“Grid-interactive” smart buildings are emerging as a way to steady the grid during high demand, and Toronto-based cleantech startup Parity is identified as a leader in the field in a recent news report.
Parity deploys its heating, ventilation, and air-conditioning (HVAC) optimization software at several residential buildings and hotels in the eastern United States, adding up to about 70 million square feet of real estate, reports Canary Media. Designed to “squeeze a certain amount of savings out of day-to-day operations,” Parity’s software can cut a building’s energy use by 15 to 30%, while saving 10 to 15% on residents’ utility bills.
“But what we’re also excited about is this new concept of a grid-interactive, efficient building, where it’s not just about how much you’re consuming but when you’re consuming it,” James Hannah, U.S. managing director of Parity, told Canary.
Coined by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), the term “grid-interactive buildings” describes structures that “combine energy efficiency measures and load flexibility, meaning they can shift their power use to match when the grid can deliver it most cost-effectively,” writes Canary.
Such buildings stand to deliver big savings: DOE-sponsored studies show that their widespread implementation “could reduce the cost of the clean energy transition by US$100 billion per year by 2030, and cut the cost of achieving nation-wide carbon-free electricity by 2050 by more than one-third.”
Last summer, Parity demonstrated its optimization software in a 24-story, 392-unit condominium in New York City. “We were able to more than double the amount of kilowatts curtailed,” Hannah said, explaining that the software replicated manual efforts that building managers can deploy—like resetting fans and thermostats—in times when the grid needs help.
Crucially, Parity achieved the curtailment without causing any comfort issues for occupants, Hannah said, with the system analyzing just how much power could be reduced before the tenants began to feel the difference.
The optimization software allows “a deep understanding of how these buildings operate and where the limits might be—where you cross over to a level of discomfort that just isn’t tenable,” Hannah said.
