Commercial buildings will soon be able to connect to the “Smart Grid” with ease thanks to a new strategic relationship between industry alliances LonMark® International and OpenADR, say the organizations. LonMark and the OpenADR Alliance, a nonprofit corporation created to foster the development, adoption and compliance of a Smart Grid standard known as Open Automated Demand Response (OpenADR), are working together to enable interoperability between certified products that will better enable commercial buildings to manage their energy uses on the Smart Grid.

Today, more than one-third of U.S. commercial buildings have some form of energy management and control systems installed, which makes them ideal candidates to participate in utility mandated Demand Response programs using standard interfaces such as OpenADR.

“In order for buildings to benefit from OpenADR, they must have automated control systems that can be programmed to respond to price and DR signals without negatively impacting comfort or productivity,” said Girish Ghatikar, a member of the OpenADR Alliance board of directors. “Having access to energy management systems based on technology like LONMARK standards can help people better manage their energy consumption.”