I’ve been spending most of my time in Chicago as of late, and it’s a bit of a baseball town, so you’ll have to excuse the reference.
I saw this in my inbox today from smartmeters.com: Chicago association describes office building smart grid.
FTA:
The Building Owners and Managers Association (BOMA) of Chicago has plans to develop the nation’s first smart grid program specifically for an office building. The group filed an official application for 50 percent matching funds worth $92.7 million from the US Department of Energy (DOE). The total cost of the project has been estimated at $185.4 million.
The program will implement smart grid technology throughout more than 260 commercial buildings in the downtown Chicago area. The association represents more than 80 percent of the building space in the central business district – buildings that account for an estimated gigawatts of energy during times of peak demand.
Now I don’t know if they are going to get credit for the energy efficiency or just the demand response, but in all cases it’s big win for the ESCO industry who with the correct use of building automation can now energy the (virtual) generation market as partners with their clients.
I’d love to hear from anyone who has experience providing virtual generation independently from a utility.
If this works as I understand energy efficiency can save/make money by: reducing utility costs, reducing carbon emissions, and selling the shedded load back to the grid as a virtual source of energy. Plus they are getting grant money to do it, does that make it a grand slam?
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Nathan Shetterley (nathan.shetterley@gmail.com)
EVO Director of New Media
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