a set of “trials” which represent the examples of how a system has been performing in a certain context represented by input variables. It looks at each of these examples, and runs through them iteratively as a set, creating what are a series of weights that drive a non-linear solution to the problem. It is iterative because it aims to find the best solution by modifying those input weights to see if that helps it get closer to the solution - but it needs to run through <i>all</i> the examples to gauge whether this modification was an improvement. The theory is that by doing this over and over, always following what worked best last time, the neural network gains “experience” with the data, and eventually builds a model - described mostly by the weights it settles to - that may closely describe the real world as measured by the data you collected. And it’s not something that's a “rule of thumb” or a simple calculation - it is a site-specific, non-linear solution that possibly can only be approached using this empirical methodology. I don’t know if the “<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three-body_problem" target="_blank">Three-body Problem</a>” is a proper analogy but I always think of the fact that while two planets in space can have their orbits with relation to each other described by a formula involving their respective masses and the distance between them, there is no such formula for 3 planetary bodies. It’s not that the orbits of 3 planets cannot be found, it’s just that it relies on circumstantial, empirical data and not a formula you can plug values into. Similarly, I believe there is no real ‘formula’ to how you use or generate energy - it just depends on the day, the time, what you’re doing, what kind of loads you have and possibly what the weather is like. We’re calling that resulting pattern your energy signature because the line of energy use - mostly a continuous time series - has that kind of shape: </span><br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/TYHaqQKQ6yW9CdaNEEuQo_LKg3ryYDGe5CGYUammYgwzDczeDZkthQffMNiEc_sie0_38bZF_cC7T1gRLAzrNNgXoeuz6nueA3EjA7M48Gy8TfV_knCLOv3iHbDTszbNKCg_cZFp" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/TYHaqQKQ6yW9CdaNEEuQo_LKg3ryYDGe5CGYUammYgwzDczeDZkthQffMNiEc_sie0_38bZF_cC7T1gRLAzrNNgXoeuz6nueA3EjA7M48Gy8TfV_knCLOv3iHbDTszbNKCg_cZFp" style="border: medium none; font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; transform: rotate(0rad); white-space: pre-wrap;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example of an Energy Signature (lighting)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b></b></span></b></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">
</span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Oahi7dGhtvAw5BR7cd7xJS09OeNRk7DB6wB_B2uXtBXjIU6o5GbzVPADR6TcaD_pFH1MLxnTcUAcxUvTnWmcW_WWYeHtcyPATMQhrc6YS6wu5tcBhOsF9TVsVplYIRBYvgCA-wcm" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Oahi7dGhtvAw5BR7cd7xJS09OeNRk7DB6wB_B2uXtBXjIU6o5GbzVPADR6TcaD_pFH1MLxnTcUAcxUvTnWmcW_WWYeHtcyPATMQhrc6YS6wu5tcBhOsF9TVsVplYIRBYvgCA-wcm" style="border: medium none; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Example of an Energy Signature (hot water)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b> </b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>ARM vs. x86-64 vs. GPU</b></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">So there are a few neural network applications and they run on different processors. And on top of that, there are different ‘algorithms’ that each use to accomplish the development of correlations. In our tests, we are currently using a 3-layer network Back-Propagation algorithm which suited the task, and it is one of the most standard types of neural networks. Much more complex architectures exist today and their complexity is actively handled by what seems to be a geometric growth of faster and cheaper multi-processor machines connected in clusters. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;">Possibly the most interesting innovation these days for deep learning has been the use of GPUs, using software frameworks that can tap the power of their parallel processing ability. Once such software framework is called CUDA (Compute Unified Device Architecture) from nVidia. This framework has been recently supported by emergent, and from the tests carried out by members of that project, the promised acceleration versus CPU is compelling - possibly a 2X - 10X multiple over a 4-core Intel processor and this performance can be achieved from a rather average gaming video card. Given the timeframe needed to develop an accurate energy signature for a building, we thought it would be good to test this out with SolarQuant.</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Selecting your video card</b>
At the moment, the only GPU harnessing libraries that are supported by emergent are CUDA based, which leverages the nVidia chipsets. What seems to be one measure of expected performance is the number of CUDA “cores” on the video card. Given it was an experiment, I purchased the lowest cost nVidia card I could, namely the GTX750Ti, for around $238 NZD. This device seems to have 640 cores. To put this in context, you can see the list of different nVidia adapters and their cores <a href="https://www.studio1productions.com/Articles/NVidia-GPU-Chart.htm" target="_blank">here</a>.
So there are clearly more powerful units out there with several thousand CUDA cores - wow! That’s something to look forward to. Given the beast of a machine that could be built to do this job, I thought we better give these machines names to keep track. So this one is going to be called Taniwha One as an 4-core X86-64 box on emergent v7 and Taniwha Two as a 640-core CUDA computer on emergent v8.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Ubuntu 16.04 and LAMP</b><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
I had the most recent version of Ubuntu, 16.10, loaded on a 3.4Ghz quad-core Intel i7 2600 machine, but when it came to compiling the special CUDA version of emergent, it did not work due to a change in the Qt5 webengine module which was needed for the application. So I installed in parallel a boot of Ubuntu 16.04, and also installed the CUDA 8.0 SDK available for download (quite large I thought at 1.9GB, but nothing major these days with broadband) from nVidia for Ubuntu 16.04 <a href="https://developer.nvidia.com/cuda-downloads" target="_blank">here</a>.
