Full Title: Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings: State Briefing Paper
Author(s): Rodney Sobin
Publisher(s): National Association of State Energy Officials (NASEO), National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC)
Publication Date: April 1, 2020
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
In states across the nation, the electricity system is changing, presenting challenges and opportunities for the delivery of reliable, clean, and affordable power to America’s homes, businesses, and institutions. As variable renewable generation and distributed energy resources (DERs)—including energy efficiency, demand response (DR), onsite generation, energy storage, and electric vehicles (EVs)—grow, the management of electricity is becoming more complex.
Fortunately, advancing technologies open the prospect for more flexible management of building and facility energy loads to benefit occupants, owners, and the grid. Grid-interactive Efficient Buildings (GEBs) take advantage of these new capabilities to optimize energy management by using sensors, analytics, and smart controls to best serve the needs of occupants while considering the grid and external conditions (such as peak loads and weather). Greater optimization of the significant energy demand and supply functions that buildings offer—on an automated basis—has far reaching electricity policy and regulatory implications for State Energy Offices, Public Utility Commissions, utilities, and building owners and investors.
This document provides a brief overview of the core aspects of a GEB and related flexible load management topics to help states and other stakeholders discern benefits of and challenges to load flexibility to meet such state objectives as affordability, cost containment and economic growth; energy reliability and resilience; and environmental stewardship.