The U.S. Department of Energy, in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, The Brattle Group, Energy Solutions, and Wedgemere Group, published A National Roadmap for Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings on May 17. Download the full report here.
Buildings account for more than 70% of U.S. electricity use, and a comparable share of power sector CO2 emissions. Improving the way electricity is consumed and reducing the overall amount of electricity consumed in buildings would significantly reduce energy costs to consumers and facilitate the transition to a decarbonized economy.
Grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) can remake buildings into a major new clean and flexible energy resource. 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.
To achieve this goal, this Roadmap includes 14 recommendations in the following areas:
- Advancing GEBs through R&D and data
- Enhancing and communicating the value proposition of GEBs
- Empowering users and operators by developing new tools and training workers
- Using federal, state and local government action to support GEB deployment