Whole Buildings technologies cut across multiple TPM categories to support building energy efficiency and decarbonization. Projects in this category seek to scale up technologies and standardized practices that enable a low carbon and more resilient grid, such as integrated and networked operations and whole building electrical infrastructure. CalNEXT priorities also include fostering design and construction practices that use highly energy efficient materials with low lifecycle carbon content, bringing more intelligence to buildings and appliances to enhance operational performance and flexible demand capabilities across systems, both within buildings and between buildings.
The Research Initiatives tables below describe the most important topic areas these technology research areas should be focused on, and the simplified icons indicate where the topic areas stand along the path of progression to technology transfer. The tables are meant to encourage research projects to fill the current gaps and advance the topic areas on the technology transfer path of progression.
High Understanding | Research in Progress | Immediate Needs | Future Research Needed |
CalNEXT expects to take on most or all of the work and cost burden.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having high impacts within the Technology Category.
This category covers components, systems, or controls with integrated approaches that differentiate them from other Technology Priority Map technology families and includes a single product or coordination of multiple products that serve multiple end uses. Examples include a single heat pump (HP) or coordination of multiple HPs serving domestic hot water (DHW) and HVAC and building management system (BMS) controls that integrate control among multiple end uses such as networked lighting sensors and HVAC control. This technology family also includes integrated packages of measures, such as electrification packages with envelope improvement measures, for example, weatherization and air leakage sealing, that reduce heating and cooling loads for a heat-pump HVAC retrofit or integrated design that provides multiple services and benefits from each component such as thermally activated building systems, embedded radiant floor panels, or broadly grid-interactive efficient buildings. The measures can be installed as existing building retrofits or in new construction.
Research Initiatives | Performance Validation | Market Analysis | Measure Development | Program Development |
---|---|---|---|---|
Multifunction residential and small commercial heat pump technology that reduces barriers to adoption and deployment | ||||
Equipment or product solutions that reduce barriers to adoption and deployment | ||||
Controls solutions that reduce barriers to adoption and deployment | ||||
Equipment and controls that use open frameworks for structuring building operation data to enable interoperability and extensibility | ||||
Building design methods and practices to integrate systems |
Integrated Systems have the potential to bring large performance improvements beyond that of individual components or individual systems. Certain applications have the potential to reduce barriers and costs by providing electrification of multiple systems that can also result in large energy savings and improve demand flexibility. An example might be an integrated lighting and space cooling system that reduces the total number of installed sensors in a building. In residential buildings, opportunities exist for integration of home area networks with smart appliances and smart panels.
Prospective ET projects should focus on the development of efficiency measures or strategies that integrate or replace multiple, single-function technologies, resulting in improved performance and reduced deployment costs.
Most performance improvements are component approaches addressing one piece of equipment or end use at a time. Integrated Systems can be significantly more complex, can span multiple building systems, and typically require a greater level of design, assessment, and more complex maintenance. For example, most deemed efficiency measures in the California Electronic Technical Reference Manual (eTRM) database are single technology or single end-use measures, whereas most Integrated Systems solutions involve multiple pieces of equipment and end uses and currently are covered in the custom energy efficiency programs. Progress toward deemed measures to support scaling of Integrated Systems is a priority.
Potential barriers that studies should address:
CalNEXT expects to take on most or all of the work and cost burden.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having high impacts within the Technology Category.
This technology family refers to single and multi-structure sites that use a common utility connection and encompasses electrical infrastructure site needs and capabilities to enable energy efficient and low- or carbon-neutral buildings, demand-flexible end uses, distributed energy resources, and grid harmonization.
Research Initiatives | Performance Validation | Market Analysis | Measure Development | Program Development |
---|---|---|---|---|
Interoperability of BMS with microgrid controllers | ||||
Interoperability of smart panels with DER gateways | ||||
Interoperability of home area networks with smart panels | ||||
Impact of integrated energy storage systems, on residential electrical infrastructure | ||||
Electrification enabled by panel or circuit level load management devices |
Improvements to the electrical infrastructure deployment will be necessary to support broad decarbonization efforts. Many existing buildings will need electric panel replacements and upsizing to support the efficient electrification of end-use systems such as water heating, space heating, and appliances like clothes dryers or cooktops. Electric vehicle charging will significantly drive the need for added electrical capacity. This includes any customer-side transformers, which will need to be upgraded to handle additional loads.
