Whole Buildings

This category covers components, systems, or controls with integrated approaches that differentiate them from other TPM technology families and includes single products that serve multiple end-uses. Examples include heat pumps (HP) serving domestic hot water (DHW) and HVAC; and building management system (BMS) controls that integrate control between multiple end-uses (such as networked lighting sensors used for lighting and HVAC control). This technology family also includes integrated packages of measures, such as: electrification packages with measures to improve envelope (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 (TABS), embedded radiant floor panels, or broadly grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs).

Example Technologies

Multifunction Equipment, Integrated Controls, and Integrated/Interactive Measure Packages. Examples include combined space heating, cooling, and water heating systems.

Opportunities

Integrated Systems have 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.

Prospective ET projects should focus on the development of efficiency measures or strategies that integrate multiple, single-function technologies, resulting in improved performance and/or reduced deployment costs.

Barriers

Most performance improvements are component-based 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, the California electronic Technical Reference Manual (eTRM) database includes predominantly single technology or single end-use measures, resulting in most Integrated Systems solutions needing to follow a custom-engineered approach.

Potential barriers studies should address:

1. Lack of interoperability between software programs in controls systems.
2. Lack of open communication protocols for controls equipment, particularly for small and medium buildings (residential and commercial).
3. Lack of field performance data (including system reliability, energy performance, and cost-effectiveness).
4. Lack of maturity of system efficiency testing and ratings, particularly for combination HVAC and water heating (WH) products.
5. Lack of software tools for designers to quickly model and assess system performance and costs for integrated systems.
6. Lack of standard methodologies for estimating savings of integrated systems.
7. Lack of deployment infrastructure for integrated systems; need for better understanding of resources available for designers, installers, and maintenance strategies.

This technology family refers to single and multi-structure sites that use a common utility connection and encompasses site-level electrical infrastructure needs and capabilities to enable low- or carbon-neutral buildings, demand-flexible end-uses, distributed energy resources, and grid harmonization.

Example Technologies

Electric Panel Upgrades, Transformers, Direct Current (DC) Power Systems

Opportunities

Improvements to the electrical infrastructure deployment will be necessary to support broad decarbonization efforts. Many existing buildings will need electric upgrades to support the 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 would include the customer side’s sub-transformers, which will need to be upgraded to handle the additional loads. Strategies and technologies to improve cost-effectiveness in deploying electrical infrastructure and/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.

Opportunities exist for panel upgrades, with or without smart panels, to clearly separate loads so that critical and uncritical usage can be more easily identified, not only for demand response and demand flexibility opportunities, but also for energy efficiency through daily schedules. 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 different voltage requirements.

For projects that directly support demand flexibility such as vehicle-to-everything (V2X), CalNEXT will look for ways to collaborate with existing ET projects.

Barriers

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:

1. Lack of experienced practitioners. The industry lacks broad understanding of electrical infrastructure costs to support building electrification (especially hard-to-reach (HTR) and disadvantaged communities (DAC) as well as multi-family and non-residential buildings).
2. Disconnect between implementers and the National Electric Code and policymakers on electrification infrastructure needs and how best to address safety risks for load management approaches.
3. Lack of integration in programs to encourage combining enabling technology (electrical upgrades) with electrification (HVAC HPs and heat pump water heaters), promote best practices in design and construction (such as adequate envelope insulation and right sizing electric appliances), and foster demand response benefits.
4. Extensive and complex local city and utility codes that make panel upgrades a major project, sometimes requiring permitting or other approval processes that can take months to complete.
5. Transformers are expensive, resulting in longer payback periods; there are also a limited number of manufacturers which results in longer lead times for equipment replacement.

This technology family is focused on opportunities to reduce emissions, costs, and energy use in the design and construction of whole buildings. This includes techniques to reduce embodied carbon emissions in building materials, as well as the use of partial or whole off-site construction such as manufactured housing, volumetric modular construction, or panelized construction. High-performance building design includes project delivery practices and building standards that promote lifecycle sustainability in the design, construction, and operation of a building.

Example Technologies

Manufactured Housing, Volumetric Modular Building Components, Panelized Components, Low-Embodied Carbon designs, High-Performance Building Design

Opportunities

Improvements in building design practices have the potential to reduce lifetime emissions associated with construction by implementing building materials with lower embodied carbon. The State of California and local jurisdictions have been driving change in this area with policies such as: the Buy Clean California Act, which set global warming potential limits for steel, concrete, glass, and mineral wool insulation used in state projects; Low-Carbon Concrete Requirements adopted by the County of Marin in 2019; and SB596 in 2021 which will develop a statewide net-zero emissions strategy for the cement sector. 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.

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 onsite construction practices and overall building performance through integrated design and construction project delivery.

Improvements in off-site or partial off-site construction can reduce construction costs and deployment times while improving performance and reliability of building systems, as well as de-risk 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 focus on development and deployment of low-embodied-carbon buildings or high-performance whole buildings through demonstrations, scaled deployments, improvements to modeling and analysis tools, or other strategies.

Barriers

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.

