The City of Boulder, CO is partnering with Fermata Energy in a pilot project to reduce the city’s building energy costs. They are installing a charging station at a local recreation center that enables a bidirectional charging system for EVs. The vehicle-to-building (V2B) technology allows vehicle batteries to transfer energy from the battery to a commercial building in order to support the building’s electric loads. The pilot project is part of the city’s GoEV City resolution, which declared support for transportation electrification across the community and testing innovative electric vehicle technology.
The city will connect one of its electric fleet vehicles to the V2B charging system, which will be tied into the recreation center’s electricity system. The fleet car will charge at night, when building energy demand is low, and discharge the battery to the recreation center during the day, when the building’s demand peaks. The goal is to reduce peak demand which in turn will reduce the monthly bill.
“We look forward to testing this new technology and seeing the data to understand the potential of technology like this. If we can reduce our peak demand and save money through this project, it might unlock new use cases for expanding the city’s electric vehicle fleet. Not only can electric vehicles help meet our climate goals and reduce air pollution, they might be a strategy to reduce operation costs and enhance resilience,: said Matt Lehrman, the city’s Energy Strategy Advisor.
Fermata Energy will continuously monitor the recreation center’s electrical loads and the city will have access to this information and the data will be shared on the project website at www.bouldercolorado.gov/evinnovation. The city expects to begin receiving data from the pilot in early 2021.
“Our technology is designed to assist EV owners in saving money, generating revenue and reducing energy costs,” said David Slutzky, founder and CEO of Fermata Energy. “We look forward to supporting the city’s efforts to transition to electric vehicles in addition to leveraging EVs to help the city increase its energy resilience and save money with increased EV use.”