Building Electrification & Grid-Interactive Efficient Buildings

Thursday, February 17^th & 24^th
12:00 – 1:15 pm PT
Register Here!

Certainly, increasing building electrification (BE) is a critical step toward decarbonization of the built environment. The specific steps to achieve BE are somewhat less certain. Replacing carbon-emitting fossil fuel appliances with clean electric sources is the easy answer, but as usual there are lots of complexities in making this happen in both commercial and residential buildings – new and existing. During the Smart Buildings Exchange (SBX) 2021 virtual conference, two technical sessions on grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) highlighted the potential values of deploying dynamic two-way communication capacity in buildings to both the electric utility system and building owners and managers. This two-way communication can automate load shifting, shedding, and modulating and improve a utility’s capacity, resiliency, and cost. Building on the SBX 2021 conversations, this two-part Executive Forum discussion will link the efforts around BE to successful widespread deployment of GEBs.

Part 1 of this series will bring together expertise from the policy, regulatory, ratemaking, and utility industries to discuss their view on what must change from current practice to ignite a robust market for GEBs. Like most SBC events, this Executive Forum will be structured as an extemporaneous discussion between panelists (with a twist – see note on format below). Sure to be a dynamic and engaging discussion, this panel will tackle issues such as:

• Building electrification – the role that GEBs need to play to allow for optimizing utility capacity management/coincident peak management (the context being, can building electrification succeed without some form of GEBs)
• Grid modernization – everyone agrees that it needs to happen and that it will be expensive. Do GEBs offer a least cost approach to modernization that will enhance reliability/resilience?
• Are GEBs a complement to the Northwest’s emerging energy imbalance market – are the two compatible?
• Why aren’t GEBs evaluated as a resource in the 8^th Power Plan?
• Are GEBs more realistic/helpful to the utility system in the residential or the C/I sector?
• What scale is necessary for GEBs to be a real solution?
• What rate reforms are needed to make GEBs work?
• What policy/regulatory reforms are needed to make GEBs work?

Part 2 of this series will feature a panel drawn from the communities of building owner/manager, developer, service provider and research institutions to discuss the market side of this equation. Of course, there has to be a market-based value proposition for the BE-GEBs solution to decarbonization and this group will take that question head-on. Again, expect a dynamic conversation amongst the panel addressing core issues, such as:

• Who is responsible for triggering market adoption – utility-customer-third party-government/regulator?
• Will dynamic rate structures be sufficient to move the market or are some types of financial incentives also needed?
• Are GEBs only realistic for new construction?
• If the future of commercial buildings is variable occupancy does this help or hurt GEBs deployment?
• How critical is the inevitability of EV charging to GEBs?

This FREE two-part virtual series is targeted to building owners/managers, developers, utilities, service providers as well as those with interest in or responsibilities for policy and regulatory changes related to decarbonization.

Ever been frustrated that your question didn’t get addressed by a panel because they ran out of time? Submit your questions ahead of time during registration and we will tailor the conversation to match your information needs!

Register Here!