California Opportunities for Procurement to Accelerate Clean Energy (Cal-OP ACE)
Empower Procurement aims to make the DER procurement process easier for buyers and sellers in order to accelerate the adoption of green technologies.
Prospect Silicon Valley
Recipient
San Jose, CA
Recipient Location
10th
Senate District
25th
Assembly District
$3,973,308
Amount Spent
Completed
Project Status
Project Result
In order to facilitate the adoption of DER technologies, this project brought the Empower Procurement team's members together to build and introduce 6 procurement initiatives (PI): E-Fleet, Benchmarking, Contracts, Practices, Products, and Services. All six initiatives are now running with Californian universities and use common technologies like specially created exams, a common digital dashboard for project management, and a work plan for each PI. In order to obtain a comprehensive and varied data set of insights to address the scalability of these PIs, the project team concentrated on recruiting more universities to participate in the PIs. In 2022, the project team focused on working with schools and local government clients on a guidance-level Technical Assistance program that informs the appropriate analysis of a targeted school campus, a group of civic buildings, and other decarbonization programs. As the grant came to a close in 2023, the final report is now published on the Energy Commission website and linked to this project profile.
View Final ReportThe Issue
More distributed energy resource (DER) solutions must be deployed and adopted to meet California's energy policy goals of reducing GHG and doubling energy efficiency. Scaling DER solutions can simultaneously help buyers and sellers, but there are barriers in connecting the two parties. Large institutional customers typically purchase equipment through formal procurement processes not suited to the culture and resources of clean energy ventures. For DER technology companies to sell into institutional and commercial markets, they must navigate complicated institutional procurement processes, and procurement customers must overcome structural inertia to adopt new DER technologies.
Project Innovation
This project will establish a new incubator program specifically geared towards bridging the gap between California clean energy companies and institutional/commercial customers that rely on formal procurement processes to purchase DER solutions and packages. The project will provide and coordinate key services, assistance, and resources needed to bridge the gap between emerging energy technology solutions and large-scale procurement processes. Cal-OP ACE will provide support to clean energy ventures navigating and competing in institutional energy procurement processes while providing guidance to customers updating and streamlining their procurement processes for advanced DER technologies. Cal-OP ACE will be responsible for facilitating information sharing so clean energy ventures are aware of market opportunities provided by institutional customers, and institutional customers are aware of new DER technology features that can address their critical needs.
Project Benefits
The need for connecting DERs to Integrated Demand Side Management (IDSM) strategies has been well-established in the following state policy contexts: 1) California energy code (Title 24) requirements for building controls and demand response (DR) capabilities; 2) AB 802 requirements for utilities to shift to Normalized Metered Energy Consumption (NMEC) to inform more rigorous utility pay for performance efficiency programs; 3) SB 350 doubling energy efficiency targets and rolling out a responsible contractor policy to ensure proper installation and commissioning of DERs; and 4) AB 793 energy management technology requirements.
