EnSync Energy Systems signed a power purchase agreement (PPA) with Koa’e Workforce Housing, L.P. to include EnSync Smart Home Energy Systems in a new 134-unit housing development. The systems will utilize peer-to-peer energy exchange and smart water heaters to optimize energy efficiency and utilization of solar across the community.
The Koa’e community is the first announced deployment of EnSync’s cool load control capability and the second for its True Peer-to-Peer energy exchange.
The Koa’e housing development will include 516 kW of rooftop solar, 603 kilowatt-hours of energy storage and EnSync Smart Home’s energy communications, command and control platform across the property’s 23 buildings. Each residential unit will have photovoltaics (PV), an EnSync Smart Home system and connection to a DC-Link that networks the home with all of the other residences in the property. The system will integrate energy supply from the PV power generation and energy storage with water heater load management to maximize energy independence of each home and throughout the overall networked community.
This is EnSync Energy’s second multi-family residential property to use the EnSync Smart Home system as its technology foundation, following a 320-unit project announced in the summer of 2018. For additional efficiency, the EnSync Smart Home and DC-Link systems connecting each unit enable peer-to-peer energy exchange. When the unit-level PV system generates more solar energy than the storage or home can utilize, the excess is exported to any unit on the property where demand exceeds supply.
This peer-to-peer energy exchange capability helps manage the impact of vacancy rates, time of day absences and unit level micro-loading effects in multi-unit properties or communities, facilitating energy efficiency across the network as a whole. For building owners who pay utilities on behalf of tenants and charge tenants a flat rate, the EnSync Smart Home system offers a direct incentive to realize potential savings.
The new Koa’e housing development will be located on the island of Kauai and is EnSync Energy’s first project on the island. Kauai, like the rest of the state of Hawaii, is working through a severe housing shortage, and the Koa’e housing project is an element of the response aimed at addressing that challenge. EnSync Energy is collaborating with its local subsidiary and developer Holu Energy to engineer and design the project and Mark Development, Inc. to construct and install the system.
“The Koa’e project demonstrates how advanced technology can be used to improve the economics for tenants of affordable housing,” said Craig Watase, president of Mark Development, Inc. “We are pleased to include the EnSync Smart Home in our project and bring the benefits of solar directly to affordable communities.”
— Solar Builder magazine
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