Smart, Resilient and Decarbonized: Making the Case for Grid-Interactive Buildings

Registration Information:

To register for this course - please reserve your seat for the "Resilient Places Summit" located in the Greenbuild agenda.

Registering for the session holds your seat in the class until 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start time. At that time your seat in the session can no longer be guaranteed.

If a workshop or session is full, you will not be able to add it to your agenda; however, if you have the appropriate pass you will be able to enter the session on a first-come first-served basis 5 minutes prior to the scheduled start of the event so long as capacity has not been reached

Greenbuild staff at the entrance of the session have the ability to stop permitting entrance to the session when the room hits the set capacity.

Description:

Buildings both contribute 40% of global emissions while also being faced with increasing climate hazards putting trillions of dollars of real estate at risk. Current decarbonization practices to decrease building-related emissions rely on electrification technologies and put immense pressure on the electric grid and often require additional capacity beyond what is currently available. There is more urgency than ever for buildings to step into the next generation of electrification using grid interactivity for improved energy efficiency. The value of grid interactivity not only comes from carbon and energy cost savings, but also through asset resilience and continuity during extreme weather events and via smart technologies that promote occupant comfort. We will review smart technologies, design considerations and available incentives to implement grid interactivity. This will include reviewing design options that meet LEED v4 and v4.1 BD+C Demand Response credits. We will discuss resilience opportunities including distributed energy resources (DERs) comprised of local renewables, energy storage, electric vehicles, and backup generation. We will highlight current climate action policies that promote DERs including Boston’s Smart Utility Program. Finally, we will touch on carbon and energy cost savings by using grid interactivity to curb marginal emissions and curtailing demand surcharges during peak demand.