Check-out this TedX from NEEC Board Member, Matt Golden, of Recurve. His talk summarizes the challenge before us as we simultaneously decarbonize transportation, buildings, and the grid, which in California, has led to an anticipated 4GW shortfall during the summer peak. Acting on this emergency, Governor Newsom established a new $160 million statewide Market Access program. In this new program, load flexibility in buildings will be used to address some of that 4GW shortfall. Using buildings in this manner supports California in meeting its carbon goals and provides an immediate and innovative solution to the alternative ways to address the shortfall (e.g. back-up generators). This is a great example of how building efficiency and performance can be leveraged to enable electrification of transportation and other elements of the clean energy transition by filling in needs on the other end in maintaining grid reliability. Kudos to Matt for an excellent talk.
Watch: TEDx Sonoma 2022 Matt Golden on Decarbonizing the Grid