Policies nationwide are targeting rapid adoption of grid-integrated building strategies, time-varying electricity prices, building electrification, and resiliency

But advocates worry thattop-down innovation leaves smaller and more vulnerable communities behind. This projectbrings affordable grid connectivity to cornerstones ofrural communities: small and mid-sizedcommercial buildings (smscb) that have been under-represented in grid integration projectsto date. Many rural communities have older building stock and are at the end of a powerdistribution networks - meaning energy burden, power quality and outage duration tend to beworse forrural customers. Outages impact commercial building systems such as refrigerationthat are key to reducing food spoilage and contamination in agricultural production. Byshaping energy use to better match localrenewable output, reduce energy costs and demandcharges the innovation proposed in this sbir lowers commercial electrical bills for end usersand extends the time that critical power backup can reliably provide power during outages anddisturbances. CEL's innovation is (1) to define a model architecture that can bereplicated – without significant customization --in other buildings and (2) to verify and optimizethat model architecture using real-world data and use cases in smscb and rural communities. This project addresses USDA's objective to to improve the quality of life in rural america bypromoting energy efficiency, resiliency and adoption ofrenewable energy resources. Celadvances deliberate strategies to make technologies for energy and demand charge reductionmore affordable in orderto meet the needs of this significant segment of the US building stock.