Is it just me, or is OPC gaining a whole lot of momentum in building automation and energy management applications?  I’ve posted before on Green Data Centers and how some big companies are getting more serious about energy management.  For example for IBM’s Project Big Green initiative the company has committed $1 billion per year to deliver technologies that help customers increase energy efficiency in their data centers and physical plants.  Recently IBM has announced new software designed to help customers reduce costs associated with power and cooling.   IBM is combining the new energy management software with partner solutions to provide customers with a comprehensive view of energy consumption across the enterprise — not just in data centers but also in non-IT assets such as air conditioning equipment, power distribution units, lighting, and security systems.  The press release specifically talks about OPC interfaces to enable raw data flow into ITM energy management software from third party systems and building automation devices such as heating and air conditioning, lighting and fire and security alarms.

In response to a posting on OPC being used in major building automation projects, I got a comment about the Mori Tower project.   The new headquarters at Mori Tower in central Tokyo, occupies 11.6 hectares, and is one of the largest redevelopment projects undertaken in Japan. One of the key objectives was to implement a flexible system for centralized monitoring and control of multiple facilities.  As the Mori Tower has significant numbers of areas to be controlled, it was decided to choose an open method of communications based on the OPC standard.  Good choice    This particular article talks about accessing Citect with OPC, but of course you can always directly access the building automation systems as well.

With summer getting into full swing, the long weekends approaching, and both the thermometers and prices at the pump soaring, now’s a real good time to think about solutions to save.