Toby,
One example of an ontological treatment of time,
in the context of temporal relations of activities, can be found in the
Temporal Preconditions section of the Process Specification Language standard.
See, for example, the material at http://www.mel.nist.gov/psl/psl-ontology/part42/time_precond.def.html
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Steve
Steven R. Ray, Ph.D.
Email: steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Phone: (650) 587-3780 (CA)
(202) 362-5059 (DC)
Cell: (202) 316-6481
From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Toby
Considine
Sent: Monday, March 08, 2010 8:06 PM
To: '[ontolog-forum] '
Cc: wtcox@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx; Ed Cazalet
Subject: [ontolog-forum] Energy and Carbon in markets - was Foundation
ontology, CYC, and Mapping
I am fascinated by the Open Energy Initiative, both its
existence, and my unawareness of it, and of the way the problem is formulated…
As to the first few, the U.S. National Smart Grid Roadmap
prepared by NIST identifies the development of common signals for Price and
Product Definition as an overarching issue for the development of smart grids.
Price of course, varies as product changes.
Product definition includes time and various attributes
typically tied to source..
Just as winter rasberries are more expensive than summer ones,
so time of delivery is a critical component of defining product delivery in all
electricity markets. Active projects in the IETF (updates of iCalendar, iTIP,
et al.) and in OASIS (WS-Calendar) are working to build a common semantic model
for time and schedule and interval to be used in many domains as well as
energy. The Calendaring and Scheduling Consortium (CalConnect) is a key group
bridging the efforts.
Time has special significance because multiple volatile sources
of electricity can be delivered over the same wires only so long as each
transactions surrounding each volatile source clear in real time. I was
surprised that something as deceptively simple as time does not yet have
consistent semantics, much less ontology. For example, one of the more valued
behaviors is to reduce the current energy use when requested. Shedding this
load takes a finite time. In industrial scenarios, it may take an hour, but all
load shed must be done in advance of 2:00 for a 2:00 contract. Residential
load, on the other hand, would begin reduction at 2:00 on the same contract.
There is little alignment of meaning on even the smallest element.
Product definition, though, touches on numerous elements that
Mills outlined below. A specific point source is relatively straightforward.
Green power is more difficult. California does not accept green power from the
Pacific Northwest, as intermittent power from the Northwest is backed up with
coal. In other markets, careful lobbying from wind and solar producers have
gotten hydro power classified as “non-renewable”. Definitions vary greatly from
place to place.
Another challenge of energy accounting is scarce distribution.
There are many congestion points in transmission and distribution systems.
Those who want to pay for a specific power source, or a specific type of power
source, may need to pay congestion fees to reserve a portion of the intervening
capacity. NIMBY might have a specific and identifiable cost. It is not hard to
imagine a specific desire to buy a remote source consuming the remote
transmission capacity requiring more local generation from a dirtier source.
If such distortions as Cap and Trade are included, its gets
almost uncomputable. Those difficulties are above and beyond the favored
position that cap and trade gives existing technologies and players, an
economic shield against new entrants and new technologies. But *that* is
a story for another place.
Tc
From: Mills Davis
Cc: [ontolog-forum]
Sent: Wednesday, March 03,
2010 6:30 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum]
Foundation ontology, CYC, and Mapping
I feel some urgency that the Ontolog community should come
together on these issues, especially now that increasing amounts of information
are being exposed on the web as linked data. To date most of the emphasis
(e.g., TBL's rules for publishing linked data) has been on getting more data
available on the web. However, linked data is not the same as connected
data, where value can increase (beyond what webscale search engines are able to
do already) with the density of relationships. For this to happen
communities need policies, practices, and tooling to help manage and curate
emerging fabrics and data spaces.
Let me give a practical near-term example. The Open
Energy Information initiative sponsored by the U.S. National Renewable
Energy Laboratory (NREL) seeks to establish a global energy information commons
based on linked open data and data commons principles. The initiative has support
from multiple government organizations, institutions, industry players in the
US, north america, europe, etc., Its mission is to aggregate, organize, and
provide open access to the world's information about renewable energy, to help
catalyze and accelerate the development and transition of world economies to a
sustainable energy future.
Currently, NREL is wrestling with the issue of how best to
approach data quality, and what principles, policies, practices and web-based
tooling they should advocate and bring to the global energy
community. Data quality and data sharing is hardly a new issue. There
is a lot that is known, and ample literature exists dealing with related
topics. However, what is new is the emergence of semantic web based approaches,
the need for collaboration across diverse communities, and web scale
information and sharing. These require some rethinking of policies; a new
formulation of best practices for data management, data quality and information
sharing; and some new tooling.
"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from
coming."
-Pablo Neruda.
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Toby Considine
TC9, Inc
OASIS Technical Advisory Board
TC Chair: oBIX & WS-Calendar
TC Editor: EMIX, EnergyInterop
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Email: Toby.Considine@xxxxxxxxx
Phone: (919)619-2104
http://www.tcnine.com/
blog: www.NewDaedalus.com
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