US Department of Energy Invests $74 Million in Energy Efficient Building Technologies
The US Department of Energy (DOE) has announced plans to spend $74 million (£56.7m) to support a total of 63 green projects, aiming to improve the energy performance of buildings and the electric grid, a news report can reveal.
More than 125 million residential and commercial buildings are currently using more energy than any other sector in the US. This figure accounts for 40% of the nation’s energy use and nearly 75% of its electricity consumption.
Research partnerships want to pursue new technologies that could improve the energy productivity of buildings and encourage the flexibility of the buildings in terms of their capacity.
Daniel R Simmons, Assistant Secretary of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy said: “DOE is accelerating its quest to improve the energy productivity and flexibility of America’s residential and commercial buildings.”
He added the primary goal of new innovative technologies would be to empower Americans with many more alternatives and to strengthen buildings’ performance without disrupting consumers’ lives.
Several projects are expected to unlock major energy savings through grid-interactive efficient buildings and advanced building construction technologies and practices. A top priority of the research is linking buildings to one another across the internet and power grid and allowing even conventional structures to rearrange operations to periods of the day when there is less demand.
Through these projects, researchers will try to tackle the overgrowing problem of cybersecurity of flexible buildings. It says other projects will address the development of novel thermal energy storage materials, advancements in non-vapour compression HVAC technologies, fuel-driven building equipment and solid-state lighting.”
HeatingSave – the low-cost BMS that offers in-depth analysis tools for your building
Building management systems (or BMS systems) monitor and control building operations, such as heating and hot water provision, air-conditioning, electrical power, fire alarms and fire suppression, lighting, ventilation and even security (access control, video surveillance, etc.). These systems are increasingly connected to other information systems and the internet.
Quite obviously, in order to be able to deliver such a high level of control, BMS systems employ an array of sensors, each of them transmitting sensitive data to the main controller. Ensuring the data remains private and secure at all times is paramount f or the security of the buildings and residents.
The HeatingSave building management system features multiple sensors – temperature, flow and return temperature, PIRs, LUX, air quality, etc. – all contributing to the achievement of the ultimate goal – that of helping you drive down energy costs, while keeping your building comfortable and secure.
HeatingSave collects and stores meter readings each minute so that you have the granularity to be able to see the cause and effect. The same applies to other inputs such as temperatures, air quality and occupancy.
The starting point for the normalisation of most energy consumption related to heating is degree-day analysis. Since the outside temperature can vary significantly for site to site within a local geographical area, HeatingSave calculates the degree-days for each day for each site.
However, unlike some other competitors, data generated by HeatingSave is stored on the system itself – users can access it any given time. We don’t have access to the data (unless granted by the users when carrying out system diagnostics), and the data is most certainly not shared with any third party. Furthermore, HeatingSave has top-level security protocols in place, meaning that even when you’re controlling your system remotely (for example, via the smart phone app), the security and privacy of your data are guaranteed.