I followed the Build Linux directions for emergent <a href="https://grey.colorado.edu/emergent/index.php/Build_Linux" target="_blank">here</a> but with the added argument to the ./configure command:
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"> </span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">-</span>-cud<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">a</span></span></span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;">
It chugged away for quite a while, but once it finished I set my environmental variable for LD_LIBRARYPATH using my .bashrc file:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br />export LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$HOME/lib:/usr/lib:/usr/local/lib:$LD_LIBRARY_PATH</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
And rebooted. I was then able to login and type into a command prompt window:
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /><br />emergent_cud<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;">a</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "courier new" , "courier" , monospace;"><span style="font-size: x-small; white-space: pre-wrap;"><br /></span></span>
</div>
and up came the familiar GUI development toolset - but it looked pretty stylish this time compared with version 7. <br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fd1ru9NkbkbXvKV5HFquY98IRXReXyCL9L0LEsEG7sFp6P_gGUpwNtKO4HBzYwv7EobJBI0grO-jqdi-8fbtCd9-w7H4c886e7aYnzDrNn7cS9IN-gBFP0cRxhMnYn6FpBzsn1-j" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="emergent version 8" height="400" src="https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/Fd1ru9NkbkbXvKV5HFquY98IRXReXyCL9L0LEsEG7sFp6P_gGUpwNtKO4HBzYwv7EobJBI0grO-jqdi-8fbtCd9-w7H4c886e7aYnzDrNn7cS9IN-gBFP0cRxhMnYn6FpBzsn1-j" style="border: medium none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" title="" width="301" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Emergent version 8</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"></span></span></span><span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"><span id="docs-internal-guid-f6b13247-f1fc-59e3-de97-d011956b25a1"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; vertical-align: baseline;"></span></span></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;"></span></span></span>
<span style="font-family: "arial"; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif; font-size: 16px;">One of the nice things about emergent has been that you can do all your network design, testing and data loading using a GUI tool. The flashy and responsive visualisation of the neural network learning process shows the training process as it happens, and the falling SSE, or Sum Squared Error as it “learns”. For our application, that means that the lower the SSE goes, the better the signature we’ve developed for this SolarNode. You can see a short video of emergent running on an early network we built <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZKIcEvtuBM" target="_blank">here</a> but essentially what matters is that over "Batches" of "Epochs" the network trains on data sets, and develops a signature to describe that data set. This chart below shows for example 3 Batches, each with 1000 epochs, an epoch being one run through your dataset of several thousands trials. As for results of this training, you can see that while not exact, the actual (orange) versus the neural network model of that data once trained (blue) is pretty close.</span></span></span><br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/hb8uD6zFA9huTP4XA3oyEbXvuJPri6lJKwg43yl6mgF8OdXXEIC50Onl3tAmTvzZviGr4zQtmMroEzm73EUBBFgDQulm0tevMstOXmOati5tMEiBwYo8TFwW_9jebf89CIMSFkDv" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img height="200" src="https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/hb8uD6zFA9huTP4XA3oyEbXvuJPri6lJKwg43yl6mgF8OdXXEIC50Onl3tAmTvzZviGr4zQtmMroEzm73EUBBFgDQulm0tevMstOXmOati5tMEiBwYo8TFwW_9jebf89CIMSFkDv" style="border: medium none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">3 Batches showing falling SSE as the NN learns</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Slkd3MBuHmD4YpAZLO0k9JJOgOdSsrtA4EW0vOxeCvuQzyZxqdvHFtaGuOvVITbHQjfWKJAd0WXQS7uMzuZGasuGGiHjQlYqOFJQkUsY1qgrO7c9KZ23pkq6KtaFXcRjLVUaN_yR" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img height="190" src="https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/Slkd3MBuHmD4YpAZLO0k9JJOgOdSsrtA4EW0vOxeCvuQzyZxqdvHFtaGuOvVITbHQjfWKJAd0WXQS7uMzuZGasuGGiHjQlYqOFJQkUsY1qgrO7c9KZ23pkq6KtaFXcRjLVUaN_yR" style="border: medium none; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; transform: rotate(0rad);" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Training results (orange=actual, blue=trained)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span id="docs-internal-guid-e4a9ce27-ec96-be4b-dfe5-9dfe4bd86894"><span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 13.3333px; vertical-align: baseline; white-space: pre-wrap;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "arial"; font-size: 16px; white-space: pre-wrap;"><span style="font-family: "arial" , "helvetica" , sans-serif;"><span style="white-space: pre-wrap;"><b>Compiling emergent v7 and emergent v8</b>
emergent has a new version (v8) but because it is still pretty new, a lot of the development SolarQuant underway has been tested on a stable version (v7.01) which runs well on both Debian and Ubuntu Linux from my experience. And because emergent can run as graphical application <i>or</i> via the command line, it’s a great environment to try out new correlations in a once-off manner with the GUI on your workstation or laptop, or run scheduled training sessions overnight with cron scripting via the commandline. Changing between the two versions on the same boot OS I believe is possible... but just to keep things clean and working, I have separated the two boot partitions. You wouldn't think a laptop could be powerful enough to run a massive compute intensive program like emergent, but it runs fine alongside a LAMP server on a $269 (USD) Dell Inspiron 14. I recently saw <a href="https://system76.com/laptops/oryx" target="_blank">this machine</a> however, and thought it might be a great workstation for this kind of work. And depending on how fast this GTX750Ti is, it may be something to start saving for - the GTX1060 has 1920 cores! - a multiple of 3 from Taniwha Two. Taniwha Three perhaps?
In each of the emergent runtimes, you can set the number of epochs you want to run through - which is essentially how many times you go through your data set, and then batches of these epochs. You can see those 3 falling peaks in the chart above - those are batches. You can even split those batches across multiple processors I understand for further scalability, although I have not tried this yet. After each successful run, you can also output the weights matrix that your network finally got to - these small files hold the cumulative product of the training. You reference this weights matrix when you want to bounce new data off a trained network to get an "answer".
<b>Rebuilding my Back-Propagation network</b>
The only "algorithm" within emergent that can currently take advantage of the CUDA framework is the "bp" or Back-Propagation algorithm. While not the most advanced out there, it is probably appropriate for these kinds of time series experiments, and luckily that is what I've been testing with in SolarQuant.
One of the cool aspects of emergent is that it contains a whole scripting language of its own which you can use to customise what you want it to do when your network project gets loaded. By passing arguments to the command line for emergent, you can tell it which program you want to run, which batches you want to run, and other important information like input data files to work with or matrix weights to start with. Because version 8 is a whole new build, the project file that I developed in v7 cannot be simply opened in v8, but has to be “rebuilt” which is essentially creating it again, defining the layers and setting the programs, using the new GUI. We’ll see how that process goes, but I intend to be able to do side by side comparisons between Taniwha One and Taniwha Two.
