SunPower and Vitality Leaders Be a part of Forces to Energy KB Dwelling’s New All Electrical, Photo voltaic-and Battery-Powered Microgrid Communities

SunPower, KB Dwelling, College of California, Irvine, Schneider Electrical, Southern California Edison and Division of Vitality group as much as create a blueprint for brand new house communities of the longer term

Neighborhoods use photo voltaic programs paired with battery storage to create a self-supporting microgrid for sustainable, dependable, grid-supporting vitality supply

RICHMOND, Calif., Nov. 2, 2022 /PRNewswire/ — SunPower Corp. (NASDAQ: SPWR), College of California, Irvine (UCI), Schneider Electrical, and Southern California Edison (SCE) introduced their partnership with KB Dwelling (NYSE: KBH), because the technique, analysis, expertise, and vitality suppliers for the homebuilder’s newly launched Vitality-Good Related Communities in Menifee, California. Greater than 200 state-of-the-art, all electrical properties will likely be photo voltaic powered, outfitted with particular person battery storage and related to a microgrid powered by a big, shared neighborhood battery. These power-outage resistant communities are the primary of their variety within the state and are designed to supply a blueprint for sustainable and resilient new house improvement of the longer term.

Residential vitality use accounts for roughly 20% of greenhouse gasoline emissions within the U.S., contributing to extra extreme and frequent climate occasions. Between 2013 and 2020, blackouts brought on by occasions reminiscent of snowstorms, wildfires and hurricanes have tripled in length, in accordance with the newest knowledge from the U.S. Vitality Info Administration.

KB Dwelling, SunPower and UCI joined forces to reimagine what a brand new house neighborhood may appear like if constructed to cut back carbon emissions, minimize vitality prices, and supply new methods of manufacturing dependable and resilient vitality. With a $6.65 million Department of Energy (DOE) grant, microgrid design and engineering assist from Schneider Electrical, and powerful collaboration with SCE to make sure a easy transition between grid and off-grid electrical energy, these progressive properties are actually obtainable to the general public.

“SunPower and KB Dwelling have a long-standing historical past of main the brand new house trade with vitality innovation and sustainability,” mentioned Matt Brost, Vice President of Gross sales, New Properties, at SunPower. “With this mission we’re taking a big leap towards creating communities from the bottom up which can be designed to provide sustainable and reasonably priced vitality and resiliency to the impacts of local weather change on our grid. We’re thrilled to leverage our learnings from this mission to affect continued innovation in house constructing.”

Objective-Constructed for Sustainability and Resilience

• All 219 of the properties within the new Durango and Oak Shade communities will likely be constructed to fulfill the Division of Vitality’s Zero Vitality Prepared Dwelling standards, which embrace ENERGY STAR®, WaterSense, and Indoor airPLUS. These extra options will assist owners cut back common vitality use by as much as 40%. Every house comes with a SunPower Equinox® photo voltaic system designed to attain net-zero vitality, a 13kWh SunVault® Storage battery, excessive effectivity home equipment, versatile masses reminiscent of electrical warmth pump water heaters and HVAC programs and different good applied sciences like Schneider Electric’s Square D™ Energy Center and Connected Wiring Devices.
• All properties will likely be pre-wired to be good Electrical automobile (EV) charger prepared, and a few will show bidirectional charging, which permits an EV to be a further supply of vitality for the house throughout an influence outage. EV chargers will likely be obtainable for buy on the time of sale.

These communities provide a brand new imaginative and prescient for the way particular person properties work together with {the electrical} grid. Each house, whereas sustaining its common service with native utility Southern California Edison, is designed to function throughout an outage as a part of a self-supporting microgrid, drawing vitality from its personal SunVault storage system in addition to a big neighborhood battery. Collectively, they’re designed to assist vital masses reminiscent of lights, refrigeration and WiFi, in addition to extra high-capacity masses like HVAC and home sizzling water. When the solar is shining, particular person and neighborhood batteries may be regularly recharged utilizing extra photo voltaic technology till the grid connection returns.

