DOE Issues Roadmap for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

(Credit: DOE)

Working with the US Department of Energy (DOE), a team led by Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and the Brattle Group has developed a guide for efficient buildings. The guidance, titled “A National Roadmap for Grid Interactive Efficient Buildings,” outlines the DOE’s goal for the nation to triple the energy efficiency and demand flexibility of the buildings sector by 2030, relative to 2020 levels.

This new roadmap also defines technology attributes, integration considerations, and barriers to achieving the full potential, adoption and deployment of GEB. DOE's Building Technologies Office (BTO) makes 14 recommendations to overcome those barriers.

According to the authors, grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) can remake buildings into a clean and flexible energy resource. GEBs can accomplish this by combining smart technologies and distributed energy resources with energy efficient buildings. GEBs can also sell services to the power grid and cut costs and pollution.

The roadmap states that over the next 20 years, GEBs could deliver between $100 and $200 billion in savings to the US power system and cut CO2 emissions by 80 million tons per year by 2030, or 6% of total power sector emissions.

According to the authors, a GEB can offer a host of services that cut costs, eliminate waste, and improve grid operations. The roadmap provides the following examples of these:

• Efficient lighting and appliances plus a tight building envelope can cut electricity demand across the board.
• Load shedding allows the building to cut demand during peak hours, or as requested by the grid manager.
• Load shifting takes advantage of cheaper or cleaner power by shifting demand from one time of day to another when renewable energy is abundant on the grid.
• Modulating load with batteries and other electronic devices allows the building to maintain grid frequency or control system voltage.
• Generating power, like from rooftop solar, cuts bills, reduces losses on the grid, and reduces the need for more power plants.

The guidance divides its 14 recommendations into four “pillars:”

1. Advancing GEBs through research, development, and data
2. Enhancing the value of GEBs to consumers and utilities
3. Empowering GEB users, installers, and operators
4. Supporting GEB deployment through government programs and policies

The complete report can be found here.