<b>Next post</b>: Check in on how we’re doing with performance testing in Part 2...</span></span></span>
John Gormanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298059444501967909noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-78220568551411717662016-12-05T12:06:00.001+13:002017-05-26T15:25:08.922+12:00University of Canterbury Motorsport (UCM)Greenstage is proud to be supporting the <a href="http://ucmotorsport.com/cars.php">University of Canterbury Motorsport</a> team with their first full electric entry in the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Formula_SAE">Formula SAE</a> competition. They have put together a beast of a car which is looking likely to do the business!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uVfiMHShMgg/WESIX1YMJ3I/AAAAAAAAGXY/jUotZsEdTlAKsxZytekEJEV8QxD1aSE1gCLcB/s1600/UCM-UniversityCanterburyMotorsport.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="266" src="https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-uVfiMHShMgg/WESIX1YMJ3I/AAAAAAAAGXY/jUotZsEdTlAKsxZytekEJEV8QxD1aSE1gCLcB/s400/UCM-UniversityCanterburyMotorsport.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UCM's 2016 Formula SAE entry </td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Earlier in the year Greenstage provided advice on battery pack building and the UCM team paid a few visits to make use of our Myachi Unitech battery welder (which we use for nickle or copper foil welding during pack building with 18650 or 26650 cells).<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
The engineering skills and quick iterations and improvements in the UCM pack designs were impressive.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MmEzHn0ROuU/WESfvnvjyLI/AAAAAAAAGXk/i5xeoxVw6Ocm4cSdUYsc8palZ-fQigyNwCLcB/s1600/UCM-Team2-small.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="154" src="https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-MmEzHn0ROuU/WESfvnvjyLI/AAAAAAAAGXk/i5xeoxVw6Ocm4cSdUYsc8palZ-fQigyNwCLcB/s200/UCM-Team2-small.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">UCM engineers in action</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
It's pleasing to see these skills and capabilities being fostered by <a href="http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/">University of Canterbury</a>. I would strongly recommend any budding Engineering student to get involved in a Formula SAE team if they get the chance (especially if it's electric).<br />
<br />
Good luck to the UCM team as they head into the <a href="http://www.saea.com.au/event-2232758?CalendarViewType=1&SelectedDate=12/5/2016">competition</a> phase!Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-66603584622029101302016-09-19T05:47:00.000+12:002016-09-19T05:47:55.832+12:00SolarNetwork guides updatedI've been updating and adding to our <a href="https://github.com/SolarNetwork/solarnetwork/wiki/User-Guide">user</a> and <a href="https://github.com/SolarNetwork/solarnetwork/wiki/Developer-Guide">developer</a> guides for the SolarNetwork platform. Remember the whole SolarNetwork platform is open source, so it's easy to jump in and start using it. If you need any help or you have a project that needs development resources, please do get in touch. We are ready and waiting to help.Matt Magoffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05821965053121219155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-83060733326176668802015-07-28T08:36:00.000+12:002015-09-28T14:09:41.576+13:00PicoGrid Energy Audit<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">While there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and a highly beneficial option for many buildings, it is important to select a <b>reliable </b>project partner with your best interests at heart.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Before going solar, you need to determine the right type and size of system based on your roof size location and angle and based on your electricity consumption habits. That way you can ensure you are investing in the best possible system for your future.</span><br />
<br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">A <a href="http://www.picogrid.com/products/picogrid-audit/">PicoGrid Energy Audit</a> allows you to better understand this context by providing you with a <b>personalised assessment</b> of your energy consumption habits and the <b>generation potential</b> of your roof.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">We believe that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewable energy projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Photovoltaics">PV</a> system possible at the cheapest possible price, but to help you select the most suitable solution for your building in order to maximize the financial return (<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_on_investment">ROI</a>) and hence reduce your costs.</span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">What you want to avoid buying is an oversized PV system that exports excessive power to the grid, with low feed-in tariffs in New Zealand, that is just wasting money. Better to stagger the system over time to <b>suit your needs</b> and to invest in appropriate energy efficiency measures to improve the financial return of the project.</span><br />
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div>
<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">This is all about <b>knowing and understanding your energy information</b> and this is what the PicoGrid Energy Audit will do for you. Below is an overview of the PicoGrid Energy Audit process: </span><br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rRgobQsfEsI/VgiS0Ghq2ZI/AAAAAAAADJw/32Wxsav9Nb8/s1600/PicoGrid_Process.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-rRgobQsfEsI/VgiS0Ghq2ZI/AAAAAAAADJw/32Wxsav9Nb8/s320/PicoGrid_Process.jpg" width="248" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif;">PicoGrid Energy Audit - For optimal Solar PV project design.</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">For more information on PicoGrid Energy Audits, please check out the PicoGrid Energy Audit <a href="http://www.picogrid.com/products/picogrid-audit/">website</a>, or contact us on 0508 742 647 or via <a href="mailto:info@greenstage.co.nz">email</a> to book an appointment.</span></div>
</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
<div style="text-align: left;">
<span data-sheets-userformat="[null,null,961,[null,0],null,null,null,null,null,0,0,4,0]" data-sheets-value="[null,2,"See if you can wirte a blog post (just in google docs to start with) that talks about our Solar Audit process and how this compares to a company that is just selling and installing solar PV gear. Start with your perspective on this, see what you can come up with!\n\nWhile there is no doubt that renewable energy has the potential to be very cost-effective and highly beneficial option for houses, it is important to select a reliable project partner in order to maximize that potential.\nBefore going solar, you need to determine whether your roof and habits are suitable for solar panels but also define the right type and size for your future system. A Picogrid Solar Audit allows you to better understand this context by providing you a personalized assessment of your energy consumption habits and the generation potential of your roof. \nUnlike most companies, Picogrid believes that the best way to promote the development of renewable energy is to make renewables projects more business-friendly for all project partners. Indeed, the aim is not to sell you the biggest solar system but to help you select the most suitable one for your house in order to maximize the potential of this technology and reduce your expenses.(...) \n"]" style="font-family: arial, sans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><br /></span></div>
</div>
Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-42942151353518080862015-01-16T00:20:00.000+13:002015-07-20T14:27:25.519+12:00#LeadingTheChargeA fleet of <a href="http://www.teslamotors.com/">Tesla</a> electric cars has just completed a length of New Zealand trip from Cape Reinga to the Bluff. This has been a very tangible demonstration of arguably what are now the best cars in the world (electric or otherwise).<br />
<br />