Potential studies of barriers should address:

1. Lack of market understanding within utilities of manufactured housing benefits, associated implementation costs, and verifiable energy benefits.
2. Lack of programs to incentivize behavioral change of manufacturers, developers, construction managers, and building designers.
3. Lack of programs supporting electrification of manufactured housing including, but not limited to, U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Manufactured Housing, volumetric modular housing including single-family and multi-family housing, and Accessory Dwelling Units (ADU).
4. Lack of consistent disclosure of Environmental Product Declaration (EPD) from material suppliers.
5. Lack of manufacturer understanding on the benefits of low embodied carbon materials and willingness to promote and integrate products into their business model.
6. Lack of manufacturer ability to see a market, incentives and plant tax credits for high-performing off-site construction solutions.
7. Need for opportunities to employ integration of design, construction, and building commissioning in residential and commercial work.

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 retro-commissioning (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 monitoring-based commissioning (MBCx) and continuous commissioning (CCx).

System modeling and analytics is the software (algorithms, machine learning, digital twins, predictive models, first-principle/physics-based energy models) used to improve operational performance. Building performance standards (BPS) are outcome-based policy and law requiring existing buildings to meet energy-based or GHG emissions-based performance targets. Normalized Metered Energy Consumption (NMEC) is when energy savings from building energy interventions are measured based on normalized utility meter data. This technology family also includes other operational strategies that can improve performance including feedback mechanisms that produce energy savings from changes in individual or organizational behavior.

Projects that are primarily HVAC-focused should investigate alignment with the technology families in the HVAC TPM category.

Example Technologies

New Building Commissioning, Existing Building Commissioning, System Modeling and Analytics, Normalized Metered Energy Consumption, Building Performance Standards, Behavioral Interventions

Opportunities

Prospective ET studies should demonstrate cost-effective, scalable operational performance strategies (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, census data) and output solutions to improve operational performance such as fault detection, preventative 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.

Projects that are broadly available to populations that have been underserved or hard to reach though existing operational performance technologies are highly valued. Feedback mechanisms that produce behavioral energy savings that can show viability for future programs would also garner significant interest.

Barriers

While mature, many commissioning strategies have not reached wide market adoption. While building-code-required commissioning has helped, it is only required for non-residential 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, measuring energy and GHG savings, approaches for using analytics in utility programs, and first-principal energy modeling, that reduce cost and timelines.

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.

Potential barriers studies should address:

1. Lack of market penetration of commissioning, use cases, and quantified benefits of modeling and analytics.
2. Lack of market understanding and proven technology that support BPS and NMEC
3. Lack of understanding of technical performance and market understanding for whole building occupant-responsive systems

The Envelope category covers products, design strategies, or installation techniques that improve the overall performance of the building envelope impacting heat, moisture, and infiltration. This includes individual products such as insulation, windows, secondary windows, and ‘retrofit facades’ that improve the building envelope. It also includes quality construction techniques to further improve the envelope, such as quality insulation installation, addressing thermal bridging, air sealing, and vapor barriers.

Note: Some prospective envelope projects may better fit under the Scalable Thermal Storage Technology Family under the Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) TPM or the Connectivity, Controls, and Integration Technology Family under the Lighting TPM.

Example Technologies

Roofing, Fenestration, Opaque Envelopes, Air Sealing

Opportunities

Improvements to building envelopes will provide better thermal comfort, reduced heating and cooling energy usage, improved air quality, moisture control, and better resilience for buildings.

Prospective emerging technology (ET) research can be product-based such as improved envelope materials or can be advancements in construction practices. Automated interior or exterior fenestration and shading systems that utilize sensors to reduce energy use based on the season, time of day, and occupancy should also be explored. Studies should focus on deployable technologies for much larger existing building sectors that can address the high costs of retrofits and/or techniques that can be deployed with minimal disruption.

In California, the energy code does not currently require thermal bridging mitigation and air barrier testing/verification. Pilot projects that demonstrate the projected energy savings impacts from these measures may also present significant opportunities for improved building envelope performance.

Barriers

Envelopes are a mature field but have been historically under-analyzed in favor of more straightforward widget-based appliance options (this is especially true for the non-residential sector). ET investments in this technology family can promise both improved savings, lower lifetime cost, as well as several co-benefits that need evaluation.

Potential studies of barriers should address:

1. Lack of information related to retrofit technologies for existing residential envelopes.
2. Lack of information related to retrofit technologies for existing commercial envelopes.
3. Poor understanding of installation performance gaps (i.e., variance of real-product lifetimes) and embodied carbon impacts of different envelope materials.
4. Lack of valid data on energy code compliance and actual building performance.
5. Lack of trusted tools to facilitate accurate savings estimates in support of programs.

Community-Scale Strategies can aggregate, balance, and control the flow of energy (thermal and/or electric) between multiple buildings and/or 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/or the larger grid system. The benefits include higher system efficiency, energy resilience, load flexibility and grid harmonization.

Example Technologies

Microgrids, Non-Wires Alternatives, District Heating and Cooling

Opportunities

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 natural gas infrastructure in an existing block or a new residential development). Projects may include market research, lab testing, modeling, and field studies that help define benefits and value propositions. Microgrids sites should target regions most susceptible to grid outages (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 and/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.

CalNEXT expects significant research activity will continue by other programs with focus areas outside of CalNEXT, such as demand response aggregation in the case of virtual power plants, as well as electric service resiliency in the case of microgrids.

Barriers

Potential barriers studies should address:

1. Nascent standards environment for interoperability of grid assets.
2. Significant policy changes necessary to facilitate community-scale microgrids.
3. Lack of empirical data and case studies on project costs, operational performance, and benefits.
4. Lack of market understanding for microgrid controller products.
5. Lower market penetration rates of non-wires alternatives for DAC and HTR communities.
6. Limited technology solutions for electrifying DH&C heating systems