Control systems, on the other hand, are extremely detailed and specific. They need to know every detail that goes on. This means that control systems do not and cannot scale to the size of the grid. They must be wrapped up and packaged, with all of the execution detail hidden. These packages will have a standard interface, one that supports the needs of diversity. That is the goal of oBIX.
The intelligent grid will require intelligent end-nodes; intelligent buildings whose systems are exposed as discoverable services accessible by architectures both within and without the building. These buildings must offer up services to be orchestrated or choreographed, not processes to be programmed. No other approach will scale to a system as large as the grid.
What if you had a choice as to when and at what price you buy power? Would you buy it all the time, or buy it when it was expensive? What if you could choose the interface you wanted? Two examples are the Olympic Peninsula Project, which devised a simple economy/comfort slide bar, and Constellation Energy, which buys call options to get power back from its customers and writes checks. User interfaces and service interfaces offer autonomy, procedural interfaces do not. People and businesses want autonomy and will pay for it.