Extra vitality companies provided by SunPower permit residents to enroll in a Digital Energy Plant (VPP) program by way of which their battery storage, EV chargers and different versatile masses will robotically dispatch to assist the electrical grid. Enrolled owners will likely be eligible for compensation for his or her participation in this system. UCI may also simulate the related microgrids, analyze knowledge from the VPP program, and collaborate with SCE to find out its effectiveness in supporting grid infrastructure.

Becoming a member of Forces to Create a New Properties Group of the Future

The mission encompasses a singular, multi-disciplinary partnership comprised of a number of organizations:

1. KB Dwelling one of many largest and most acknowledged homebuilders within the U.S., is liable for the design and development of the energy-smart related new house communities.
2. SunPower Corp. conceptualized the mission and is the mission lead. It can oversee the mission companions, present vitality companies and expertise, and make sure the house vitality programs assist the microgrid operations. It can additionally present photo voltaic panels, battery storage and EV charging choices for every house.
3. The Superior Energy and Vitality Program (APEP) on the College of California, Irvine will purchase and archive knowledge from microgrid occasions and conduct analysis to boost the applied sciences deployed in comparable purposes sooner or later. It can be certain that the microgrid controller meets the nationwide requirements that advanced from prior analysis carried out by APEP for the DOE utilizing the UCI Microgrid as a platform for each the event and demonstration.
4. Schneider Electrical will likely be offering house electrical expertise, together with the good load panel referred to as the Sq. D Vitality Heart and Related Wiring Gadgets that combine and management the distributed vitality sources. Moreover, Schneider Electrical will design and engineer the neighborhood microgrid.
5. Southern California Edison is the utility accomplice offering new energy service to the neighborhood, managing the grid, aiding in microgrid engineering, guaranteeing native utility tools safely and reliably helps microgrid operations and offering cybersecurity evaluation.

“We’re excited to accomplice with trade and educational leaders to convey these superior applied sciences and vitality options to our owners. The brand new KB properties at Oak Shade and Durango at Shadow Mountain would be the first in California to be outfitted with good applied sciences, a backup battery and microgrid connectivity. These will present a self-supporting vitality system with a neighborhood battery that powers the neighborhood,” mentioned Dan Bridleman, Senior Vice-President of Sustainability, Know-how and Strategic Sourcing for KB Dwelling. “We sit up for conducting analysis to measure the vitality effectivity and resiliency of our all-new energy-smart related communities.” 

“That is on the slicing fringe of the subsequent technology of house developments,” mentioned Scott Samuelsen, Professor of Mechanical, Aerospace, and Environmental Engineering at UCI and the Co-Principal Investigator with SunPower. “For owners, the digital and related future and residential charging and discharging of electrical automobiles will profit from the improved house vitality safety offered by microgrid expertise.”

“This mission represents the longer term by evolving the good house into a wise, sustainable neighborhood addressing core vitality challenges dealing with owners right now, together with energy resiliency and rising utility prices,” mentioned Richard Korthauer, Senior Vice President, Dwelling and Distribution, Schneider Electrical. “The brand new electrical future is a house with secure, environment friendly and dependable energy that meets our altering wants, with out compromising our price of dwelling, sustainability objectives or consolation.”

“SCE is happy to assist this progressive neighborhood microgrid mission, and appears ahead to supporting others sooner or later,” mentioned Katie Sloan, SCE Vice President of Buyer Packages and Providers. “Microgrids can present resiliency advantages for our clients and assist combine new grid applied sciences into new neighborhood developments.”

For extra info, please go to sunpower.com/connectedcommunities.

About SunPower

SunPower is a number one photo voltaic and vitality companies supplier in North America. SunPower presents the one photo voltaic + storage answer designed and warranted by one firm that provides clients management over electrical energy consumption and resiliency throughout energy outages whereas offering price financial savings. For extra info, go to www.sunpower.com.   

