news.com has an article on a superisulate project.

Can you 'superinsulate' that home, please?

Most energy-conscious people know that when it comes to home insulation, more is better. But homeowner Alex Cheimets is literally thinking outside the box with his "superinsulation" plan.

Rather than just blow in a few more inches of standard cellulose insulation in his attic, Cheimets is in the throes of an ambitious project to seal the outside of his home with two layers of insulating foam board.

Known in building industry as a superinsulated home, the foam blanket will keep hot (and cool) air in, and also block the cracks that let in outside air. If all goes as hoped, he will cut oil consumption by 70 percent at his 80-year-old, two-family home in Arlington, Mass.

A superinsulated home has foam insulation placed on the outside of the walls and ontop of the existing roof.

The homeowner being an engineer has integated monitoring.

Being part of a pilot project, Cheimets will need to gather data on humidity and temperature levels and how much oil he is using. His home is being equipped with four sensors from Onset Computer, as are his neighbors on both sides (both scientists). Once a month, they will download data using an USB connection to a laptop and report it to the state.

Onset Computer has a set of energy monitoring devices

Energy Logging Systems

Onset energy logging systems save you time and money by offering plug-and-play convenience and industrial-grade performance.

NEW! Cellular

HOBO Remote Monitoring System/GSM

Integrated GSM remote communications for web-based Energy/HVAC system monitoring

Internet access to real-time data

Built-in GSM cellular means no IT roadblocks

Connect sensors, plug in battery, and go!

Learn More

NEW! Ethernet

HOBO Remote Monitoring System/ETH

Integrated Ethernet communications for web-based Energy/HVAC system monitoring

Remote access to real-time data over Ethernet

Simplifies facility-wide monitoring

Connect sensors, plug in battery, and go!

Learn More

Standalone

HOBO Energy Logger Pro

Standalone energy logging system

Compact and low cost

Flexible power options

Innovative, snap-in FlexSmart™ signal condiitonaing modules

NEW! Wi-Fi

Web-based Remote Monitoring Over Wi-Fi Networks

Integrated Wi-Fi communications

Connect sensors, plug in battery, and go!

Ruggedized hardware, with integrated Wi-Fi

Get notified of problems via cell phone or e-mail

Learn More

NEW! USB - Standalone

HOBO Monitoring System/NRC

next-generation standalone energy logging system

Connect sensors, plug in battery, and go!

Direct USB connection to a PC or Mac

Optional Analog inputs with sensor excitation

Learn More

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While I was in London last week I met with AdInfa’s Philip Petersen, and he was nice enough to send me his thoughts on the monitoring and management content at Data Center Dynamics conference.  Philip is focused on this area as his company www.adinfa.com develops their own monitoring tool, and he was researching the market.

Last week I visited the Datacenterdynamics conference in London with my particular interest in data centre power monitoring and management. How big a deal is it to companies, datacenter owners and managers?  What are data centre managers doing to control power consumption? What tools are available to help them?

First stop was a session entitled “Command and Control” during which the presenter asked the 20 or 30 people in the audience how many of them were thinking about monitoring energy consumption in their data centres: most hands went up.  Then he asked how many monitored PUE / DCiE already: 4 or 5 hands went up.  A follow-on question was how many monitored PUE / DCiE it in real-time: 1 hand went up. The sole hand belonged to a co-lo which had had to develop its own monitoring application to do real-time power monitoring because they could not find anything suitable on the market.

Another session, on the publication of the forthcoming EU Code of Conduct for Data Centre Operators, highlighted the growing influence of government and legislators in encouraging operators to get their houses in order.  A voluntary code “carrot” encompassing monitoring and reporting, with the threat of “sticks” in the form of compulsory reporting and financial penalties to force big consumers of power to become as efficient and environmentally responsible as possible.

Generally, as I walked around the conference, I was struck by how more talk there was about metering/monitoring/measuring power consumption in the data centre than actual action being taken, especially when it comes to real-time monitoring.  Where is the value in a manual spot-check on a PUE one month and then another check 6 months later and so on?  More than once I heard the view that IT people don’t want to monitor power because it means more work and they are only responsible for keeping IT systems and services available and ‘not responsible for power’.  I think this attitude is going to change soon, though.  IT and facilities need to start working together because sooner rather than later the business will demand accountability from them for energy consumption and the C-level executives will want facts presented in an easily digestible format from a single source.

So what solutions were on offer?  On the one hand there are the “high end” framework offerings that are very expensive to buy in license terms, very expensive to implement in professional services, integration and customisation terms, and very expensive to own in support and tuning costs.  These are akin or directly related to the big ticket system management platforms that have been around for many years.  In fact, often they need those traditional platforms to provide the missing real-time monitoring capabilities necessary to complement their static planning tools capability. Users tend to be very big banks, telcos and service providers for whom the £500k pay-to-play price tag might be acceptable.  As one salesman told me, “It does not really make sense for a data centre of less than 100 racks to consider using us”.

Then there was the other extreme – a few small companies offering seemingly similar tools that have some quite nice floor-planning tools, based on Visio or similar, and a PC database to store the asset data.  Again, these stand-alone applications need to interface to other tools to get the real-time monitoring piece.  Not designed for really large data centres, the pricing is much cheaper than the high-end stuff – perhaps £10-20k for a licences – and they still require professional services to implement and a lot of effort to build the asset database.

Finally, there were a few power strip/PDU companies, including one selling simple metering device called a CL-amp from Unite Technologies. Some of the PDU vendors had software products that could configure their devices and, using SNMP or proprietary communications, provide basic monitoring of power usage.  But my impression was that their heart is in designing and selling hardware, not management applications.

So in summary, I think there is a great opportunity for a product that is affordable to the majority of businesses with data centres.  A product they can use to manage their energy consumption efficiently and effectively, thereby reducing their carbon emissions.  A product that delivers real-time monitoring, reporting and alerting/automated actions.  A product that can integrate with multiple third-party systems and is vendor neutral.  My company is focusing on developing precisely that product, filling what we believe is a large and growing gap in the market.