The GridWise Alliance theme for August is “Buildings as Grid Assets.” According to the US Department of Energy, grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) combine energy efficiency and demand flexibility with smart technologies and communications to inexpensively deliver greater affordability, comfort, productivity and high performance to America’s homes and commercial buildings. GEB’s can become a major asset to the grid by providing load reduction, demand flexibility and potentially other grid services. DOE’s roadmap for GEBs estimates that the benefits of GEB’s could range between $8 and $18 billion a year by 2030, and cumulatively between $100 and $200 billion by 2040, and would also result in significant CO2 emission reductions.
Truly grid-interactive buildings will require a range of technologies on both sides of the customer meter (see figure from DOE GEB roadmap), some of which are currently commercially available and some are in the R&D stages.
