ATLANTA - During the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE) 2007 Annual Meeting, multiple standards and addenda were discussed and a proposal to ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 135-2004, BACnet - A Data Communication Protocol for Building Automation and Control Networks, was reviewed. The proposal would expand BACnet's coverage of building systems to incorporate support for "elevators," an industry term that includes lifts (vertical or near-vertical transport) and escalators (horizontal or near-horizontal transport).

Also during the meeting, the BACnet committee recommended five new addenda to be released for public review later this fall, including:

• Addendum k, which addresses issues of supporting different character sets, particularly important in regions other than North America.

• Addendum l, which expands the current system for specifying one general BACnet operator workstation to cover four different kinds of workstations with varying applications and capabilities.

• Addendum m, clarifications and minor improvements to aid BACnet manufacturers.

• Addendum n, refining the interoperable mechanisms for backing up and restoring devices' configuration.

• Addendum o, to provide standardized support for Internet "NAT" firewalls.

Two addenda related to testing BACnet devices passed public review and will be incorporated into the upcoming republication of Standard 135.1, Method of Test for Conformance to BACnet. This standard provides the basis for the BACnet testing laboratories in North America and Europe.

For more information, visit www.ashrae.org.

Publication date: 07/23/2007