CalMTA released in May the final Disposition Report on the outcomes of our second Request for Ideas (RFI) held from May 29 – July 3, 2024. In all, 13 new ideas were received and an additional 20 from the first RFI in 2023 were reconsidered. In addition to explaining the various ideas received and their progress through the CalMTA scoring process, the report includes a recommended submission for further development: Idea No. 0193: Building Performance Standards Acceleration MTI (now called Commercial Building Efficiency Accelerator). This work was completed in consultation with the Market Transformation Advisory Board (MTAB). 

Currently, the Commercial Building Efficiency Accelerator (CBEA) Advancement Plan is open for public comment through July 9. For more information about the various phases of development for promising ideas, visit https://calmta.org/mti-development or read on for a summary of how the most recent ideas were scored and finalized.  

Pathway from Idea to Development  

All new ideas submitted to the Idea Portal must meet three threshold criteria to advance to scoring by the CalMTA team including:  

• needs to provide energy savings,  

• be near commercial availability, and  

• have enough information and the appropriate level of specificity to allow the idea to be understood and scored.  

Two of the 13 newly submitted ideas to the RFI portal did not pass this initial threshold review and a third idea was a duplicate of a previously submitted idea. All three submissions were archived at this stage. 

Looking at the 30 remaining ideas, six submissions that were similar to market transformation (MT) ideas currently under development or other submitted ideas were combined at this stage.  After this initial threshold, 26 ideas were advanced to Stage 1 scoring as shown below.  

Consideration & scoring process for 2024 RFI

Stage 1 Scoring Outcomes

The team approached the scoring at Stage 1 in two ways depending on whether the idea was a carryover from the 2023 RFI or newly submitted in 2024. For the carry-over ideas, the scoring team determined whether there was any new information since 2023 that would alter the score. If not, then Stage 1 scores from 2023 were used. If there was new information, then the team treated the idea as if it was newly submitted, following the process described in Section 2 of the Phase I Disposition Report.

Notably, the scoring team made a modification to the scoring process at the suggestion of the MTAB which resulted in the scorer from Cadmus scoring all the criteria rather than just “Non-energy Impacts” and “Participant Cost/Cost-effectiveness.” The full scoring process is broken down in the report, but the general inputs are shown in the figure below.

Of the 26 ideas scored in Stage 1, the 12 highest scoring ideas were presented to the MTAB on Sept. 23, 2024, along with CalMTA’s recommendation for the five ideas to advance to Stage 2 scoring. These included:

• Multifunction Heat Pumps

• Thermal Energy Storage (TES) as a Distributed Energy Resource (DER)

• Variable Frequency Drives on All pumps and Fans > 10 horsepower

• Building Performance Standard Acceleration

• Smart Electric Panels

Based on the Stage 1 scores and discussions with the MTAB, the team advanced four of these ideas to Stage 2 scoring, deciding not to include smart electric panels. This was the result of MTAB’s feedback that smart electric panels were not an electrification solution on their own since they needed to work with smart devices to best control end-use loads.

Moving on to Stage 2 Scoring

In addition to the four ideas advancing from Stage 1, the Efficient Streetlighting idea was assessed in Stage 2. Efficient Streetlighting was a Batch 2 idea, but during the Phase II advancement planning, there were a number of questions about the size of market opportunity for streetlights, whether an MTI could deliver substantial total system benefits, and the likely ramp rate. Because of these questions, the team decided to revisit streetlights in the second RFI to see how it compared to the other ideas under consideration. This idea was not recommended for continued development.

CalMTA staff presented four of the five ideas scored in Stage 2 to the MTAB, during a meeting held November 20, 2024. The fifth idea, TES as a DER (IDEA-0133), had a very low TRC test score (0.26) and was therefore not presented. The five scores are presented in the table below. As a result of Stage 2 scoring and our ensuing discussion with the MTAB, CalMTA has identified one idea it recommended for development of an Advancement Plan. An Advancement Plan described the research and analysis needed to determine whether an idea is viable and provides the information necessary to develop a full Market Transformation Initiative Plan.

The Commercial Building Efficiency Accelerator (formerly Building Performance Standards Acceleration) was put forward based on high TSB and a beneficial ramp rate and cost-effectiveness; the idea also scored well in energy savings and GHG emissions. Due to the complementary elements with other measures, it would strengthen the overall MTI portfolio being formed by CalMTA and broaden its reach into commercial markets.

Read the full Disposition Report for the 2024 RFI for a more thorough account of the scoring process, and feel free to leave a comment via our public comment portal.