Opportunities exist for panel replacements and upsizing, with or without smart panels, to clearly separate loads so that critical and uncritical usage can be more easily identified, not only for energy efficiency through daily schedules, but also for demand response and demand flexibility opportunities, and to increase resiliency in the event of outages. In addition, there are opportunities to demonstrate portable energy storage systems providing backup to residences by plugging into a 110-volt outlet. As sub transformers age, they give off more heat and have minor electrical losses, operating less efficiently. With more electrical equipment being installed through decarbonization, there will be a greater need for upgraded transformers that can handle the added load.
Strategies and technologies to improve cost-effectiveness in deploying electrical infrastructure or demonstration of effective load management techniques that enable electrification are of high interest. Examples include smart circuit breakers, smart panels, and ability to support the flexible demand technologies under SB49.
For projects that directly support demand flexibility such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X), CalNEXT will look for ways to collaborate with existing ET projects.
Electrical infrastructure upgrades are new to the utility program landscape, having recently been incorporated into several eTRM measures as a cost component for fuel substitution measures. Still more work is needed to fully understand the role electrical infrastructure plays as a barrier to electrification efforts.
Potential studies of barriers should address:
CalNEXT expects to take on most or all of the work and cost burden.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having moderate overall impacts within the Technology Category.
Whole Building Operational Performance accounts for the dynamic interactions between a building and its environment, energy systems, and occupants. Building Commissioning (Cx) is an important strategy for achieving, verifying, and documenting proper operation of new buildings and new systems. Similarly, existing building commissioning (EBCx), also called retrocommissioning (RCx), is a process that seeks to improve how building equipment and systems function together. EBCx can also include more sophisticated approaches that ensure operational changes and energy savings persist, such as commissioning based on monitoring (MBCx), continuous commissioning (CCx), and virtual commissioning (VCx).
System modeling and analytics includes the software—algorithms, machine learning and artificial intelligence, digital twins, predictive models, first-principle or physics-based energy models—and data sources—building controls, Internet of Things (IoT), market and demographic data, external data sources—used to improve operational performance. Building performance standards (BPS) are outcome-based policy and law requiring existing buildings to meet energy or GHG emissions performance targets. Normalized metered energy consumption (NMEC) measures meter data before and after building energy interventions to determine savings. Residential energy automation (REA) systems are a network of devices that automate and control a home’s energy systems such as home energy management systems (HEMS) and distributed energy resource (DER) hardware. There are various ways these technologies result in operational savings such as automation of manual commissioning activities, tracking and identifying sources of energy waste at the whole building level, reducing the transaction cost of identifying and measuring performance of efficiency measures, and influencing operator and occupant behavior.
Projects that are primarily HVAC-focused should investigate alignment with the technology families in the HVAC Technology Priority Map. Projects focused on envelope are highly valued, but often overlooked, particularly as part of an ‘envelope first’ strategy to ensure those benefits are not forfeited before considering HVAC upgrades.
Research Initiatives | Performance Validation | Market Analysis | Measure Development | Program Development |
---|---|---|---|---|
Normalized Meter Energy Consumption (NMEC) | ||||
Residential Energy Automation Systems | ||||
System Modeling and Analytics | ||||
Automated Building Commissioning |
Prospective ET studies should demonstrate cost-effective, scalable operational performance strategies for products or services to improve deployment and benefits in new and existing buildings scenarios. System modeling and analytics solutions should ingest existing building data, e.g., BAS trends, IoT, AMI, and census data, and output solutions to improve operational performance such as fault detection, preventive maintenance recommendations, energy improvement measures, energy resiliency planning, or controls optimization. Technologies that help buildings achieve BPS targets or improve NMEC incentives are valuable. Technologies that focus on real-time feedback would be especially valued for maintaining operational performance. REA systems should provide centralized and integrated control of building loads, which may include electric vehicle charging systems, photovoltaic generation, battery energy storage inverters, and traditional building loads of lighting, HVAC, water heating, and plug loads.
Projects that are broadly available to populations that have been underserved or hard to reach though existing operational performance technologies are highly valued.
