Category: Building Innovation
Hot off the Presses: New Grid-Interactive Buildings for Decarbonization Guide
Post / November 2, 2023
To succeed in decarbonizing our energy systems, we will be relying much more on variable renewable resources like wind and solar energy—but we’ll need to do more than install more clean generation resources. We’ll also need to get better at...
2022 is the year of the electricity grid; new GridOptimal resources can help
Post / February 8, 2022
With the passing of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, 2022 will be a big year for energy efficiency, building codes and grid modernization. As we make gains in energy efficiency, and continue to add more intermittent renewables to our...
Scaling up market transformation for heat pump water heaters
Post / January 19, 2022
While the average person might not think about it when turning on the faucet, changing the way you heat water in your home or business could drastically reduce your carbon footprint. Water heating accounts for a large share of the...
New GridOptimal LEED pilot credit encourages designers to help solve grid issues
Post / March 31, 2021
In 2019, renewable energy provided more energy in the U.S. than coal. The last time this happened, in 1885, the Edison Electric Company had been running the first American central power plant for all of three years and was serving...
Future-Proofing Buildings for a More Resilient Tomorrow
Post / March 23, 2021
This is the second in a series exploring the COVID-19 pandemic’s relationship to buildings. In the first blog, Buildings’ Impact on Pandemics — we discussed how the building industry’s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions can help fuel pandemics. These blogs are...
Improving Health and Resilience Through Better Building Design
Post / October 6, 2020
This summer, as a record number of uncontained wildfires burned along the West Coast, residents feverishly checked websites such as PurpleAir to determine if it was safe to go outside. Every year, wildfires raise awareness about the impacts of poor...
Bringing Heat Pump Water Heaters into the Mainstream
Post / August 12, 2020
It takes a village to change technology. We in the efficiency industry have witnessed decades of partnerships to bring transformative change to refrigerators, lighting, motors and HVAC. With increasing concern over the energy use and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated...
Electrification Nation?
Post / July 29, 2020
Natural gas, once the darling to replace carbon-intensive coal in electricity production, is increasingly being recognized as a significant cause of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are fueling climate change. The main component of natural gas is methane, which when...
GridOptimal Metrics Offer Guidance on Optimizing Building-Grid Interaction
Post / May 18, 2020
Measurement and metrics are at the core of nearly all business activity today. Those in the buildings and energy efficiency field are accustomed to some standard metrics: Energy Use Intensity (EUI), percent better than code, cost per square foot, and...
The Embodied Carbon Conundrum: Solving for All Emission Sources from the Built Environment
Post / February 26, 2020
Increasing urgency among policymakers and the design community to meet the goals of the Paris Climate Accord has spurred more aggressive codes and energy policies in jurisdictions around the United States. These strategies are making gains on driving down carbon...
Los Angeles Mayor Garcetti Leading the Way to Decarbonization with Municipal Buildings
Post / February 11, 2020
Less than year after Mayor Eric Garcetti unveiled a Green New Deal for the city of Los Angeles, he is building on that leadership with a new Executive Directive that will help kick-start the decarbonization movement by accelerating the transformation...
Technology Talk—Getting to Zero Energy in Existing Buildings
Post / February 22, 2019
Without upgrading our existing buildings to higher efficiency technologies we have zero hope of getting to zero energy (ZE)–or at least ultra-low energy performance–and our carbon reduction targets. We know that there are many roads to retrofits but rapid scaling...
GridOptimal Buildings: Achieving Maximum Benefit for Smart Building-to-Grid Integration
Post / August 22, 2018
As policymakers and the building community encourage improved building efficiency and reduced carbon impacts, the rapid proliferation of distributed renewable energy resources–on local businesses and homes–creates technical challenges for grid operation, even as traditional revenue models for utilities face significant...
The Path to Net Zero: A Shout Out to Building Operators
Post / June 21, 2016 / Controls, Operations & Maintenance, Zero Net Energy (ZNE)
Like they don’t have enough to do already, facility managers and building operators are now working to manage both sides of the electrical meter. The evolution of buildings incorporating advanced systems, highly integrated controls and distributed generation (typically photovoltaics) is...