(Credit: Pixabay)Today, US Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette announced a $65 million US Department of Energy (DOE) funding opportunity for technologies that allow energy-efficient buildings to interact with one another and the electric grid, to reduce emissions, and improve grid flexibility.
At the Electric Power Research Institute (EPRI) event in Charlotte, Brouillette said, “As our nation's energy system continues to undergo dramatic transformations, there is a growing need for solutions that integrate and optimize all of our energy resources on the grid to provide Americans with the most reliable and affordable electricity possible. With today's announcement, DOE will broaden its capability to evaluate and demonstrate the growing flexibility of one such solution — smart, grid-interactive, efficient buildings — to best serve the needs of building occupants and the grid while reducing energy consumption overall.”
In March, DOE's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy sought input from organizations that could "demonstrate and evaluate the capacity of energy-efficient buildings to interact with one another and the grid to provide greater degrees of demand flexibility at scale."
EPRI President Arshad Mansoor said: "Right now, one-third of our carbon emissions comes from the electric power industry. Another third comes from buildings, and the final third comes from transportation. By improving the efficiency of buildings, especially in the residential sector, we're reducing emissions from two out of three sectors.
"In 2019, energy use in buildings was 20.9 quadrillion Btus. Energy use in residential buildings is a little more than half that. Since 1973, natural gas use in buildings has marginally declined from 5.26 to 5.18 quadrillion Btus, while electricity use has grown from 1.84 to 4.90 quadrillion Btus.
"This means more of our economy is relying on electricity, which must be generated with cleaner forms of energy. The goal is decarbonization. But to increase the amount of clean energy on the grid, we have to improve grid resilience, which requires new technology that allows utilities to better manage resources, but also technology that creates a more interactive grid for consumers.
The $65 million DOE funding opportunity aims to do just that.
