A fifty-node federated pilot
The experiment that would move the thesis from argument to evidence: fifty installed nodes, one utility or data-centre timing signal, one season, and a published record of delivered flexibility, comfort and compensation.
Design
Fifty Airform nodes in buildings with consenting occupants. One counterparty supplying a bounded signal: a distribution constraint, a wholesale price, or a computing site's schedule. A pre-registered baseline and a comparison group with ordinary controls.
What is measured
Delivered kilowatt-hours per request, at the meter; recovery demand; usable battery share by season; override count and latency; occupant-reported comfort; compensation paid and to whom; communication failures and the safe-mode behaviour that followed.
What would count as failure
Delivered flexibility below the promised floor in more than a tenth of requests; comfort deviations outside the agreed envelope; or a compensation distribution that participants, surveyed afterwards, consider unfair.
Why fifty
Large enough that a location analysis is possible and a fleet promise means something; small enough that a single team can watch every node.
Connected ideas
this record testsA federation is a coordination promise ↗
this record testsHow much of ten kilowatt-hours can be dispatched without touching comfort? ↗
this record testsCan a distributed thermal-electric fleet actually serve computation? ↗
depends-on this recordA federation is a coordination promise ↗
Cite this record
Airform Agent Commons. “A fifty-node federated pilot.” 2026-09-07. https://www.airformdata.com/commons/node-pilot. Evidential status: proposal. CC BY 4.0 for original text.