If you want to check these cars out (and a range of other electric cars), they will be on display in Auckland at Aotea Square, 1pm this Sunday.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ti8zGaH_WcU/VLeV1XZROlI/AAAAAAAACrc/uX9B-umYIyo/s1600/TeslaBadgeMedium2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="170" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-Ti8zGaH_WcU/VLeV1XZROlI/AAAAAAAACrc/uX9B-umYIyo/s1600/TeslaBadgeMedium2.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;"> </span><span style="font-size: xx-small; text-align: start;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">More info is available on LeadingTheCharge's FB page <a href="https://www.facebook.com/LeadingTheCharge">here</a>.<br />Photo: courtesy </span></span><span style="font-size: x-small;">Steve Fitzhugh</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Don't miss out!Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-26946488653710565162014-11-27T21:45:00.002+13:002015-07-20T14:26:49.192+12:00EVolocity this weekend!If you are in the know, you will have your tickets already, if not, get them now!<br />
<div>
<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://evolocity.co.nz/" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="228" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3nyFQczdilE/VHbjxj35KDI/AAAAAAAACqY/O-Mxz5s0Nvs/s1600/EVolocity.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">EVolocity 2014 is at Ruapuna, Christchurch, New Zealand.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div>
<br />
<div>
Buy your tickets now: <a href="http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/tickets/new-zealand/tour/2014/evolocity">http://www.eventfinder.co.nz/tickets/new-zealand/tour/2014/evolocity</a></div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
Also, for those who want to know more, there is a good write up on the event <a href="http://autofile.co.nz/stars-arrive-for-ev-event/">here</a>.</div>
<div>
<br /></div>
<div>
See you there!</div>
</div>
Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-74164655854078827252014-08-26T08:37:00.000+12:002014-08-28T09:02:42.672+12:00A Distributed Electricity Company (The Future of the Modern Electricity Network) - PART 2 of 3The volume of distributed generation is climbing (as discussed in the <a href="http://blog.greenstage.co.nz/2014/08/a-distributed-electricity-company_6.html">first post</a>). This trend will continue and it will ultimately reduce demand on centralised plants. Although, due to the need for stability and continuity of supply, centralised infrastructure and plants will continue to be needed.<br />
<br />
When combined with the need to update and renew ageing infrastructure, centralised plants have reducing revenue streams and static or increasing costs. Hence, the cost of buying power from centralised plants must and will increase (in the US <a href="http://www.desertsun.com/story/money/business/2014/04/22/rooftop-solar-southern-california-edison-utilities-seek-electric-rate-increases/7995093/">this is already happening</a>, for a NZ context, have a look at this <a href="https://www.google.co.nz/search?q=electricity+price+rises+nz&oq=electricity+price+rises">google search</a> both now and in the coming years).<br />
<br />
<b>Net result:</b> The price of Grid purchased electricity is going to continue to climb.<br />
<br />
<i>Note: I haven't talked about other drivers for electricity price increases (e.g. privatisation and the need for good profit margins), plenty of others are discussing that already.</i><br />
<i><br /></i>
One very good way of insulating yourself from this trend is to join the growing throng of people who generate their own electricity.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LpLalscNdPc/U_21yKIgKnI/AAAAAAAACpE/A2zUIuov0mw/s1600/PV_Panel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-LpLalscNdPc/U_21yKIgKnI/AAAAAAAACpE/A2zUIuov0mw/s1600/PV_Panel.jpg" height="195" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photovoltaic (PV) panels generate electricity from sunlight</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Not everyone has the financial means to purchase and install their own PV system though (even if the ongoing financial benefits <a href="http://www.picogrid.com/products/picogrid-audit/">make sense</a>, you still need capital readily available to purchase the system in the first place). This effectively creates a roadblock for many people.<br />
<br />
There are some solutions to this conundrum. In the next and final post in the series on Distributed Electricity I will discuss the options.Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-33847024244438942232014-08-06T21:09:00.000+12:002014-08-26T08:58:46.656+12:00A Distributed Electricity Company (The Future of the Modern Electricity Network) - PART 1 of 3Now that the NZ government has <a href="http://www.3news.co.nz/The-Governments-asset-sales-plan---FAQ/tabid/1607/articleID/245515/Default.aspx">sold off a decent chunk of our generation assets</a>, it's probably OK to let the cat out of the bag (releasing this cat is a double edged sword, read on for an explanation).<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9iWLy0JE7LU/U9NJImeW0XI/AAAAAAAACoc/bjjcPxKUXQE/s1600/canal-view-cropped.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-9iWLy0JE7LU/U9NJImeW0XI/AAAAAAAACoc/bjjcPxKUXQE/s1600/canal-view-cropped.jpg" height="140" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Mountains, water and electricity<br />
(much of New Zealand's electricity is hydro generated).<br />
Photo: courtesy Martin Stewart</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
To date, all of the arguments used to justify the sale of the assets fail logical reasoning. When it can be shown that the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Return_on_investment">ROI</a> of these assets <a href="http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10776792">vastly out strips the cost of money</a>, it's hard to argue that selling these assets was a wise choice (the partial sale of these electricity generation asset has returned about <a href="http://www.treasury.govt.nz/government/assets/saleshistory">4.3 Billion dollars</a> to the government).<br />
<br />
Having said that, the government has left a key piece of information out of the story, a piece of information that can change this logical argument. The fact is that the commercial value of these assets will be much less in the future (<a href="http://motherboard.vice.com/read/why-morgan-stanley-is-betting-that-tesla-will-kill-your-power-company">something the industry already knows</a>). This will happen due to technology and market price changes on the horizon, changes that are already under way now.<br />
<br />
What is happening is a slow but steadily increasing uptake of distributed renewable generation and this has a big effect on the electricity market. An example of this can be seen in Australia, where the electricity spot market has recently gone negative in the middle of the day (yes, that means people are being <a href="http://reneweconomy.com.au/2014/solar-sends-energy-prices-below-zero-in-middle-of-day-63767">paid to consume power</a>!). <br />
<br />
To be specific, the "Key Information" the government has left out of the public debate is: "As the cost of equipment for generating renewable energy continues to plummet, the value of the old industrial scale generation assets will drop."<br />
<br />
From my perspective, this key information is the only "logical" way the government could internally justify the sale of these assets, because it means the country gets out while the capital value is high. Of course there is also the ideological based reasoning that government ownership should be minimised, I don't think this simple reasoning can be considered logical though. I'm also not sure what would hold more sway in the government caucus, ideology or logic?<br />
<br />
Of course being honest about this information wouldn't have been a wise move from the governments perspective. If you are trying to maximise the sale price of these assets (and your determined to sell), this is the last thing you want being discussed in the media...<br />
<br />
In the next post, I'll be discussing how these changes will affect us all.Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-61605523586805570872014-05-02T16:04:00.000+12:002015-07-20T14:30:05.073+12:00SolarNode plugin system<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
