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New York Intelligent Building Challenge Finalists!

NYSERDA is New York State’s energy agency, and a longtime pioneer in advancing new solutions in energy and smart grid.

So we and our great team are happy to have just been chosen as finalists for NYSERDA’s 2024 NextGen Buildings Innovation competition, with up to $8 million in grant awards.

Our proposed program will build on our 2024 work at  DOE-Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, in demonstrating our new AI/ML for DER control and microgrid operations in projects across New York, and in a wide range of building types.

Growing with AWS

We’re excited to be launching our breakthrough new Efficiency as a Service and Virtual Power Plant feature sets.  And just in time, as another brutally hot summer arrives.

For this, we’re doing a big scaleup of our platforms — and our cloud partner Amazon Web Services is helping us to move fast, via the AWS Migration Acceleration Program.

AWS is not only working closely with us on our buildout, but also via making an investment with us via MAP to speed us to market.  Many thanks to our AWS partner team!

42% HVAC Peak Load Shed with Maintained Comfort in DOE-LBNL Demonstrations

We’re thrilled (though not surprised!) at recent results in demonstrations of our new AI/ML at DOE-Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, under our CalTestBed grant from the California Energy Commission.

Our new AI/ML delivers easy, reliable load shed and shift, for fast-scalable grid Demand Response and virtual power plant  ops for buildings of all kinds — commercial, industrial, and soon residential.  And on a SEER 20 heat pump-equipped test building at DOE-LBNL’s great FLEXLAB facility, we did just that, showing 42% average kW demand reduction through the California winter morning peak, with zero comfort (temperature) impact inside the building.

And we can do the same for afternoon peak demand as well, across North America and the world.  More to come!

National Carbon and Cost-Cutting Project for Multi-Family

Multi-family buildings — apartments, condos, townhouses and the like — house about 1/3 of U.S. households, according to U.S. census data.  That’s a lot of buildings and a lot of carbon footprint, and the same is true around the world.

For a large multi-family owner, we’re kicking off a big 2024 deployment of PACE AI that will help the owner cut and track its carbon footprint via its existing dashboard, while cutting HVAC operating operating costs 20%.  And with electric and gas utility smart building incentives helping to pay for it all, across the country.

Delivering New Carbon and Cost Reduction Solutions with Munich Re

We’re excited with our accelerating partnership with Munich Re, the global insurance company.  Munich Re’s Hartford Steam Boiler Inspection and Insurance division (HSB) has insured buildings and industrial assets around the world for over 150 years, and has a deep commitment to driving new IoT solutions for both carbon/climate and active risk management.

HSB provides a 3 year Savings Warranty on PACE AI savings on heating and cooling equipment, making PACE AI a breakthrough AI/ML solution for carbon and cost: 20%-30%+ electric and gas $$ savings, 30%-100% utility incentives, 3 year Savings Warranty.  Here’s a recent Munich Re article describing our partnership.

PACE AI Delivers Virtual Power Plant for Multi-Family

Residential Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) tie together homes and sometimes electric vehicles, to shed load and provide power when needed during times of high electric demand.

They have big potential to deliver a smarter, more resilient grid.  But most residential VPP models are now built around single-family homes, and with homeowners being able to modify their houses, something not applicable to single apartments or condos.

For a 70+ unit multi-family building, in a demonstration PACE AI just delivered an estimated 80 kW of load shed, during the local afternoon electric peak demand period (3 pm-6 pm).  And with no changes in resident comfort, “painless VPP”!  We estimate that as much as 100-120 kW of total sheddable load could be enrolled under the local utility’s Demand Response program, for dollar revenues to building owners and residents as well.

CalFlexHub: Dynamic Energy Management for a Better Grid

As part of our work with DOE-Lawrence Berkeley National Lab’s great FLEXLAB/FLEXGRID facility, we’re joining CalFlexHub — a terrific effort to make electric power grids more dynamically responsive.

More renewable energy is being added to electric grids worldwide, cutting carbon emissions and providing jobs, and that’s great.  The challenge is matching electric load (demand) to electric supply through the day, with better load shed/shift and storage, and with real-time price information.

CalFlexHub’s participants, which include electric utilities and nearly every global grid and building system OEM, as well as smart home and cloud players like Google and Amazon and new technology providers like PACE AI, have an ambitious goal: fully decarbonizing California electricity production by 2045.  We can do it!  Learn more about CalFlexHub here.