Leveraging the expertise of the firm's principals building energy systems, ZYS Energy develops system integration and smart control solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings through efficiency improvement and load flexibility. Addressing efficiency and thermal energy storage solutions for buildings, the firm has developed an optimization solution to achieve high-efficiency electrification of water heating, the second largest energy use in residential buildings, and provide low-cost thermal energy storage services. This solution actively manages the operation of heat pump water heaters (HPWH) to ensure high-efficiency heating modes are used. Water heating operation is also shifted to time periods when electricity consumption is preferred, e.g. when electricity price is low or renewable energy is available, and therefore provide energy storage services. These optimization strategies/solutions can increase HPWH operational efficiency by more than 30% and reduce electric cost by more than 50%. By using internet of things (IoT) technologies, system optimization will be performed according to dynamic changes of multiple operational parameters, such as electricity price, hot water demand, ambient temperature, availability of renewable energy, and demand response signals from utilities.
