Staff Writer
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced nearly $6 million in funding to accelerate energy efficiency in offices, shops, schools and other buildings.
The following eight competitively selected projects will demonstrate one or more approaches for improving commercial building energy use by up to 50 percent:
- The City of Milwaukee and 11 partners will receive $750,000 to demonstrate retrofit approaches in up to 200 commercial buildings across Wisconsin. Milwaukee will also develop an efficient lighting design pattern book and pilot the DOE’s Standard Energy Efficiency Data Platform (SEED), an open source software application that manages energy performance data of large groups of buildings.
- DNV GL Energy will receive $185,000 to implement and demonstrate a systems management approach for quality maintenance and high efficiency replacements of rooftop air conditioning units (RTUs) across more than 100 public elementary, middle and high schools in New York.
- The Energy Center of Wisconsin and its project partners will receive $1 million to demonstrate new approaches for procuring new high efficiency buildings through its Accelerate Performance project.
- Envision Charlotte will receive $500,000 to expand its energy management approaches to more than triple the number of participating buildings across the community.
- The Institute for Market Transformation (IMT) and its five project partners will receive $1 million to develop an innovative toolkit based on the DOE's Standard Energy Efficiency Database and other resources to enable cities and energy efficiency program administrators to better analyze building energy data for delivering energy savings more successfully.
- Through the Technology Demonstration Initiative (TDI), Los Angeles Cleantech Incubator will receive $560,000 to advance the use of highly energy efficient technologies in commercial buildings in California. TDI will measure, document and publicize the results of the demonstration projects and help property owners define clear metrics to scale up successful demonstration projects to multiple sites.
- Performance Systems Development and its project partners will receive $1 million to design, develop and deploy an open source technology platform that links the DOE's tools and solutions to deliver cost-effective, energy savings of at least 20 percent in more than 300 commercial buildings in three states.
- The Retail Industry Leaders Association (RILA) and its project partners will receive $750,000 to improve energy savings in the retail sector by helping energy managers secure financing for efficiency projects. This project will result in at least five new replicable, documented energy financial management strategies.
Last year, DOE announced a $10 million funding opportunity to help demonstrate and deploy energy efficiency technologies for commercial buildings.
Photo of Milwaukee skyline via Shutterstock.
