VERITEL ENERGY LLC — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: C56-10b

Description

The building sector is responsible for approximately 40% of the greenhouse gas emissions that are released to the atmosphere annually, which contribute to the problem of climate change. A majority of these emissions are a result of the energy use in buildings. Incorporating renewable energy is an effective way to decarbonize buildings and to eliminate a large portion of the harmful emissions; unfortunately, not all building types are adopting alternative energy at the same rate due to the challenges posed by the complexity of certain properties. To address these barriers so the benefits of renewable energy can be equitable distributed throughout all communities, the current project is developing a hardware and software technology that equips building owners to be able to offer renewable energy in buildings with multiple tenants. By creating this platform, communities that have a high concentration of multifamily properties will be able to enjoy the same health and environmental benefits as residents who live in single family communities. We expect this project will help close the solar energy gap that exists because single family homes have solar energy adoption at 10 times the rate of existing multifamily properties. In Phase I of the project a pilot system will be constructed on a simplified version of a 12-unit apartment building that only contains one central electrical meter and will incorporate the project’s proprietary energy management system. The system will monitor and manage all on-site generated electricity and will distribute it to the various tenants according to each unit’s power demands. By incorporating a battery bank, the system will attempt to keep all renewable energy on the premises which will reduce the demand on the regional electrical grid. Also in Phase I, calculations will be made to determine the reduction in harmful greenhouse gas emissions, and the reduction in the energy use intensity of the buildings as a result of the new system. Phase II of the project will install the energy management hardware and software system on a much more complex project that involves multiple buildings and 28 different electrical meters. The same decarbonization metrics will be provided to determine the reductions in the buildings’ emissions and energy use intensity. Additionally, the system will now act as a utility company and provide all necessary accounting and energy use information to the individual tenants and the landlord for proper billing and recordkeeping. This task is vital so the large initial investment in the renewable energy system can be serviced by the payments for the electricity that is generated on-site. The commercial applications of the project technology will be applicable to a large percentage of the forty-four million multifamily units in our country. The technology will also have applications in all property types where multiple tenants occupy a property with a single electrical feed that is then distributed through multiple sub meters for each tenant, such as strip centers and small industrial parks. By creating this energy management platform, the public will benefit from a more resilient and secure electric grid due to the presence of additional distributed power generation and storage. The distributed grid will reduce the demands and problems associated with electrical transmission such as wildfires and the susceptibility to vandalism and terrorist threats. The reduction of demand on large scale source generation of electricity due to this proposal will also reduce the negative health consequences associated with fine inhalable particulate matter smaller than 2.5 micrometers that result from the current fossil fuel electricity generation. Because this project is ideally suited the retrofitting of existing properties that typically comprise workforce housing in at-risk communities, it will help establish widespread energy security to neighborhoods that have historically been denied these public health, environmental, and societal benefits.