Spokane Connected Communities Project

Spokane, WA

Avista
McKinstry
PNNL
Urbanova

Up to 75 total buildings consisting of 50 existing single family and multi-family residential homes and 25 commercial buildings

Retrofit buildings

Targeting a 7.5-15% improvement representing a 440-900 MWh reduction in annual energy savings. Energy efficiency measures for residential customers include weatherization with additional insulation and air sealing, as well as smart thermostats. Large commercial customers will benefit from Edo’s Energy Management and Information System (EMIS) along with free consultation from the project team on a prioritized list of site-specific Energy Conservation Measures (ECMs). Small commercial customers will benefit from weatherization and PNNL’s Supervisory Control Kit for Small Commercial Buildings (SC-SMB) which identifies and implements ECMs.

N/A

Rooftop PV (300kW), battery storage systems, thermal storage systems, and EV charging infrastructure (10-25 units)

Target 1.0–2.25 MW of flexible load through optimal control of HVAC systems, connected lighting, battery storage and EV chargers in small and large commercial buildings, and control of smart thermostats and batteries in residential homes.

This project will help defer or avoid major capital investments in a 55MW-peak distribution substation.

Focus on grid services to support distribution level to mitigate congestion, improve resilience, and improve efficiency at Avista’s 3rd and Hatch substation in Spokane. The project will demonstrate non-wires alternatives (NWA) that support deferring or avoiding major capital investments in distribution grid infrastructure by creating targeted (location specific) virtual power plants (VPP) from existing buildings associated with feeder segments that can be scheduled, forecasted and dispatched by the utility. Grid services that alleviate capacity constraints, maximize capacity utilization, provide load shaping, increase distribution efficiency, improve resiliency, increase renewable energy generation, reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and enhance relief and outage recovery. Additionally, volt-ampere reactive (VAR) and voltage management will be enhanced to reduce losses and consumption, and increase operational efficiency.

Demonstrating and refining a scalable and replicable model to assess utility substation congestion, develop demand flexibility within existing buildings, and optimize load dispatch — benefiting both local utility companies and their customers

Program participants experience reduced energy costs, optimized building performance, and direct incentives credited to their utility accounts. The utility helps lower distribution system costs, reduce energy losses, while enhancing overall system reliability. All stakeholders benefit from minimized grid outages and avoid costly substation upgrades.

The project is utilizing congestion signals from a utility Advanced Distribution Management System (ADMS), communicating these through a custom VPP aggregation service developed by the project team. This approach represents a scalable communication and control architecture, which enables buildings and DERs to be spatially aggregated, and their flexibility to be forecasted, scheduled, and reliably dispatched.