Enhancing Building Resilience and Affordability through Distributed Smart Home Panels with Portable Batteries: Packaged Solutions for Electrification Challenges
Prospect Silicon Valley
Recipient
San Jose, CA
Recipient Location
$87,500
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
For project updates and upcoming events, visit ProspectSV’s Pathways! https://www.prospectsv.org/pathways
Pathways is a comprehensive engagement program that funnels our projects into three separate tracks: Building, Fleet, and Resiliency. Check out the Building Decarbonization Track for more information on this project.
The Issue
Apartments are 29% of the housing in California, and 50% or more of housing built every year in California since 2009. Units were typically built with 30A electrical service in the 1940s-1960s, and 60A services in 1970s to present day construction, with the needed 100A service rarely available. Existing electrical capacity remains a major concern for a large number of multifamily buildings, especially those built before the 1990s. Although solar photovoltaic (PV) and battery energy storage systems currently supplement grid power, the sheer cost and limited panel capacity limit decarbonization options. This is a key barrier to speedy decarbonization and resiliency upgrades. This project will serve as an excellent showcase of how to address the need for electrical service upgrades in existing buildings on California's pathway toward building decarbonization. Additionally, in a warming climate with stronger and more prevalent natural disasters, the need for more resilient solutions during power shut offs is apparent.
Project Innovation
Prospect Silicon Valley (ProspectSV) and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), IDeAs Consulting, Redwood Energy, and EcoFlow Technology Inc. will demonstrate use of a centrally coordinated set of load-shedding smart panels and modular plug-in batteries to expand panel capacity that enables retrofits at housing units without service upgrades, and provide load controls that enable grid services and resiliency for both the units and the building. The demonstration will feature EcoFlow’s advanced smart panel integrated with ‘plug-and-play’ batteries, and will take place at The Courtyards at Arcata (Arcata, CA), the nation’s first apartment complex to provide tenants with their own personal 1kW solar photovoltaic (PV) panels, and at the Willow Creek Apartments (Willow Creek, CA). These low-income multifamily housing developments are an ideal location for demonstrating this power electronics design, providing a new method to expand capacity to accommodate decarbonization at tenant spaces without need for electrical service upgrades.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
Project benefits include: reduced integration complexity, reduced time the electrician or contractor spends on installation, reduced or avoided utility service upgrades, increased time duration customers can island off-grid, up to 90 kWh additional capacity per apartment during outages, greenhouse gas emission reductions, air emission reductions (e.g. NOx), increased customer safety during outage events, and increased customer choice.
The demonstrations will directly impact the two sites by increasing housing resiliency in regions that are at a high risk of power loss from wildfires and PSPS events. Additionally, by opening capacity for electrification efforts, these units enjoy both health and economic benefits.
Affordability
EcoFlow has developed a smart home panel that seamlessly connects to existing electrical panels and modular plug-in batteries that can be integrated into existing homes without the need for additional electrician labor, making this solution cost-competitive in the marketplace. This solution could save approximately $942 per installation of one set of smart home panels and batteries, compared to a typical 5-kW/12.5-kWh (2.5-hour) battery storage system.
Reliability
The smart panel includes enhanced features such as storm guarding that improves grid resilience in the event of grid emergencies or natural disasters, and a Time of Use functionality to help save electric energy costs by automatically switching from grid to backup power during high-rate periods. This solution's system reliability and security enables distributed controllers to operate the batteries and load controllers even in the event of a cyber attack
Equity
This solution makes retrofit options more viable for low-income and older vintage building stock, especially when located in disadvantaged communities, and addresses a national need for equitable decarbonization solutions in the housing sector. Both Willow Creek Apartments and The Courtyards at Arcata are low-income communities with tenants whose vulnerability under power loss is a clear case for an accessible, low-cost resiliency approach.
Key Project Members
Doug Davenport
Subrecipients
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Redwood Energy, LLC
Denise Penrose Consulting
Danco
EcoFlow Technologies Inc.
IDeAs Consulting
Match Partners
Danco
EcoFlow Technologies Inc.
