Commercial, Demand Management, Distributed Energy Resources, Energy Efficiency  -  October 16, 2020

DOE grants $65M for energy-efficient building program

The U.S. Department of Energy announced Oct. 13 up to $65 million for its Connected Communities funding opportunity that would allow commercial and residential buildings to leverage the latest technology in energy-efficient building design and management.

The DOE estimated that the 125 million homes and commercial buildings in the U.S. use almost 40% of U.S. energy and 74% of its electricity. The connected communities system allows buildings to use the latest advancements in building science like state-of-the-art sensors, controls and analytics to deploy grid-scale energy efficiency and distributed energy resources.

“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,” Secretary of Energy Dan Brouillette said in a statement. “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.”

The Building Technologies Office within the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) estimates that the Connected Communities FOA could increase by five-fold the number of EERE-supported testbeds. One such example was the Reynolds Landing in Hoover, Ala., where 44% less energy and 34% less power demand was achieved leading to lower utility bills.

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