Proposal Status
Ready for Committee Review
Proposer First Name
Robin
Proposer Email
robin@c15.io
Proposer Job Title
Mechanical Engineer
Proposer Additional Info
Robin has spent the last nine years working to improve the efficiency, health, and quality of multifamily housing, and six years before that designing and implementing electromechanical instrumentation hardware and software. At Cadence OneFive, he leverages his mechanical engineering and data science experience to enable automated, transparent, and reproducible information exchange about buildings and retrofit projects. Some relevant studies he's contributed to include:
- Montgomery County Performance Ordinance - Building Energy Performance Standards Report, Steven Winter Associates: https://www.montgomerycountymd.gov/green/energy/beps.html#bepsreport
- City Playbooks for the Equitable Electrification of Multifamily Buildings, Building Electrification Institute: https://www.beicities.org/city-playbooks
- Carbon Trading for New York City’s Building Sector, NYU Report for NYC LL97 Carbon Trading Study Group: https://guarinicenter.org/9430/
- Heat Pump Retrofit Strategies for Multifamily Buildings, Natural Resources Defense Council: www.nrdc.org/resources/heat-pump-retrofit-strategies-multifamily-buildings
Proposed Session Description
What will it mean for the grid if we electrify all the things? The attempts to answer this question to date have been rooted in modeling assumptions (We know models always perfectly fit reality, right?). Worry not – we’ll report out from our NYSERDA-funded research project measuring the actual electric load profile of today’s electrically-heated buildings, providing an empirical dataset that can be used to inform heating and cooling demand forecasting.
Why is this session important?
While the industry has largely aligned around the electrify everything approach for decarbonizing buildings, there remain concerns about what this significant increase in electric load will mean for the grid. Chief among them is how much will this transition impact utility planning and infrastructure costs, costs which will likely be passed through to ratepayers, potentially exacerbating energy cost burdens for low-income households. Energy models have historically been off when projecting actual building energy consumption, so may be of limited value when used to estimate the future of electrified building loads. This study instead focused on 15 existing electrically-heated buildings, analyzing their load profiles and heating loads to determine their current electric peak demand and then used that to estimate how much of an impact a future of electrified buildings will have on the grid.
Diversity and Inclusiveness
LMI households spend a disproportionate amount of their income on utilities. According to the DOE’s Low-Income Energy Affordability Data (LEAD), NYS households with income between 30-80% AMI have an average energy burden of 5-7%, more than double that of households with income exceeding 100% AMI. And the households with the lowest income (those
Learning Objectives
Discover load profiles and peak demand for existing electrically-heated buildings
Identify which types of buildings are dominated by heating usage vs. cooling and baseload usage
Identify which building characteristics have the biggest impact on heating and cooling loads
Predict future grid impacts using today’s electric usage and equipment efficiencies
Has this session been presented before?
No
Target Audiences Level of Expertise
Level 2 - Some prior knowledge helpful.
Session Format Details
A 15-20 minute presentation of the findings, followed by a moderated conversation between panelists, and then Q&A
Strongest Content Connection - NYC 2023
Reviewer 1
Cuadra, Amalia
Reviewer 2
Altavilla, Jeannine
Committee Decision
Accepted
Cuadra Comments: This seems
Cuadra Comments: This seems like an exciting topic. If it gets selected as a talk, I would love to curate it. Our industry needs to discuss how building decisions affect the grid at large. I also like the fact that they will be reviewing demand data. Understanding power profiles and limitations is something that our industry should understand better. The presenters are also aware of the financial implications/cost increase of electrifying. Some questions:- What type of electrically heated buildings are they presenting? ASHP, WSHP, electric resistive heating? - What's the DHW use?- How will demand data be presented? Monthly? Hourly?- Will tariff implications be accounted for in the information presented?- Will there be a review of peak costs? If I remember correctly, we do not have one for heating. Thumbs up!