Jan. 2021 – The California Energy Commission plans to award The Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory $16 million to do research and development toward the transition from static energy efficiency to dynamic energy management.
The California Load Flexibility Research and Development Hub (CalFlexHub) brings together a multidisciplinary team of experts from numerous sectors—including industry, utilities, academia, manufacturers, and non-profits—to identify, evaluate, develop, fund, and demonstrate promising pre-commercial energy efficiency and distributed energy resource technologies that are flexible, interoperable, and grid-integrated.
CalFlexHub will also fund a portfolio of pre-commercial innovations with the specific objective of supporting the deployment of new, commercially-available, signal-responsive products—refrigeration equipment, air conditioners, water heaters, heat pumps, HVAC and thermostat controls, lighting, washers and dryers, cooking products, electric motors, transformers, power supplies, plug load control devices, battery storage and charger systems—and other end-use technologies in residential and commercial buildings that can cost-effectively control to provide load-flexibility and that provide a clear value proposition for customers, building owners, ratepayers, load serving entities, and grid operators.