SAN FRANCISCO, May 26, 2020
Gridium announced today its nation-wide suite of 71 data integrations that help buildings navigate the shifting complexities of multi-directional energy flows, 3rd-party commodity contracts, and efficiency resource transactions. When a building understands how electricity, water, and natural gas moves across its network of wires, pipes, and HVAC equipment, it can solve the complexity of how that movement interacts with the local Grid, lowering its operational costs and carbon emissions.
RMI Calculates Clean Energy Portfolio Savings at $29 billion
“In our recent work, we have found that clean energy portfolios, or least-cost bundles of renewable generation, storage, efficiency, and demand flexibility can provide the needed grid services at lower cost than new gas-fired power plants,” said Charles Teplin, Manager, Rocky Mountain Institute. “Efficiency and demand response, including in commercial buildings like those addressed by Gridium, are actually the most cost effective resources and play key roles in our analysis.”
Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI)—an independent nonprofit founded in 1982—transforms global energy use to create a clean, prosperous, and secure low-carbon future. In its updated report on The Economics of Clean Energy Portfolios, it performs a rigorous analysis of the costs of clean energy portfolios (CEPs)—optimized combinations of wind, solar, and storage technologies paired with demand-side management. For more than a decade, gas-fired power plants have dominated new generation investments for the U.S. Grid, and the trend is set to continue. However, due to dramatic price declines for the underlying technologies, CEPs are now similar in cost to new gas-fired power plants. Further, recent CEP projects prove that these clean technologies can reliably meet Grid needs.
Integrating Eight Data Streams with Analytics for a Single Source of Truth
“We have worked hard to develop a low carbon energy infrastructure network on our campuses, and we’re proud of the clean energy technologies deployed,” said Robert Cormia, Professor Chemistry faculty at Foothill College, and member of the energy and emissions advisory group at Foothill De Anza Community College District (FHDA-CCD). “With Gridium, we can integrate and analyze all of our disparate data streams to quickly spot problems in energy generation, and actually see our true campus energy load. We teach these analytical skills in energy management; students can understand how clean energy projects on campus impact costs, GHG emissions, and the Grid.”
Professor Cormia is involved in energy systems research, including developing a 10-year decarbonization plan to reduce FHDA-CCD GHG emissions 60-80% by about 2030, where part of the design is an advanced thermal energy system on Foothill College’s campus. He and his students use Gridium to analyze energy data from the college’s solar PV and cogeneration systems, its net in and out electric utility meters, natural gas meters, and performance of the cogeneration plant. Robert recently used Gridium to spot errors in heat pump scheduling during reduced occupancy, and will use Gridium’s superposition load curve, which unifies all the DERs on campus, as part of the thermal electric energy modeling project.
Building Integrations to Drop Opex & Emissions Across the U.S.
“Few expect to see news about APIs trending on Twitter, but data availability is actually quite encouraging,” said Tom Arnold, CEO of Gridium. “Why? Because now we can build software integrations into solar PV systems, natural gas fuel cells, and behind-the-meter batteries, not to mention the online utility data warehouses from Florida, North Carolina, and Texas, among many others.”
Gridium built its new and growing suite of 71 data integrations to help buildings solve the complexity they now face when connecting to the rapidly evolving energy Grid. Validating battery storage savings, predicting non-coincident peak demand spikes, or entering into efficiency resource transactions require accurate analysis of multiple data sources. The good news is that this interconnectivity can drive down energy costs and emissions while boosting site-specific resilience.
To learn more about Gridium’s energy data integrations, please visit Gridium.com/integrations. To explore Foothill De Anza’s research initiatives, visit research.fhda.edu, and to read the Rocky Mountain Institute’s report on clean energy portfolios and its recommendations for Grid stakeholders, visit rmi.org/insight.
About Gridium Inc.
Buildings use Gridium to save energy, finance retrofits, and streamline operations. All told, the company directly serves about 300 million square feet of buildings across the United States, and with Gridium, these buildings save millions of dollars on electricity, gas, and water utility bills, extend the useful lives of their assets, and data-drive their sustainable operations.