A long time ago SolarNode development switched from a traditional style Java application to a modular <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/OSGi">OSGi</a> based one. One of the reasons for the switch was the premise of allowing users to easily download and use SolarNode modules without having to restart the SolarNode application. In OSGi installing, starting, stopping, and uninstalling modules (called<b> </b><i>bundles</i> in OSGi) is fairly trivial. What SolarNode has lacked, however, was any friendly UI to allow users to browse the available modules and install the ones they want.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Finally that is about to change. The first step to enabling this feature was the deployment of a SolarNetwork-hosted software repository. There are a few open source packages out there, I ended up using <a href="http://archiva.apache.org/">Apache Archiva</a>. Now SolarNetwork has a <a href="http://maven.apache.org/">Maven</a>-compatible <a href="https://data.solarnetwork.net/archive/">online software repository</a> to host its own modules, and the build infrastructure has been updated to easily publish modules as they are developed.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zM_RuKG2ywE/U2MoDKmc30I/AAAAAAAACnI/fkN8EWTTNz8/s1600/SolarNewtork_Repository.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="241" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-zM_RuKG2ywE/U2MoDKmc30I/AAAAAAAACnI/fkN8EWTTNz8/s1600/SolarNewtork_Repository.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Browsing the SolarNetwork Repository</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The next step was to make use of the <a href="http://felix.apache.org/site/apache-felix-osgi-bundle-repository.html">OSGi Bundle Repository</a> (OBR) developed as part of Apache Felix. OBR provides a way to resolve OSGi bundles along with their dependencies. Unfortunately, Archiva does not publish OBR metadata so I turned to another Apache project, <a href="https://karaf.apache.org/index/subprojects/cave.html">Karaf Cave</a>. Cave can act as a OBR proxy to a Maven repository, in which case it scans the Maven repository and generates <a href="https://data.solarnetwork.net/obr/solarnetwork-stage-node-repository.xml">OBR metadata files</a> from which the OBR resource URLs point back to the artifacts in the Maven repository.</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
The final step was to develop some SolarNode bundles to enable configuring OBR URLs and a UI to allow users to browse the available software and install or remove individual modules. You can see the result of this work in the following demonstration:</div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7055510788451123628" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7055510788451123628" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Hg14tGwmZ9g?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>
<div class="" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7055510788451123628" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7055510788451123628" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div>
This is a big step forward both in terms of ease of use for users and the SolarNode software development process!</div>
Matt Magoffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05821965053121219155noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-34760762603255302782014-04-13T23:06:00.000+12:002014-04-13T23:08:17.254+12:00EvolocityThe future is often driven by excitement and youthful enthusiasm. <a href="http://evolocity.co.nz/">Evolocity</a> has launched today with this thought very much front of mind. The goal is to accelerate New Zealand's development and uptake of EV knowledge and technology.<br />
<br />
By combining Motorsport and project based learning targeted at a range of different age groups and skill levels, I think this is set to be a winner.<br />
<br />
In addition to the hands on projects for engineering teams, there are also competition categories for video production and social marketing, so there's likely something for everyone.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fuAj94TCCf0/U0prq9U8vrI/AAAAAAAACm0/F87T6RCdT3o/s1600/Evolocity.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fuAj94TCCf0/U0prq9U8vrI/AAAAAAAACm0/F87T6RCdT3o/s1600/Evolocity.jpg" height="112" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Evolocity project build options</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Full details are available from the Evolocity website: <a href="http://evolocity.co.nz/">http://evolocity.co.nz</a><br />
<br />
Check it out and get your team going!Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-81304809200772241172013-11-19T22:20:00.000+13:002017-05-26T15:30:03.279+12:00Timing is everything...One of the most important events in humanity's brief history will be our transition to a space-faring species, this event will require daring, innovation and drive. Another significant event will be the end of traditional economic growth. The timing of these two events may be fundamental to determining our ability to continue the expansion of knowledge and the associated rapid growth in technology and human capabilities.<br />
<br />
If you apply a logical mind to the realities of the physical planet we live on, its clear our <a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/can-economic-growth-last/">growth based economic system</a> cannot continue.<br />
<br />
If we take the view shared by most Economists, there is a demand for continued economic growth, year-on-year percentage increases, it is a little scary to see where this will eventually lead us (its an exponential curve of never ending consumption). Assuming we are able to continue economic growth at a rate of 2.3% per year, its possible to show that we have at most <a href="http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/07/galactic-scale-energy/">275</a> years before things come to a screeching halt. This is not due to some financial limitation, but due to real physical limits of life and the planet we live on.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TTvS5vpJbVs/UfuGnsEYUcI/AAAAAAAABpQ/xq7A4OZfYfI/s1600/earth.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="115" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TTvS5vpJbVs/UfuGnsEYUcI/AAAAAAAABpQ/xq7A4OZfYfI/s320/earth.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Planet Earth<br />
(PHOTO: courtesy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasacommons/5052125231">Nasa</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
If this statement seems absurd, read the links above (if maths and science are not your thing, you might need to find a maths geek to read them and then have a conversation about implications with respect to economic growth etc). The reality is that it would be physically impossible for humanity to continue a 2.3% growth rate right up to this end point, but it does quite explicitly show that it cannot and will not continue forever.<br />
<br />
There is only one inevitable conclusion. i.e. that the pursuit of year on year growth will ultimately come to an end. It seems clear to me we have three options from this point on:<br />
<ol>
<li>Chaotic collapse caused by over consumption, resource depletion and pollution with greatly reduced prosperity and the destruction of society as we know it (i.e. forced and uncontrolled transition away from growth caused by physical limits)</li>
<li>Controlled transition to a <a href="http://steadystate.org/">steady state economy</a> with opportunities for continued prosperity and the enrichment of human society and culture.</li>
<li>Become a space-faring species and export our economy (and associated exponential growth) into the wider solar system and the universe beyond.</li>
</ol>
Choosing option 1 is likely to shut the door on options 2 and 3 for a very long time, if not forever. Options 2 and 3 should be achievable either on their own or together. If we can make our way to option 3, the wider human economy may continue to grow out into space with the unbounded limits that traditional Economists and their theories desire and require.<br />
<br />
In my opinion, aiming for option 3 with an interim plan to transition smoothly to a steady state economy is a wise choice. It buys us time to get things right.<br />
<br />
Food for thought as we live our lives and make our decisions in the coming weeks, months and years... <br />
