Plugging in nowadays is easy. Electricity is part of our daily lives, however, the ease in which we use it is not reflected in the complicated way in which it is delivered.
The Electric Power Research Institute, known as EPRI, aims to reduce that complexity. The institute wants to study the value chain, along with performance associated to dozens of factors with the result of better performance at a reduced cost.
The partners behind the reNEWable Living Home—Meritage Homes, Duke Energy, and dozens of manufacturers—are working together to create a better performing home. But that’s just one element in the comprehensive research that EPRI is doing. In this video, Ram Narayanamurthy, principal program manager at EPRI, speaks to the institute’s participation in this project, including what and how it is monitoring the energy use.
EPRI’s role in evaluating the reNEWable Living home is part of a group of seven test homes that will all be built with different energy-efficient designs with both battery and thermal storage. Narayanamurthy explains that EPRI collects and analyzes both circuit and premise level data on the energy performance before and after the home is lived in to understand the impact that occupancy can have on zero net energy (ZNE) design.
As part of this group, the reNEWable home offers additional opportunities to evaluate energy performance for EPRI. The home offers an exclusive opportunity to explore how Hercuwall prefabricated walls impact measurable performance, along with the home’s controllable heat pump water heater. These and other passive load management strategies will be analyzed against active battery storage. EPRI wants to understand the various energy storage techniques and how they compare to batteries to hopefully result in data that offers a path to a lower cost solution.
The work that EPRI is doing with Meritage Homes and other builders will be able to establish better techniques to execute on a large volume scale and drive costs down. Partnerships like this one are driving innovation that a builder or utility company or manufacturer would not have been able to produce in isolation.
“In working directly with product manufacturers, EPRI will help prove the effectiveness of energy-efficient systems including heat pump water heaters, high-efficiency HVAC units, and other appliances, and will uncover areas for further development at the individual technological level,” Narayanamurthy says. “Through this collaboration, EPRI hopes to help identify a streamlined, feasible pathway for homeowners and developers to reach ZNE living, resulting in increased adoption of energy efficient measures and sustained motivation for technological development.”
The home and its energy efficiency strategies will be on display in January in Orlando. Register now to visit the home.
