New capabilities and updates

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We are excited to announce the release of several exciting new capabilities in the REopt web tool and open-source code:

• Air-source heat pumps - NEW
• Portfolio and sensitivity analysis - expanded
• Downloadable results in Excel - NEW
• Net metering and net billing models - expanded
• Energy Resilience Performance capability - expanded

See below for a description of each capability.

Air-source heat pumps

REopt users can now evaluate the cost, energy consumption, and emissions impact of electrifying space heating, space cooling, and domestic hot water heating with air-source heat pumps, and identify synergies between renewables, storage, and air-source heat pumps. Users can evaluate various HVAC configurations, including hybrid systems (keeping the existing HVAC system as supplemental and backup for the heat pump) and full replacement (existing HVAC system is entirely replaced).

Portfolio and sensitivity analysis

This capability enables web tool users to run multiple REopt analyses in parallel, including portfolio analyses (screening multiple facilities to help users prioritize sites for more in-depth analysis and sensitivity study (vary key inputs to explore the impact of key assumptions and uncertainties on results). This update expands previous portfolio analysis capabilities by:

• Adding the sensitivity study use case,
• Adding wind to the list technologies that can be evaluated,
• Integrating NREL’s Cambium grid emissions projections,
• Enabling users to evaluate DERs towards renewable energy and emissions reduction targets,
• Allowing users to download results in Excel (see below)
• General backend web performance improvements

Downloadable results in Excel

For users who are logged into the web tool, a new feature on the Saved Evaluations page offers the ability to select multiple evaluations and download all the important results data into a spreadsheet to compare scenarios either for a single site or a portfolio of different sites. The spreadsheet contains Business-as-Usual (BAU) and Financial/Optimal columns for each evaluation, and the data includes sizing, financial, energy production, and emissions metrics, as well as a “playground” section to explore costs and savings that may not be captured in REopt. This spreadsheet lets users quickly build a custom summary table from the wealth of data provided.

Net metering and net billing models

The “Utilities” section of the web tool now offers expanded and clarified net metering and net billing modeling options. With this update, the previously combined “Site and Utility” inputs accordion has split into two accordions (“Site” and “Utilities”).

Energy Resilience Performance capability

REopt’s Energy Resilience Performance capability allows users to evaluate the probability that on-site DERs could support critical electric loads during a grid outage of various durations. This capability was previously only available for resilience evaluations but is now available for all evaluations.