<br />Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-12070610495064059282013-09-26T09:53:00.002+12:002015-07-20T14:29:43.855+12:00Context for Distributed Generation Energy Management in NZ<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
When you look at the rest of the world, there are a lot of solar PV installations happening out there. I’m not talking about hobbyists and niche deployments but <a href="http://www.engadget.com/2013/07/02/apple-reno-nevada-solar-farm/">industrial MW scale</a> energy plants. Admittedly, it follows a boom and bust cycle that’s driven by the whims of governments who support renewable portfolios....sometimes. Looks like Australia is in for another spin on the merry-go-round with the results of the <a href="http://solarscorecard.org.au/warringah/liberal/tony-abbott">most recent election</a>.</div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w9rfdxqYLsM/UkQibHhgBDI/AAAAAAAACFY/xajJdAgEmB8/s1600/SolarEnergy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-w9rfdxqYLsM/UkQibHhgBDI/AAAAAAAACFY/xajJdAgEmB8/s200/SolarEnergy.jpg" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Powerful and renewable: Solar Energy<br />
(PHOTO: courtesy <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/gsfc/9103296900/">Nasa</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Oh well. With solar, it’s always a bad idea to espouse “shortermism.” However, when you look at the higher-quality, super durable gear - IEC 61701 certified monocrystalline modules, AS/NZS 4777 certified grid-connect inverters, AS/NZS 1170 rated roof mounting - there’s a lot of long-term value there. Everyone is talking about solar PV grid-connect at the moment, but really that’s only one aspect of energy management that companies need to think about. Other aspects are: how and when you use energy, how to intelligently conserve power, what the weather is going to be like, how much solar will deliver as a percentage of total consumption, and all the inter-related data that comes from the dynamic interaction of these daily trends. Not in abstract generalities, but for your business specifically.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
While in NZ there is ample renewable power - world-leading levels in fact! - it shouldn’t stop our engineering community from developing the tools that let companies manage those energy and financial flows themselves. Given that there’s a large contingent of “<a href="http://www.med.govt.nz/business/business-growth-internationalisation/small-and-medium-sized-enterprises">small to medium sized enterprises</a>” in NZ (SMEs if you want to talk in biz jargon), shouldn’t there be a set of services that hand over the energy management reins to the SME’s <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chief_operating_officer">COO</a>? That is, not a technologist but a business focused person. Yes: the solar hardware is available today, and skilled installers are doing some great work in NZ. In fact, there’s actually a very compelling business case to be made for quality grid-connect systems PV in NZ. But what about the business tools that let an SME manage, measure and report how their specific energy flows - and cash flows - are going. Are those tools available?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
You may ask: “Why do we need them - isn’t the power bill good enough?” Well, it’s true that the data is available each month, but what about acting on that data - as it happens? For example: say your target SME is a distributor with a large warehouse roof. Their hours of operation are standard daytime hours, which is when they use the majority of their power, lights, forklifts, computers. It would make sense for the solar energy hitting that vast roof to offset the power bills as much as possible. With some smarts on maximizing locally-generated energy, turning things off, maximizing loads during sunny hours, you could provide empirical calculations on energy use for immediate reporting and financial forecasts. Studies show that people who have a simple visualization of their energy use save between 5% and 15% on their power bill. Add in intelligent solar PV self-consumption and we’re talking about active, web-based, holistic energy management.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
Commercial Solar PV in New Zealand is happening, but perhaps not as fast or as broadly as you’d think, for a nation with <a href="http://www.nzenergymap.org.nz/">so much sun</a>. This is because there’s no real assurance that the investment is going to be worth it. And so far, not many examples of companies that have taken the step. We see lots of smart-grid, smart-home promises for the future. But when those solutions are coming from the labs of electricity retailers....that’s like buying Hen Management Services from Mr. Fox isn’t it? I mean, c’mon - how can we really get this in gear?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
But things are changing, I’m thinking it might be more of a chicken-and-egg situation. If there were an easy-to-implement, solid cloud-based software made available to SMEs, along with some case studies of the benefits, there would be a lot more takers of quality solar PV equipment to offset local consumption. An SME wouldn’t have to invent something themselves, they wouldn’t have to take a risk as an early adopter. Instead, they could quickly implement an existing proven system and tweak it for their business. Business people - not technicians - could review the case studies of comparable firms and say “yep, this energy profile is very like ours - and hey, look at their results. We could do that.” The big picture result would be that, as a group, NZ SMEs could start using more locally-generated power. That means <a href="http://www.ilsr.org/why-support-locally-owned-businesses/">the local multiplier effect</a> starts to kick in, and that leads to more local wealth. Real wealth, not the “wealth” of short-termers. Plus, there’s the good practice of using more renewable energy in your local community. Cool! Why not collaborate here in NZ as engineers to provide those solutions for SMEs to act on their energy use - and start building some really advanced, site-specific solutions today?</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
One reason I say this is that there are a lot of solid technical options that are emerging to manage energy flows. Take a look at the JF2 LATA switch. This is a reliable, affordable industrial CANbus switch that gives you switching as well as state information about each circuit. Packaged in neat DIN rail compatible units, you can daisy-chain these devices across kilometers of warehouse, using standard CAT5 wiring. Not only does it save AC wiring costs - because you can avoid AC runs to the switch - but it gives you intricate, durable remote control over a multitude of circuits. Control you can implement from secure cloud-based software. And guess what? <a href="http://sourceforge.net/projects/lata/">LATA is open source</a> and made in New Zealand.</div>
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1PAROu9HN9o/UkLEwxFZKPI/AAAAAAAADkI/eYwcndpsl-c/s1600/modbusComponent.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="242" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-1PAROu9HN9o/UkLEwxFZKPI/AAAAAAAADkI/eYwcndpsl-c/s1600/modbusComponent.png" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Configuring a SolarNetwork hardware compnent</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
But this is just the start. Here at Greenstage, we are building out that <a href="http://www.solarnetwork.net/">software framework</a>, using an enterprise base, and Open Source licenses. We talk to lots of different <a href="http://www.greenstage.co.nz/products.html">pieces of hardware</a> (the LATA is just one example), in a very logical, repeatable and modular fashion - employing open standards wherever we can. Meanwhile, as computing becomes ubiquitous, powerful and inexpensive, the ability to automate the collection of energy information and provide actionable steps to enterprises is now available. The need for energy - renewable energy especially - is only increasing as electric vehicles become available, while both petrol and grid power prices keep rising consistently over the long term. Can you see it? I believe that collectively, we can prime the pump by identifying SME’s requirements, and providing holistic solutions tailored to their business needs. We can start doing this by building out a NZ-based toolkit that gives them actionable options on their energy information.</div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
