Silicon Valley Clean Energy (SVCE) awarded a $100k Smart & Resilient Schools pilot to CEL and Extensible Energy.

SVCE PILOT SAVES MONEY, TIME & HASSLE FOR K12 SCHOOLS

(SVCE) awarded a $100k Smart & Resilient Schools pilot to CEL and Extensible Energy. Read our summary of this Pilot Program completed in December 2021.

Smart & Resilient Schools demonstrated smart building technology that treats any commercial building with a solar array like a battery. This is possible whether or not a battery is actually installed. Doing so improves the economics of resilience and defrays the cost of islanding for the hosting school facility. This project combined Extensible Energy’s DemandEx energy analytics tool with CEL’s user experience workshops and interface design.

SVCE is a Customer Choice Energy provider within PG&E territory in California. During this project, more than seven secondary schools in the region provided data. A pilot was run at a single high school for four months of operation, from August-November 2019. The pilot showed the software saved more than $17,000 in demand charges alone prior to COVID. Post-COVID, the software still provided significant demand savings ($5,000 from August-November 2021) at a single school but less overall due to increased ventilation requirements post-COVID.

Likewise, Smart & Resilient Schools tested an innovative engagement strategy for an Internet-of-things (IoT) control platform. Customers and utilities will need to use such IoT platforms in order to decarbonize and improve the economics of resilience in commercial buildings. As a result, we educated energy consumers and unearthed insights that will improve customers' experiences with emerging technologies and utility offerings like those offered now and in the future by SVCE. The project improved operating energy flexibility. It also advanced participants' understanding of load flexibility as a core component in a resilient, renewable energy future.