DESIRED – Deep Efficiency and Smart Grid-Integrated Retrofits in Disadvantaged Communities

Project Title: DESIRED – Deep Efficiency and Smart Grid-Integrated Retrofits in Disadvantaged Communities
Partners: Gas Technology Institute, Seattle City Light, Community Roots Housing, Vistar Energy and Sentient Buildings
Planned Location of Buildings: Seattle, WA and New York City, NY
Building types: 600+ units in existing and new multi-family affordable housing
New or retrofit buildings: New and retrofit buildings
EE target: 30% of energy savings
Total load: N/A
DERs planned: Battery storage systems to be used in time-of-use arbitrage, EV charging infrastructure, and rooftop PV
Flexible Loads: Targeting connected 120V monoblock heat pumps, connected centralized and unitary heat pump water heaters, managed community-scale EV charging
Coordinated Controls: The DER management will be coordinated through a data platform that combines customer service data, community energy systems, and grid conditions. The controls will focus on energy cost savings using an energy cost threshold approach.
Grid issues addressed: Distribution upgrade deferral and temporal capacity constraint alleviation will be addressed in this pilot using connected communities as local distribution resources with load shifting and DERs.
Grid services planned: This project will explore bulk system services and imbalance market participation through flexible load aggregation, load shifting, and optimal DER management. Managed bi-directional EV charging infrastructure will also be explored.