DOE awards $61M to create energy-efficient Connected Communities
The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) awarded $61 million for 10 pilot projects that will deploy new technology to turn homes and workplaces into energy-efficient buildings.
This initiative, called Connected Communities, seeks to create grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) that use smart controls, sensors, and analytics to communicate with the electrical grid. They will help consumers decrease carbon emissions, optimize energy consumption, and cut energy costs.
“From our homes to workplaces, this groundbreaking, grid-connected building technology will help reduce our impact while cutting energy bills, maximizing convenience, and propelling our efforts to reach a carbon-neutral, clean energy economy by 2050,” U.S. Secretary of Energy Jennifer Granholm said. “These projects will help universalize technology that can maximize the efficiency and sustainability of America’s nearly 130 million buildings and make significant headway in the fight against climate change.”
By 2030, the DOE estimated that GEBs could save up to $18 billion per year in power system costs and cut 80 million tons of carbon emissions each year. The first two connected communities in Alabama and Georgia have already demonstrated this potential by using roughly 42 to 44 percent less energy than today’s average home.
The 10 projects that received awards include $5.27 million for the Electric Power Research Institute, which will transform multi-family buildings in affordable housing developments into GEBs to decarbonize buildings, make them more resilient, and reduce utility bills.
“Decreasing building sector emissions is a clean energy transition imperative,” Rob Chapman, senior vice president of energy delivery and customer solutions at EPRI, said. “This innovative project will help expand the number of energy efficient homes connected to the grid, providing cleaner, more resilient and affordable communities across the country.”
PacifiCorp will receive a $6.42 million award to establish a program in Utah to manage solar photovoltaic, batteries, electric vehicle charging in a diverse community of all-electric buildings and a mass transit transportation center, equipped with the latest market-leading efficient technologies to optimize their collective energy use and provide grid services at scale.
Portland General Electric in Oregon will receive a $6.65 million award to renovate over 500 buildings in North Portland’s historically underserved neighborhoods to reduce their energy burden with numerous energy efficiency measures and connected devices that provide the grid with a range on energy services.
Other awards went to IBACOS, Inc. ($6.65M); Open Market ESCO Limited Liability Company ($6.65M); Post Road Foundation ($6.65M) ; Slipstream Group ($5.18M); Spokane Edo LLC ($6.65M); SunPower Corp. ($6.65M); and Ohio State University ($4.2M).
The Connected Communities funding opportunity is led by DOE’s Building Technologies Office in collaboration with the Solar Energy Technologies Office, the Vehicle Technologies Office, the Office of Electricity, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
