This article is an excerpt from a longer piece on the website of the New Buildings Institute and an edited version is shared with permission. Read the full article.

A new LEED pilot credit known as the GridOptimal Buildings Pilot Alternative Compliance Path (ACP) could empower designers, architects and engineers to lead a paradigm shift: a future in which grid-enabled buildings—those with renewable generation or controls that communicate with the grid—play a critical role in meeting 100% renewable electricity goals.

Designers can lead the way

Buildings use about three-quarters of the electricity in the United States, and more than 80% during peak hours, when energy demand is the highest. With the electricity grid existing mainly to serve buildings, our future buildings and spaces will play a critical role in the energy transformation. Rather than thinking of buildings as energy consumers and of power plants as energy generators, we need to think of both as part of a larger energy system.

For example, buildings can help solve peak demand issues and offer a range of grid services to help meet other electricity system requirements: managing quality issues like voltage control and power quality and acting as virtual power plants to provide reserve capacity for the energy system. Building systems and distributed energy resources (DERs) will act, in effect, as part of the generation mix. With the right communications technologies, buildings and DERs can “talk” to the grid in ways that help ensure electricity is most effectively managed and delivered.

For example, at times when there is high demand that strains the grid, buildings can maximize use of on-site renewable production or draw on local storage, including EV fleets. This new area of focus, known as grid-enabled efficient buildings, or building-grid harmonization, represents an important shift in the way buildings and the grid interact. Architects, engineers, developers and builders can help lead the transition to a decarbonized grid.

From a design perspective, pursuing building grid harmonization will help building owners “future-proof” their assets in a number of ways:

Saving on utility costs: Time-of-use rates, demand charges, real-time pricing and perhaps carbon pricing will be coming soon to a jurisdiction near you.
Managing regulatory risk: Cities and other jurisdictions are drafting and enacting rules that serve as carrots and sticks for building time-of-use energy and greenhouse gas (GHG) optimization (e.g., New York City’s Local Law 97 places carbon caps for energy use on most buildings larger than 25,000 square feet and issues penalties for noncompliance).
Achieving corporate or institutional goals: By trimming loads during high-carbon peak hours and taking advantage of low-cost, clean energy when available, designers can help their clients meet GHG goals (Google has pledged to use 100% carbon free energy 24/7 by 2030).

Introducing the GridOptimal Buildings ACP

Up to three points for building grid optimization measures are now available for projects pursuing LEED v4 or LEED v4.1 through the GridOptimal Buildings Pilot Alternative Compliance Path (ACP). This builds on the groundwork laid by the GridOptimal Buildings Initiative, a joint initiative of New Buildings Institute (NBI) and USGBC. Examples of metrics used to measure improvements in building-grid harmonization are outlined in the chart below.

Metric	What it Measures
Grid Peak Contribution	Degree to which building demand contributes to load on the grid during system peak hours
Grid Carbon Alignment	Degree to which the building demand contributes to upstream (grid) carbon emissions over a year
Onsite Renewable Utilization Efficiency	Building’s consumption of renewable energy generated on-site (not exporting to grid) over a year
Short-Term Demand Flexibility	Building’s ability to reduce demand (shed) for 1 hour
Long-Term Demand Flexibility	Building’s ability to reduce demand (shed) for 4 hours
Dispatchable Flexibility	Building’s ability to automatically reduce demand (shed) for 15 minutes, controlled by utility/ third party

The ACP is currently available only to projects pursuing certification under the LEED for Building Design and Construction (BD+C). Based on feedback from project teams using this ACP, NBI and USGBC will consider adapting this pathway for the LEED existing buildings rating system in the future.

Read the full article

GridOptimal LEED pilot credit encourages designers to help solve grid issues