Colorado CarShare Ups Our Climate Efforts
Colorado CarShare is pulling our weight to mitigate climate change in an even bigger way now, thanks to the vehicle-to-building partner project with Fermata Energy and Denver’s Alliance Center.
To reduce energy use and costs, along with carbon emissions, the pilot was designed to stream electricity between one of Colorado CarShare’s electric vehicles (EV), and one of downtown Denver’s historic buildings, The Alliance Center. Fermata’s vehicle-to-building (V2B) technology allows the Leaf’s battery to charge from the building when needed and at other times, the building receives excess electricity stored in the Nissan Leaf’s battery. By gathering usage data, the system learns how to ensure that the building’s stored energy charges the EV during the vehicle’s window of peak energy usage, and vice versa. Both regain charge without tapping into the electric grid, therefore reducing energy consumption.
In just five short months, the project is already exhibiting great success. As of December, the system “has resulted in over $950 in savings on its electricity bills in just four months using one Fermata Energy 15kW bidirectional charger and one Nissan LEAF. This savings was generated by reducing the Center’s demand charges by nearly eight percent. At this rate, the annual economic gain at this location is projected to be over $3,000 just through demand charge management” (Fermata Energy).
Since The Alliance Center now utilizes stored energy from the EV’s battery, it extracts less energy from the electric grid. Helping power this highly used establishment, combined with providing an alternative to car ownership, means Colorado CarShare is further reducing the carbon emissions that are so destructive to our planet.
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About Colorado CarShare: Colorado CarShare is the state’s first, only – and one of the nation’s longest-running – nonprofit carshare organizations. Our mission is to empower our community to live a car-free lifestyle and have a positive impact on our health, wealth, and shared environment. We aim to make Colorado a “cooler,” healthier, and more socially equitable place to live. This includes setting the goal to become the country’s first nonprofit Electric Vehicle (EV) carshare program, while providing subsidies to low-to-mixed income (LMI) communities that are typically underserved when it comes to affordable mobility options.
For more information, visit https://carshare.org/, and follow us on Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
About Fermata Energy: Fermata Energy’s proprietary vehicle-to-everything (V2X) software and bidirectional hardware technology turns EVs into energy-storage assets, and makes it possible for EVs to combat climate change, increase energy resilience, and reduce energy costs. For more information, visit www.fermataenergy.com, and follow us on Twitter (@FermataEnergy), LinkedIn, Facebook, and Instagram.
About The Alliance Center: The Alliance Center is a Denver-based co-working space, event venue, and nonprofit harnessing the power of collaboration to create a more sustainable future. We demonstrate sustainability in action and mobilize change agents to accelerate equitable climate solutions. Our Living Lab pilots innovative solutions to sustainability challenges, while our Regenerative Recovery Coalition works across sectors to create shared prosperity on a healthy planet. The Alliance Center is a model for green building practices, collaborative working techniques, and capacity building programming—all designed to scale up the sustainability movement. For more information, visit thealliancecenter.org and follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram.
