Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** policies nationwide are targeting…

Awards issued prior to january 20, 2025, were funded under previous administrations and may not reflect the priorities and policies of the current administration.** policies nationwide are targeting rapid adoption of grid-integrated building strategies, time-varying electricity prices, building electrification, and resiliency. But advocates worry that top-down innovation leaves smaller and more vulnerable communities behind. This project brings affordable grid connectivity to cornerstones of rural communities: small and mid-sized commercial buildings (smscb) that have been under-represented in grid integration projects to date. Many rural communities have older building stock and are at the end of power distribution networks - meaning energy burden, power quality and outage duration tend to be worse for rural customers. Outages impact commercial building systems such as refrigeration that are key to reducing food spoilage and contamination in agricultural production. By shaping energy use to better match local renewable output, reduce energy costs and demand charges the innovation proposed in this sbir lowers commercial electrical bills for end users and extends the time that critical power backup can reliably provide power during outages and disturbances. In phase i, CEL defined a model architecture that can be replicated – without significant customization --in other buildings and verified and optimized that model architecture using real-world data and use cases in smscb and rural communities. In phase II, CEL will test the prototype in full field deployment in a diverse subset of rural K12 schools and municipal buildings, verify the model performance and develop a deployment plan. This project addresses USDA's objective to to improve the quality of life in rural america by promoting energy efficiency, resiliency and adoption of renewable energy resources. CEL advances deliberate strategies to make technologies for energy and demand charge reduction more affordable in order to meet the needs of this significant segment of the US building stock.