OK enough talking: who wants to join us on the journey? Lets make this happen!</div>
John Gormanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298059444501967909noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-35338071512330841602013-05-22T23:33:00.002+12:002020-04-06T16:45:07.505+12:00Auckland EV charging goes live!Earlier in the month we powered on the <a href="http://www.greenstage.co.nz/">Greenstage</a> charging station for the first time (this is the 3rd one in NZ according to <a href="http://www.apev.org.nz/EV-Charging-Locations">APEV</a>). This provides charging via a variety of connectors and should cater for any Electric Vehicle in the country. A vehicle that can connect to a standard New Zealand 10 Amp 240V socket, a 16 Amp EN 60309 2P+E socket (commonly used in motor homes and camping grounds) or a 32 Amp J1772 connector will be able to use the Greenstage charging station.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O0fI8GYR_MU/UZvYKF7lmEI/AAAAAAAABIY/kN3TFd6pZGY/s1600/greenstage_charging_station.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-O0fI8GYR_MU/UZvYKF7lmEI/AAAAAAAABIY/kN3TFd6pZGY/s200/greenstage_charging_station.jpg" width="65" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greenstage charging station</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The charging stations can also be connected to the <a href="http://www.solarnetwork.net/">SolarNetwork</a>. This allows charge station owners to control and monitor usage. For example, if it's installed in a public place, it's possible to configure the station to require an EV owner to login to the SolarNetwork and optionally provide payment before charging begins. This hopefully encourages more people to make their own charging infrastructure public and allows the charge station owner to be remunerated for the service they are providing and the electricity consumed during the charge. If 50% of EV owners make their charging infrastructure public, it would be a quick way to create a nation wide network!<br />
<br />
Currently Greenstage's Auckland based charging station is free and available for friendly EV'ers to drop in any time. It is located at <a href="https://maps.google.co.nz/maps/ms?msa=0&msid=204393138126651002202.0004a9492de60deb502c3&hl=en&ie=UTF8&ll=-36.860665,174.753173&spn=0.001749,0.003484&t=m&z=19&vpsrc=6&iwloc=0004dd4d20c0c9a466051">19 Newton Rd</a> in the city if you want to check it out and top your EV up.<br />
<br />
If you are planning on popping in, please let us know. We would love to hear any thoughts or feedback on your experience (send it in via <a href="mailto:info@greenstage.co.nz">email</a>, or comment below). As a bonus, if you charge while the sun is shining, your car will receive solar generated electricity from the rooftop PV array :)<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E2hFQ6ck_eY/XoqzNWXPwJI/AAAAAAAAN_8/hva5n-KxY8UxM-vvMTM2JBKWKcSYZ7gaQCLcBGAsYHQ/s1600/screen_shot_2013-04-03_at_4.38.01_pm.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="687" data-original-width="699" height="196" src="https://1.bp.blogspot.com/-E2hFQ6ck_eY/XoqzNWXPwJI/AAAAAAAAN_8/hva5n-KxY8UxM-vvMTM2JBKWKcSYZ7gaQCLcBGAsYHQ/s200/screen_shot_2013-04-03_at_4.38.01_pm.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
PV on the roof!</div>
<div style="font-size: 12.8px;">
(PHOTO: Tony Nyberg, courtesy <a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20150217122439/http://idealog.co.nz/venture/2013/04/green-dream">Idealog</a>)</div>
</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Big thanks to Smart Sparky, <a href="http://www.electrex.co.nz/">Electrex</a> and <a href="http://www.juicepoint.co.nz/">JuicePoint</a> (the suppliers of the J1772 charging equipment) for making this happen.<br />
<br />
--PhilipPhilip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-17301917446750385672013-03-26T16:22:00.003+13:002015-07-20T14:30:35.626+12:00SolarQuery web service APII've recently been working on improving the interface for external applications that interact with and access data from the <a href="http://www.solarnetwork.net/">SolarNetwork</a>. Here is a quick update on where things are at.<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>SolarQuery</i> is the SolarNetwork application that exposes web services for querying the data collected by SolarNodes. <i>SolarQuery</i> is what enables data visualizations like <a href="http://data.solarnetwork.net/cm/cm.html" rel="nofollow">Consumption Monitor</a> and <a href="http://data.solarnetwork.net/tau/tau.html" rel="nofollow">Generation Monitor</a>. This API is still being developed, but we've created a <a href="http://data.solarnetwork.net/dev/api/sample.html" rel="nofollow">API Sampler</a> page that demonstrates the latest API.<br />
<br />
The sampler also demonstrates the <b>SolarNetworkWS</b> authorization scheme used by the web API. This scheme is modeled after <a href="http://docs.aws.amazon.com/AmazonS3/latest/dev/RESTAuthentication.html">Amazon's AWS scheme</a> used by RESTful services like S3 and uses the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash-based_message_authentication_code">HMAC-SHA1</a> hash scheme to authenticate and sign each request. Owners of SolarNodes can log into the <i>SolarUser</i> application to manage their nodes and create security tokens:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XX9cwWyPMzA/UVERxU4rIQI/AAAAAAAAAAg/HzfJiKPJt_g/s1600/data-tokens-ui.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="104" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-XX9cwWyPMzA/UVERxU4rIQI/AAAAAAAAAAg/HzfJiKPJt_g/s320/data-tokens-ui.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />
These tokens are then used by the <i>SolarQuery</i> web API, and the API Sampler page shows how to properly sign each request using the tokens (it uses the open-source <a href="http://code.google.com/p/crypto-js/">crypto-js</a> library to handle the HMAC encoding). The sampler also provides API method templates to quickly test different methods, and will show the results of the method call directly in the page:<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GM7ES-FMzjU/UVESHutOSJI/AAAAAAAAAAo/vj8FQvNFb5Q/s1600/web-service-sampler.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-GM7ES-FMzjU/UVESHutOSJI/AAAAAAAAAAo/vj8FQvNFb5Q/s640/web-service-sampler.png" width="328" /></a></div>
After the web service API is expanded and has sufficiently stabilized, we'll create more complete documentation on the API.<br />
<br />
Any feedback is appreciated.<br />
<br />
Enjoy!<br />
<br />Matt Magoffinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05821965053121219155noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-3024146287242941222012-11-20T23:24:00.002+13:002012-11-26T23:30:50.861+13:00Sunday in review (the Greenstage Gathering)<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
</div>
We had a great turnout on Sunday, with people coming and going all day long. Plenty of EVs onsite with people just dropping in to <a href="https://picasaweb.google.com/107205339527327731529/20121118GreenstageMeetingNewtonRd02?authuser=0&authkey=Gv1sRgCJbokNycnLeeAQ&feat=directlink">show off their cars</a> and others coming to see what's happening and what's possible for them. This is exactly what we like to see!<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F-CObcMhQIU/UKtBCb47GtI/AAAAAAAAAbg/Ahe_BkphYkg/s1600/GatheringEVs2.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="147" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-F-CObcMhQIU/UKtBCb47GtI/AAAAAAAAAbg/Ahe_BkphYkg/s400/GatheringEVs2.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greenstage Gathering 2012</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
