The Smart Grid is the Next Big Thing in Green Building. So Why Aren’t More Buildings Connecting?

GLL Properties’ 350 Mission Street, a 400,000-sq.-ft., 24-story building designed by Skidmore Owens Merrill and currently under construction in downtown San Francisco, is being built to LEED-Platinum standards and will take advantage of both the smart grid and demand response programs.

Most commercial owners are not taking advantage of smart grid and demand response technologies. A preliminary CoR Advisors survey reveals that most commercial building owners and managers aren’t even considering connecting. According to the survey, released last November, only 19 percent of buildings have any kind of automated connection to the smart grid and 32 percent of building owners are utilizing DR systems.

This month, National Real Estate Investor Managing Editor Susan Piperato looks at smart grid and why more building owners are not connecting. CoR Advisors President and CEO Darlene Pope says that 68 percent of building owners have no plans to connect their buildings to automated smart grid systems within three to five years, according to the article.

One source said that he smart grid is still in its early days. “No one wants to be a guinea pig,” he said. Many existing buildings lack the infrastructure to support smart grid and DR systems, so their owners don’t have the ability to reduce electrical consumption through curtailment or switching to a secondary power source.

The article goes on to mention that California is leading the way and examines policy as a possible deterrent or incentive.

Regardless of region, there is a general lack of education about smart grid and demand response technology, which CoR Advisors is seeking to address.