While mature, many commissioning strategies have not reached wide market adoption. While commissioning required building code has helped, it is only required for nonresidential buildings over 10,000 square feet, with limited mechanisms to ensure performance will persist over time. ET investments should focus on supporting wider market adoption of commissioning and technologies to ensure performance is maintained over time.
System modeling and analytics solutions are advancing rapidly with growth of sensors and IoT devices, data availability, and software capabilities. Additionally, traditional first-principal energy modeling is time consuming and, in many cases, cost prohibitive. ET investments should focus on demonstrating use cases that reduce cost and timelines: measuring energy and GHG savings, approaches for using analytics in utility programs, and first-principal energy modeling.
BPS and NMEC program solutions are being deployed, but there is a lack of understanding of the technical and market barriers, as well as limited tools and technologies for meeting targets or maximizing incentives. ET investments should focus on technologies that help buildings achieve BPS targets or improve NMEC incentives.
REA systems face several challenges including cost of smart panels, complexity for residential occupants, uncertainty and dynamics of loads and generation, optimal capacity configuration, control strategies, infrastructure limitations, and microgrid challenges. ET investments should focus on lower cost solutions, proof of usability for residential occupants, pilot adoption scenarios, and demonstrating use cases,
Potential barriers studies should address:
CalNEXT is interested in collaborating and co-funding projects.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having high impacts within the Technology Category.
This technology family is focused on reducing costs, energy use, and lifecycle emissions in the design and construction of whole buildings. It includes construction practices that reduce waste and improve compliance with high performance standards as well as the use of off-site construction such as manufactured housing, volumetric modular construction, or industrial panelization. Building design includes project delivery practices and building standards that maximize energy efficiency and promote low lifecycle carbon and cost in the design, construction, and operation of a building.
Lifecycle carbon and lifecycle cost analyses support building design that delivers the same or greater energy savings at lower upfront carbon emissions or lower cost in the near- or long-term.
Research Initiatives | Performance Validation | Market Analysis | Measure Development | Program Development |
---|---|---|---|---|
Manufactured housing electrification | ||||
Industrialized construction | ||||
Lifecycle carbon or cost analysis | ||||
Integrated design and construction project delivery |
Construction material efficiency. The design and construction industries are notoriously inefficient, despite being one of the largest sectors of the world economy. McKinsey and Company notes that construction-related spending accounts for 13 percent of the world’s GDP, but the sector’s annual productivity growth has only increased 1 percent over the past several decades. In addition to the efficiencies found in off-site manufacturing, there may be opportunity to greatly improve on-site construction practices and overall building performance through integrated design and construction project delivery.
Industrialized construction. Improvements in off-site or partial off-site construction can reduce construction costs and deployment times while improving energy efficiency, overall performance, and reliability of building systems, as well as derisk integration of new strategies such as incorporation of low embodied carbon materials or all-electric building designs. Improvements in this area may be of particular importance for the residential housing market as additional dwelling units and manufactured housing are expected to grow significantly to address the state’s housing affordability crisis.
Prospective ET studies should include consideration of development and deployment of low-lifecycle carbon buildings or high-performance whole buildings through demonstrations, scaled deployments, improvements to modeling and analysis tools, or other strategies.
Integrated design practices: Improvements in building design practices have the potential to reduce lifetime energy and emissions associated with construction by creating systems that exceed California energy and building standards, and favor building materials with lower embodied carbon. The State of California and local jurisdictions have been driving change in this area with policies such as:
Opportunities exist to expand low-embodied-carbon designs into the private sector, especially in off-site or partial off-site construction. Additionally, standardization of carbon impact calculators on building assemblies with layered materials would deepen the impact of low embodied carbon design.
While a mature industry, whole building design and construction has not been a focus for the California utilities ET programs. This has been a dynamic area in recent years with a variety of recent policy changes as mentioned in the Opportunities section above. It represents an area of significant potential for utility programs to research and develop initiatives that align with policy goals to reduce embodied carbon emissions and greatly improve overall building performance.
The residential manufactured housing sector in particular has shown reluctance to embrace low carbon materials and high-performance building design due to a lack of market pressure and a lack of progressive federal energy codes and standards. Manufactured housing is often seen as an affordable alternative to site-built homes. Consumers, and thus manufacturers, are sensitive to changes in standards and regulations perceived to increase price points.
