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Volttron with two "TT's"

The Super Robot defender of the Universe rises to save us from yet another annoying acronym.

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I wrote this for the Connected Contractor Magazine.

http://contractormag.com/iot/volttron-two-ts

This is the original draft; good fun about an open-source distributed control and sensing platform for buildings.

In case you have not heard Voltron with one "t" is the: Defender of the Universe an American animated television series that features a team of astronauts who pilot a giant Super Robot known as "Voltron."

But what is Volttron with two tt's?

An agent based open-source distributed control and sensing platform for buildings, the power grid, and the integration of the two to support the deployment of energy efficiency and grid services to increase consumer benefits.

How did it come to have two Ts? George Hernandez, Principal Technical Advisor, Buildings to Grid Integration and Buildings Controls Research Program Manager, PNNL provides this insight.

Ken,

Thanks for the publications.

The two TT's sort of came from the Defender of the Universe.  The original name was "Intelligent Networked Sensors Capable of Autonomous Adaptive Operations in the Electric Power System', which is not very friendly.  One of the co-founders of the software joked, 'we should call it VOLTRON', ha ha haha ha...but the name stuck.  However, not to have a copyright lawsuit, the second T was added to the name.  There have been several naming contests, including the brand manager at DOE trying to change the name, but nothing else was accepted, so it's VOLTTRON.

There were some great presentations and lots of discussion that will be posted in the next few days.  Nothing official on the future of VOLTTRON to share just yet, but soon.  However, there was some twitter noise from the meeting that provided some 'read between the lines' information.

Regards,
George Hernandez

https://twitter.com/hashtag/volttron?lang=en

Why do we need Volttron?

Data ownership. Yes who own the data has become a big problem if you do not address data ownership and allow your vendors and contractors to own your generated data they then own you and your building.  Yikes.

contemporary So setting data free for all to use is a big part of Volttron.  Not only must data be free for all to use but it must be stackable using machine readable tagging like that generated by Project Haystack http://project-haystack.org/  Here are some links that help explain,

Data Freedom for Smart Buildings and Beyond: Takeaways from Haystack Connect 2017 Adam Hise Senior Associate | Harbor Research https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/data-freedom-smart-buildings-beyond-takeaways-from-haystack-adam-hise

VOLTTRON  An agent based open-source distributed control and sensing platform for buildings, the power grid, and the integration of the two to support the deployment of energy efficiency and grid services to increase consumer benefits. - George Hernandez, Principal Technical Advisor, Buildings to Grid Integration and Buildings Controls Research Program Manager, PNNL

Using VOLTTRON Nigel David
SES, we were looking for new ways to use data to broaden our impact with energy efficiency measures in buildings. VOLTTRON is an agent based open-source distributed control and sensing platform for buildings, the power grid, and the integration of the two to support the deployment of energy efficiency and grid services to increase consumer benefits. -  Nigel David, BSc, MSc, Ph.D., Lead Researcher, SES Consulting Inc.

2016: PNNL integrates AIRx algorithms with the VOLTTRON™ software platform and deploys them widely on the PNNL campus. The algorithms are equivalent to a “check engine” light. This deployment allows for continuous monitoring of PNNL building systems, ensuring persistent building operations and peak efficiency.

This is a great observation. In the long run, automation is key to persistence of “optimal” building operation "Automated Persistence" Lets us all keep our day jobs....smile

These pdf provide insight:

http://buildingretuning.pnnl.gov/documents/pnnl_sa_110686.pdf

http://buildingretuning.pnnl.gov/highlights/highlight.asp?id=2628

Interesting how flying a giant Super Robot into a haystack to free all of our data and saving the universe is now relevant to the generation of stackable machine readable tags in a

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