I just read an interesting report from Continental Automated Buildings Association (CABA) entitled “Bright Green Buildings”.  The premise is that today people thing of ‘green’ buildings (more efficient, less waste, more recycling) and there are ‘smart’ buildings (integrated control systems, continual monitoring and metering).  A ‘bright green building’ is the convergence of smart and green.  I’ve blogged on the smart building and green IT topics before, but this paper pulls them together nicely.

Of course OPC would play a major role in the Integrated Building Controls section of things.  Using OPC Servers from the Building Automation suite, including the recently released OPC Server for Johnson Controls N2, means system designers can ensure complete interoperability between the various manufactures and BAS and BEMS vendors.  Beyond the obvious use of OPC to connect the control systems, another key point the paper makes is on continual monitoring and metering in order to earn “Green and Sustainable” certifications.  As it states in one section “The ability to track utility use on a real-time basis will increase the ability of the project team to document compliance with LEED.”  OPC would play a big role here as well.

For those interested in smart green buildings, the CABA article is worth a read.  For more on how OPC fits in with smart IT you can check out the paper “Energy Saving Solutions – Building IT with OPC”. 

I’ve seen numbers saying the recently approved economic stimulus package has nearly 10% of the entire bill providing funding and tax credits for green energy related projects.  It will be interesting to see if this will keep the ‘bright green’ momentum moving forward.  Anyone have addition thoughts on things?