9 California Buildings • Q1 2022
Future-Proofing California Buildings For the Renewable Grid By John Powers, CEO of Extensible Energy If you own or manage a commercial building in California, it’s likely that your building is unprepared for interacting with the smart grid of the near future —and you’re not alone. According to a recent Nexus Lab white paper, even though small and medium buildings make up 94% of commercial buildings in the United States and 44% of U.S. electricity use, only 13% of such buildings have any kind of building automation system (BAS) with energy efficiency applications. Even programmable thermostats, the lowest hanging fruit of BAS components, are estimated to be installed in just 5% of commercial buildings. With commercial buildings being such a major part of ongoing climate emissions, California state regulators and utilities are increasingly looking to deployable technology and software that can convert any existing building into a grid-interactive efficient building (GEB). Spearheading this effort is The California Load Flexibility Research and Development Hub (CalFlexHub), a research project that brings together industry, utilities, academia, manufacturers, and nonprofits to identify, evaluate, develop, fund, and demonstrate the software and technologies that will enable all California buildings, large and small, to be flexible, interoperable, and grid-interactive.
What’s a Grid-Interactive Efficient Building (GEB) and Why Should Building Owners Care? GEBs are buildings that combine energy efficiency and load flexibility with smart software, on-site controls, and two-way grid communications. The goal of converting to a GEB is to inexpensively reduce energy costs while enhancing comfort, productivity, and performance. Without getting too technical, load flexibility or “demand flexibility” software shifts the time of use of flexible loads or reduces the use of flexible loads. Smart energy shifting benefits the building owner with reduced energy costs and benefits utilities that want to avoid ramping up expensive “peak” generators to meet demand. Examples of flexible loads are HVAC systems, electric vehicle chargers, electric water heaters, energy storage systems, and lighting. Without load flexibility software, Photo: Adobe Stock.
these devices are turned on manually or on a set schedule, ignoring real-time energy usage and building data. With load flexibility software installed, a GEB will analyze building energy usage, utility rates, grid conditions, and temperature data, and then adjust flexible usage to avoid high demand charges and time-of-use charges, saving thousands in utility costs. GEBs are also now part of the California Building Standards Code (Title 24). New buildings will be required to install smart thermostats with HVAC systems, and networked lighting controllers. BASs will also be required to communicate with the grid and be demand responsive. Utilities also benefit from GEBs. A 2021 report from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab (LBNL) reveals that the broad use GEBs could save $100 to $200 billion in U.S. electric power system costs by simply reducing and shifting the timing of flexible loads. In addition to the grid cost savings, the researchers say that GEBs could decrease grid carbon emissions by 80 million tons per year by 2030 — the equivalent of offsetting annual emissions of 50 medium-sized coal plants, or 17 million cars. GEBs can also be time savers. Because the building’s energy decisions are made by artificial intelligence, facility managers can focus on their core maintenance and IT tasks rather than fielding temperature complaints. All systems can also monitor energy usage, and some can alert facility managers that a device is failing and needs maintenance.
GEBs Are Already in California The challenge for the broad implementing GEBs has traditionally been cost and complexity. Owners and facility managers of small to medium buildings may not even have a smart thermostat, let alone load flexibility software. CalFlexHub is helping test and demonstrate that GEB software and technologies can be cost-effectively installed in all types of California buildings. As part of the project, Extensible Energy is testing its load flexibility software for small to medium commercial buildings, ensuring that these types of buildings can effectively flex loads and communicate with the grid. Sophisticated GEB technology and hardware are already deployed in some modern, large buildings. As for the long tail of smaller buildings, new AI energy management and (Continued on page 22)
