Smart Grid
ACEEE Describes the “Ideal Future Scenario” for Grid-Interactive Buildings
December 3rd, 2019Smart Buildings Offer a Scalable Foundation for Creating the Smart City
November 25th, 2019
Building-to-Grid Interconnectivity has “Far-Reaching Electricity Policy & Regulatory Implications”
The energy landscape is changing. Compelled by climate change and supply reliability drivers, our power systems are trying to find ways to introduce stable, clean, and affordable power to homes, businesses, and institutions. However, the variability of renewable generation and distributed energy resources (DERs) leads to complexity and as these systems expand across progressive electricity […]
Sensing the Way to Improved Data-Driven Emergency Responses
When disaster strikes and our buildings become hostile environments, data from the numerous building sensors are largely ignored. Recently, however, a number of startups and initiatives have been working to seize this missed safety-opportunity by enabling emergency services with life-saving building data and connected equipment. Every day, in major cities around the world, firefighters charge […]
Virtual Power Plants Make it Easier to Introduce Renewables but Need Better Policy
Greater energy consumption accelerates climate change but climate change also accelerates energy consumption. That’s according to a recent paper by Bas J. van Ruijven, Enrica De Cian, and Ian Sue Wing, that suggests southern regions of the US, China, and Europe, will see an additional 25% energy consumption due to climate change alone. That’s 25% […]
Every Bit of Data Needs a Bit of Energy – The Data-Driven Environmental Cost
“With the advent of the internet of things, the amount of data being collected around the world is growing exponentially. We are collecting data with a current need in mind, we are collecting for future purposes and we are collecting it just to have it, in case we find a way to use it later,” […]
A City is Only As Smart As Its Buildings – Making a Case for Retrofits
What’s a smart city without smart buildings, and where is the city with only smart buildings? Municipal and national governments talk confidently about their smart cities, but until they can drive the conversion of old building stock into smart-connected elements of the urban landscape, they are just creating smart infrastructure. To truly see the potential […]
North American Geothermal Heating is Quietly Gaining Steam
Geothermal heating reduces carbon emissions, energy costs, and dependence on fossil fuels, and has become a standard in many parts of the world. The US lags behind, however, with geothermal having to fight for the federal incentive “scraps” that solar and wind power have only recently recovered. New developments and a renewed sense of optimism […]
EU’s Climate Goals “Can Only Happen if a Systemic Upgrade of the Building Stock is Achieved”
The EU has strong environmental ambitions and buildings must be at the center of any efforts to reduce power consumption and decarbonize EU economies. In 2010, the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD) set a strong direction for the full decarbonization of the European building stock by 2050 through its 2010/31/EU. The building is evolving […]
Building Energy Flexibility into Our Smart Power Systems
It is the same old problem. The large-scale distribution of renewable energy generation is required to mitigate the impacts of fuel poverty and climate change but these intermittent power sources push the grid to its limits or beyond them. The solution is the same too. We must develop a more flexible power system to account […]
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