A simulation environment for running a process simulation used to validate an industrial control program. The simulation environment exposes the I/O module configurations defined in the control program and retrieves module configuration information therefrom. This I/O module configuration information is combined with generic, module-specific I/O module profiles to create a pool of available controller I/O points, which can be selectively associated with I/O points in the simulation to create an I/O point mapping. During control program validation, simulated I/O data is exchanged between the process simulation and the I/O module instances in the controller in accordance with the I/O point mapping.

A simulation environment for running a process simulation used to validate an industrial control program. The simulation environment exposes the I/O module configurations defined in the control program and retrieves module configuration information therefrom. This I/O module configuration information is combined with generic, module-specific I/O module profiles to create a pool of available controller I/O points, which can be selectively associated with I/O points in the simulation to create an I/O point mapping. During control program validation, simulated I/O data is exchanged between the process simulation and the I/O module instances in the controller in accordance with the I/O point mapping.

A method of controlling an electricity production station including at least one renewable energy source and an energy accumulation system, allowing an operator to commit, at an electrical distribution network manager, to a power profile P.sub.G that the station will be able to deliver over a forthcoming time period. The declared power profile must, furthermore, comply with constraints imposed by the manager of the electricity distribution network. Non-compliance with this commitment may be subject to penalties. It is then incumbent on the operator to best optimize the method of controlling the electricity production station so as to maximize the electrical power fed into the network, while complying, in so far as possible, over a certain tolerance range, with the power profile commitment P.sub.G.

A method of controlling an electricity production station including at least one renewable energy source and an energy accumulation system, allowing an operator to commit, at an electrical distribution network manager, to a power profile P.sub.G that the station will be able to deliver over a forthcoming time period. The declared power profile must, furthermore, comply with constraints imposed by the manager of the electricity distribution network. Non-compliance with this commitment may be subject to penalties. It is then incumbent on the operator to best optimize the method of controlling the electricity production station so as to maximize the electrical power fed into the network, while complying, in so far as possible, over a certain tolerance range, with the power profile commitment P.sub.G.

A textile machine, especially a spinning machine or winding machine, has numerous identical workstations arranged beside one another along a longitudinal side, with numerous maintenance devices movable along the workstations for servicing the workstations, and with a control and communication system. The maintenance devices are connected to a bus topology component through a maintenance device bus line, in which case at least some of the bus topology components are connected to the control and communication system with a common bus line. The bus topology components are arranged in a middle area of the textile machine, in the longitudinal direction (LR) of the textile machine.

Systems and methods for virtual machine management are disclosed. A virtual machine manager may communicate with a storehouse, which may include one or more virtual machines. The virtual machine manager may select one or more virtual machines, or may create one or more virtual machines, depending on the requirements of an input.

A system for intelligent monitoring and management of an electrical system is disclosed. The system includes a data acquisition component, a power analytics server and a client terminal. The data acquisition component acquires real-time data output from the electrical system. The power analytics server is comprised of a real-time energy pricing engine, virtual system modeling engine, an analytics engine, a machine learning engine and a schematic user interface creator engine. The real-time energy pricing engine generates real-time utility power pricing data. The virtual system modeling engine generates predicted data output for the electrical system. The analytics engine monitors real-time data output and predicted data output of the electrical system. The machine learning engine stores and processes patterns observed from the real-time data output and the predicted data output to forecast an aspect of the electrical system.