News Archive
The Stories Behind the InnovationThere’s a story behind every project, partnership, and innovation, and here is where you’ll find them. Read on to learn more about how we think, what we’re up to, and what drives us.
Categories
On October 13, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced the 10 selected teams for its $61 million “Connected Communities” initiative awards, and the team led by Pittsburgh-based housing innovation company, IBACOS is among them.
The 10 awarded pilot projects – managed by teams that represent a cross-section of the buildings industry including utilities, local governments, homebuilders, home performance contractors, and end-users – will deploy new technology to transform thousands of homes and workplaces into state-of-the-art, grid-connected, energy-efficient buildings. This project will help achieve the Biden Administration's goal of reaching a net-zero carbon economy by providing a model for reducing the building sector’s contribution to the climate crisis.
“We believe this is an incredible moment for a new level of collaboration and collective innovation to help accelerate the advancement of home and community energy efficiency and grid connectivity, driven by the development and utilization of leading-edge technologies and new business paradigms,” says Mark Tilley, CEO of IBACOS. “Our team is delighted and proud to be a partner with DOE and the Connected Communities initiative in this critically important work.”
The ‘Advanced Clean Communities Collaborative’ (AC3) team, led collaboratively by IBACOS and Walnut Creek, California-based Tierra Resource Consultants, includes a diverse group of highly experienced and accomplished companies and organizations that are leaders in the utility, housing construction and retrofit, and renewable energy industries. The AC3 team includes:
- IBACOS www.ibacos.com
- Tierra Resource Consultants www.tierrarc.com
- Duke Energy www.duke-energy.com
- Meritage Homes www.meritagehomes.com
- Elevation www.poweredbyelevation.com
- Energy and Environmental Economics (E3) www.ethree.com
- National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) www.nrel.gov
- EnergyHub https://www.energyhub.com
The team will deploy a comprehensive mix of Distributed Energy Resource (DER) technologies to optimize the energy use of 1,000 new and existing homes. The project will include single-family and multi-family homes and both owner-occupied and rental properties in Duke Energy’s North Carolina service area.
A key objective of the project is to demonstrate the value proposition for all stakeholders (builders, energy service providers, utility, and utility customers) to participate in a “connected communities” DER program. The project will gather data on aggregated grid impacts and value across a range of buildings, end uses, and technologies to help identify best approaches to delivering flexible distributed capacity at scale; support grid reliability and resiliency; and deliver meaningful customer, climate and community benefits.
For more information on the Connected Communities projects, visit, https://www.energy.gov/articles/doe-invests-61-million-smart-buildings-accelerate-renewable-energy-adoption-and-grid.
###
About IBACOS
For 30 years, IBACOS has played a leading role in driving innovation in the housing industry. We are passionate about the delivery of better homes that successfully balance the needs of the consumer, the industry, and the environment. We partner with leaders in the housing industry and the U.S. Department of Energy to improve the quality, performance, and sustainability of the American home. Our collaborative team has extensive experience in business strategy and management, industry intelligence, building science and sustainability, technology development and the process of innovation.
About Tierra Resource Consultants
Tierra provides expertise across the breadth of emerging issues in today's energy markets including distributed energy resource program optimization, integrating grid responsive technologies with utility resource planning and operations, strategic electrification program development and innovations in decarbonization. Our clients include utilities, regulatory bodies, public agencies, and private sector clients in the U.S and Canada.
About Duke Energy
Duke Energy (NYSE: DUK), a Fortune 150 company headquartered in Charlotte, N.C., is one of America’s largest energy holding companies. Its electric utilities serve 7.9 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Indiana, Ohio and Kentucky, and collectively own 51,000 megawatts of energy capacity. Its natural gas unit serves 1.6 million customers in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Ohio and Kentucky. The company employs 27,500 people. Duke Energy is executing an aggressive clean energy strategy to create a smarter energy future for its customers and communities – with goals of at least a 50% carbon reduction by 2030 and net-zero carbon emissions by 2050.
About Meritage Homes
Meritage Homes is the sixth-largest public homebuilder in the United States, based on homes closed in 2020. Meritage Homes has delivered over 145,000 homes in its 36-year history and is the industry leader in energy-efficient homebuilding and an eight-time recipient of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year for Sustained Excellence Award since 2013 for innovation and industry leadership in energy efficient homebuilding. For more information, visit www.meritagehomes.com.
About Elevation
Elevation is a fully integrated residential energy solutions company providing solar, energy efficiency, and smart energy management technology. As a 2019, 2020, and 2021 Contractor of the Year recipient by the U.S. Department of Energy, Elevation is a leader in clean-energy technologies and their deployment to homeowners, institutional operators of single-family rental properties, and utility providers. poweredbyelevation.com
About Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. (E3)
Energy and Environmental Economics, Inc. (E3) is a leading economic consultancy focused on the transition to clean energy resources. They are the developers of several industry-leading analytical tools in electricity resource planning, greenhouse gas scenario analysis, energy markets analysis, and demand-side resource valuation. E3’s analysis is increasingly utilized by the utilities, regulators, and developers, and advocates that are writing the script for the emerging clean energy transition. For more information, visit www.ethree.com.
About The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL)
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) is the U.S. Department of Energy’s primary national laboratory for renewable energy and energy efficiency research. NREL's buildings research is transforming energy through building science and integration. Our research significantly enhances the resiliency, efficiency, and affordability of energy systems across the United States and the world. Our researchers are expanding the frontier of scientific knowledge that enables optimized energy use, generation, and storage in the built environment at multiple scales. Our goal is to permeate energy justice throughout the innovation research, development, demonstration, and deployment pipeline.