Potential studies of barriers may address:
CalNEXT is interested in collaborating and co-funding projects.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having moderate overall impacts within the Technology Category.
The Envelope category covers products, design, and controls strategies, or installation techniques that reduce building energy demand and improve the moisture and airflow across the building envelope. This includes individual products such as insulation, windows, and insulated cladding, as well as construction techniques such as quality insulation installation, thermal bridge-free design and retrofit air seal or vapor control. The Envelope category also includes strategies and technologies that reduce the cost of building energy retrofits.
Note: See the Design and Construction Technology Family for additional defined project categories such as innovative building assembly design.
Research Initiatives | Performance Validation | Market Analysis | Measure Development | Program Development |
---|---|---|---|---|
Thermal mass additions and improvements | ||||
Window improvements | ||||
Window attachments | ||||
Air sealing retrofits | ||||
Non-energy benefits of envelope retrofits |
Improvements to the building envelope will reduce heating and cooling energy demand, improve thermal comfort, air quality, and moisture control, and make buildings more durable and resilient by maintaining a healthy and safe indoor environment during a power outage, smoky conditions, or an extreme weather event. In climates with a significant heating load, appropriate building envelope upgrades can make heat pump electrification successful by minimizing the use of supplemental heat, improving cost-effectiveness, reducing the heat load, and ensuring comfort.
Prospective emerging technology (ET) research focuses on products, such as improved envelope materials or on advancing construction practices. Studies are limited to deployable technologies for building sectors or types representing a significant portion of California’s building stock. Important opportunities address the high cost of retrofits and techniques that can be deployed with minimal disruption to building occupants or neighboring properties. Projects that demonstrate the magnitude of energy savings from envelope improvements are also an opportunity for research to support new programs.
Envelopes are a mature field, but they have been historically under analyzed in favor of more straightforward and lower-cost widget measures. This is especially true for the nonresidential sector. ET investments in this technology family promise both improved savings and lower lifetime cost.
Potential studies of barriers should address:
CalNEXT will track progress but encourage external programs to take lead in unlocking these opportunities.
CalNEXT has highlighted this technology family as having low relative impacts within the Technology Category.
Community-Scale Strategies can aggregate, balance, and control the flow of energy, thermal or electric, among multiple buildings and end uses for improved performance. They include hardware and software technology solutions that orchestrate end use and building operations across building boundaries. The costs, value streams, and benefits are measured across multiple utility meters and are shared by the community’s members, the local grid, and the larger grid system. The benefits include higher system efficiency, energy resilience, load flexibility, and grid harmonization.
Research Initiatives | Performance Validation | Market Analysis | Measure Development | Program Development |
---|---|---|---|---|
Understanding of microgrid controller products | ||||
A market for VPPs and community microgrid interactions | ||||
Operation of a VPP and community microgrid under a real time pricing tariff | ||||
Value stacking by community microgrid operators | ||||
Opt in or opt out opportunities for customers of community microgrids |
For CalNEXT, prospective ET studies should demonstrate performance benefits in terms of magnitude and cost-effectiveness of emissions reductions, e.g., retirement or decommissioning of gas infrastructure in an existing block or avoided cost of installing new gas infrastructure in a new residential development. Projects may include market research, lab testing, modeling, and field studies that help define benefits and value propositions. Microgrid sites should target regions most susceptible to grid outages such as public safety power shutoff events. Non wires alternatives include energy efficiency, solar and batteries, and virtual power plants, i.e., flexible loads, that relieve grid constraints or enable greater renewable energy consumption.
For district heating and cooling (DH&C), projects may involve system decarbonization, use of low global warming potential refrigerants, data collection, and evaluation methods of DH&C projects. For community microgrids, projects may test or assess the potential and feasibility of receiving benefits from multiple value streams such as participation in ancillary services markets while operating in parallel with the grid and energy resilience during a grid outage to better understand the economic viability.
CalNEXT expects significant research activity will continue by other emerging technology programs with focus areas beyond CalNEXT, such as demand response aggregation in the case of virtual power plants, as well as electric service resiliency in the case of microgrids.
Potential barriers studies should address:
Please refer to the Emerging Technologies Coordinating Council for a complete list of active and completed projects to ensure your project is not duplicative.
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