About KB Dwelling

KB Dwelling is among the largest and most acknowledged homebuilders in the USA and has constructed over 655,000 high quality properties in our greater than 65-year historical past. Immediately, KB Dwelling operates in 47 markets from coast to coast. What units KB Dwelling aside is the distinctive personalization we provide our homebuyers — from these shopping for their first house to skilled patrons — permitting them to make their house uniquely their very own, at a value that matches their finances. Because the chief in energy-efficient homebuilding, KB Dwelling was the primary builder to make each house it builds ENERGY STAR® licensed, a typical of vitality efficiency achieved by fewer than 10% of latest properties in America, and has constructed extra ENERGY STAR licensed properties than another builder. An energy-efficient KB house helps decrease the price of possession and is designed to be more healthy, extra comfy and higher for the setting than new properties with out certification. We construct sturdy, private relationships with our clients in order that they have an actual accomplice within the homebuying course of. Because of this, we’ve got the excellence of being the #1 customer-ranked nationwide homebuilder in third-party purchaser satisfaction surveys. Study extra about how we construct properties constructed on relationships by visiting kbhome.com.

About The Superior Energy and Vitality Program (APEP) on the College of California, Irvine

Established in 2000, APEP engages over 120 graduate and undergraduate college students, school, analysis employees, and visiting scientists to handle the broad utilization of vitality sources and the rising connection of electrical energy technology, infrastructure, transportation, water sources, and the setting. It seeks to develop, promote, and deploy extremely environment friendly and environmentally sustainable energy manufacturing and vitality conversion, with a concentrate on the creation and sharing of latest data by way of elementary and utilized analysis, schooling, and outreach.

About Schneider Electrical

Schneider Electrical’s goal is to empower all to profit from our vitality and sources, bridging progress and sustainability for all. We name this Life Is On.

Our mission is to be your digital accomplice for Sustainability and Effectivity.

We drive digital transformation by integrating world-leading course of and vitality applied sciences, endpoint to cloud connecting merchandise, controls, software program and companies, throughout all the lifecycle, enabling built-in firm administration, for properties, buildings, knowledge facilities, infrastructure and industries.

We’re probably the most native of world firms. We’re advocates of open requirements and partnership ecosystems which can be enthusiastic about our shared Significant Objective, Inclusive and Empowered values.

About Southern California Edison

An Edison Worldwide (NYSE: EIX) firm, Southern California Edison is among the nation’s largest electrical utilities, serving a inhabitants of roughly 15 million through 5 million buyer accounts in a 50,000-square-mile service space inside Central, Coastal and Southern California.

SunPower Ahead Trying Statements

This press launch incorporates “forward-looking statements” inside the which means of the Personal Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995, together with, however not restricted to, statements concerning anticipated mission plans, product efficiency, and value financial savings. These forward-looking statements are based mostly on our present assumptions, expectations, and beliefs and contain substantial dangers and uncertainties which will trigger outcomes to materially differ from these expressed or implied by these forward-looking statements. Components that would trigger or contribute to such variations embrace, however should not restricted to, regulatory adjustments and the supply of financial incentives selling use of photo voltaic vitality and fluctuations or declines within the efficiency of our photo voltaic panels and different merchandise and options. An in depth dialogue of those components and different dangers that have an effect on our enterprise is included in filings we make with the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) on occasion, together with our most up-to-date reviews on Kind 10-Okay and Kind 10-Q, significantly beneath the heading “Threat Components.” Copies of those filings can be found on-line from the SEC or on the SEC Filings part of our Investor Relations web site at buyers.sunpowercorp.com. All forward-looking statements on this press launch are based mostly on info presently obtainable to us, and we assume no obligation to replace these forward-looking statements in gentle of latest info or future occasions.

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SOURCE SunPower Corp.