The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) recently announced plans to invest up to $6 million to deploy and demonstrate four emerging energy-saving technologies in commercial buildings across the country. These projects will reportedly help businesses cut energy costs through improved efficiency while also reducing carbon pollution. Last year, commercial buildings reportedly consumed about 20% of all energy used in the U.S. at an estimated cost of nearly $180 billion, and are responsible for 18% of total U.S. carbon emissions.
The projects will reportedly generate data, case studies and information intended to help commercial building owners adopt new energy efficient technologies, including advanced ventilation, building energy use optimization software, more efficient commercial refrigeration fan motors, and advanced lighting controls. The selected projects include:
- enVerid Systems, which will retrofit building ventilation systems with modules that remove indoor air pollutants such as carbon dioxide. This can enable the indoor air to be recycled while greatly reducing the amount of outside air ventilated into the building and reducing the loads on the heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) system.
- BuildingIQ Inc., which will optimize HVAC energy use across commercial buildings using Predictive Energy Optimization (PEO), a cloud-based software application that runs on top of existing building automation systems.
- QM Power Inc., which has developed high-efficiency 7-16-watt fan motors that are often used in commercial refrigeration systems. QM Power intends to install and demonstrate approximately 12,000 high-efficiency fans in more than 50 grocery stores throughout the U.S.
- Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships, a project designed to further the implementation of advanced lighting controls (ALCs), which turn off or dim lights when they are not in use.
For more information, visit http://energy.gov.