The underlying community focus and vision from Greenstage (and the associated Open Source technology projects, <a href="http://www.tumanako.net/">Tumanako</a> and <a href="http://www.solarnetwork.net/">SolarNetwork</a>) is explained within the 2012 <a href="http://www.greenstage.co.nz/PDFs/GreenstageFlyer2012.pdf">flyer</a>, please download this and share it around or have a look at the image below.<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MGMjypmhur4/UKrTXLZw3NI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/y7Zxj5S2Qdg/s1600/GreenstageFlyer2012.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="283" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-MGMjypmhur4/UKrTXLZw3NI/AAAAAAAAAbQ/y7Zxj5S2Qdg/s400/GreenstageFlyer2012.png" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Greenstage Community Focus</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Mid afternoon we demonstrated the SolarNetwork enabled charging pedestal in action, we showed how this facilitates the sharing of existing charging infrastructure amongst EV owners. People registered with the SolarNetwork can enable other peoples charging pedestals anywhere around the country (assuming the owners of the pedestal have granted permission for this). They do this using the Android based <a href="http://sourceforge.net/apps/mediawiki/tumanako/index.php?title=Dashboard">Tumanako Dashboard</a> which uses wireless communications to activate the charging pedestal (as well as activating charging pedestals, this dashboard also monitors your EV performance while driving). <br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DLtfNUMVRgM/UKtQEDP9nwI/AAAAAAAAAb0/OoMJJFqp0uI/s1600/2012-11-20_22-31-02.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="192" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-DLtfNUMVRgM/UKtQEDP9nwI/AAAAAAAAAb0/OoMJJFqp0uI/s320/2012-11-20_22-31-02.jpg" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Tumanako Dashboard</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
This is a very low cost way of creating a charging network that grows as demand grows (every EV owner already installs some form of charging infrastructure at home, so even if only 50% of EV owners join the network, this will easily create a nationwide distributed EV charging infrastructure).<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7jgSRIUZKU/UKrOYeEoQiI/AAAAAAAAAbA/nreOQh-urbw/s1600/TheBoysChargingTheirToys.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="272" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-f7jgSRIUZKU/UKrOYeEoQiI/AAAAAAAAAbA/nreOQh-urbw/s320/TheBoysChargingTheirToys.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Community Charging</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Not to be outdone, Chris Olsen announced the <a href="http://www.energyshare.co.nz/">Energy Share</a> co-op to great excitement. Already it's obvious that people have been hanging out for this and that the co-op is going to be a game changer with respect to personal energy independence. You can download more information on EnergyShare from <a href="http://www.energyshare.co.nz/#%21information/c9w">here</a> and if you are ready to join and get involved, please fill in the <a href="http://www.energyshare.co.nz/#%21join/c1a9w">online form</a>.<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mzZ7OoAtgpg/UK4ImotWP6I/AAAAAAAAAcU/473_RzBvbpo/s1600/EnergyShareLogo.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mzZ7OoAtgpg/UK4ImotWP6I/AAAAAAAAAcU/473_RzBvbpo/s1600/EnergyShareLogo.png" /></a></div>
<br />
So all in all it was a great day. Lots of learning, lots of fun and lots of opportunity for everyone. I know I haven't covered everything, but please feel free to share your thoughts and experiences in the comments section below, the more we share the more everyone benefits.<br />
<br />
Finally, these gatherings don't happen on their own, its the community that brings it all together. So a big thanks to <a href="http://www.greylynndogs.com/">Grey Lynn Dogs</a>, Switch EV, <a href="http://electrex.co.nz/">Electrex</a>, Stewart Design, <a href="http://diamondage.co.nz/">Diamond Age Solutions</a>, <a href="http://www.andrewsimms.co.nz/">Andrew Simms Mitsubishi</a>, <a href="http://yellow.co.nz/y/andy-harper-tyres">Andy Harper Tyres</a>, <a href="http://www.apev.org.nz/">APEV</a>, <a href="http://econz.co.nz/">ECONZ</a>, Athol, Warren, Jeremy, Steve and Dee, Tom and Tabitha, my wife Kirstin, Dylan Aimee and Sophie, plus all the <a href="http://greenstage.co.nz/">Greenstage</a> crew and their families for making this happen, it wouldn't happen without you.<br />
<br />
Exciting times ahead, the technology is ready, the community is growing and we are all eager for change.<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tViBl_dujrQ/UKy0wyOzhBI/AAAAAAAAAcE/W5KWYATeup4/s1600/RepRapBlueToothCase.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="148" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-tViBl_dujrQ/UKy0wyOzhBI/AAAAAAAAAcE/W5KWYATeup4/s200/RepRapBlueToothCase.png" width="200" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
Lets make it happen! <br />
<br />
<br />Philip Courthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16285028906170278125noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7055510788451123628.post-21422570613588731142012-10-09T07:55:00.004+13:002012-10-09T22:04:14.302+13:00Energy Datapalooza!<br />
My name is John Gorman and I was one of the folks initially involved in starting the <a href="http://www.solarnetwork.net/">SolarNetwork</a> platform, and am a director of <a href="http://www.greenstage.co.nz/power.html">Greenstage Power Ltd</a>. SolarNetwork is a software platform for the the acquisition storage, visualization and analysis of energy data from distributed and heterogeneous sources. In fact, it will do more than that now, thanks to Greenstage Power's efforts, but this is my first Greenstage Blog entry, so hello!<br />
<br />
Back in May 2012, I was invited to attend an <a href="http://en.openei.org/wiki/File:Energy_Data_Jam.pdf">Energy Data Jam</a> at Stanford University, to help brainstorm how the use of open government data in the U.S. could serve as a catalyst to innovation in efficient energy use and conservation. Split into groups, we dreamed up and presented to the full group (about 40 people) a dozen or so "apps" that used government datasets. At that meeting, U.S. CTO Todd Park told us it wasn't just about brainstorming, it was about really coding these apps, in 90 days.<br />
<br />
Following up from the Energy Data Jam, I was invited to represent SolarNetwork at the <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/10/01/energy-datapalooza-unleashing-power-open-data-advance-our-energy-future">Energy Datapalooza</a> in Washington DC on Oct 1, 2012. This was the conference organized by the OSTP (Office of Science and Technology Policy) an arm of the White House whose mission is to drive innovation and advise the president on technology changes and opportunities. The Energy Datapalooza was focused on celebrating the release of a number of open APIs allowing access to government data sets, and to highlight the entrepreneurs who were already starting to leverage those APIs for new products and services. From census data, to auto efficiency standards, to near real-time electricity usage, the APIs exposed a huge amount of valuable data and developers were busy doing mashups and apps that used it. A lot of credit should go to two guys who were really energetic in making this a reality: CTO Todd Park and EDI (Energy Data Initiative) Director Ian Kalin. Their passion for opening up data as a catalyst for innovation and their bold, aggressive and open approach to welcoming experimentation is really appreciated. I think that once the GreenButtonConnectMyData API is opened up, (to be released soon) we're going to see some very interesting applications appear. One very interesting speaker at the Energy Datapalooza was <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_Chu">Dr. Steven Chu</a>, Secretary of Energy. A Nobel Prize winner in Physics, Dr. Chu spoke about the role of data streams and core technology as a fuel for innovation, and mentioned the impending falling prices of both PV and deep-cycle storage, with some very interesting applications coming up. We are of course eager to hear more, so we'll stay tuned!<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1IYEnCRhtHo/UHMgcRgqQpI/AAAAAAAACec/FU8zyV5IVDo/s1600/drChu_datapalooza.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="239" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1IYEnCRhtHo/UHMgcRgqQpI/AAAAAAAACec/FU8zyV5IVDo/s320/drChu_datapalooza.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<br />John Gormanhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06298059444501967909noreply@blogger.com0