Lead Performer: Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems Inc. – Boston, MA
Partners:
-- Eversource Energy – Boston, MA
-- Holyoke Gas & Electric – Holyoke, MA
-- National Grid – Washington, DC
DOE Total Funding: $1,050,000
Cost Share: $492,000
Project Term: August 1, 2016 - July 31, 2019
Funding Opportunity: 2016 Building America Industry Partnerships for High Performance Housing Innovation
Project Objective
Fraunhofer USA and partners will develop models that use communicating thermostat data and interval electricity and gas data to remotely identify homes with significant energy savings opportunities. The team will compare these models to on-site home energy audit data to develop, demonstrate, and validate a scalable remote performance assessment tool. This software tool will help energy-efficiency programs more effectively evaluate and identify household-specific, energy-efficiency retrofit opportunities to reduce heating energy consumption, as well as validate post-retrofit home energy performance.
Project Impact
The proposed remote performance assessment tool will identify the top 20% of homes with the greatest potential for energy savings from insulation, air-sealing, and/or heating system upgrades. This will reduce the number of unnecessary energy audits that are conducted in homes that are unlikely to benefit from energy conservation measures, lowering program costs and increasing by 50% or more the rate at which recommended energy efficiency upgrades are implemented.
Contacts
DOE Technology Manager: Eric Werling
Principal Investigator: Dr. Michael Zeifman and Dr. Kurt Roth, Fraunhofer USA Center for Sustainable Energy Systems Inc.