A platform-based whole home, integrated, accessible sizing tool to accelerate heat pump adoption

Zero Homes is building innovative software to address time, accuracy, and cost challenges with delivering residential whole-home electrification project quotes. The current pathway to electrify a home is time-consuming and expensive as it often requires multiple in-person home visits from a disparate combination of energy generalists (i.e., energy auditors) and specialists (i.e., contractors). For whole-home electrification, this can total 15 visits, 50 hours of a homeownerĺs time, and add thousands of dollars to project costs. Further, a lack of design tools that standardize and produce accurate designs has led to significant variability in project scopes, leading to cost inflation and, in worst cases, faulty equipment installation. Given these issues, there is critical need for new technology to facilitate, streamline, and standardize home electrification planning and project design, especially in the context of more complex electrification upgrades such as heat pump retrofits. Addressing these issues, this Phase I project focuses on expanding the capabilities of Zero Homesĺ existing whole-home electrification platform to automate critical tasks that today require 2 ľ 3 hours of manual labor, thus accelerating electrification planning and scoping for homeowners. A prototype of Zero Homesĺ platform has been shown to reduce whole-home electrification planning time by 90% and total project costs by 10%. Leveraging common smartphones, Zero Homes offers a digital audit that guides a homeowner to capture and communicate a high-fidelity snapshot of their home and rapidly translates this structured data - including a 3D scan, video, photos, utility data, and appliance data - into a whole-home electrification plan, complete with properly engineered quotes, optimized incentives, and carbon impact. Phase I work will focus on 1) developing software based on the logic of an existing NEC 220.83 electrical load sizing tool and integrating this tool within the existing platform with a heat load (Manual J) calculator (that has been joint built with NREL); 2) building a breadth-first search optimization algorithm by generating specific equipment outputs that reduce panel upgrade needs and optimize electrical upgrades; and 3) Validating the software accuracy and whole home electrical calculations across 25 single family homes with AHJs (Authorities Having Jurisdiction). Successful completion of this work will yield a highly accessible whole-home electrification platform that will streamline the entire electrification process from initial energy audit to proper system design to contractor coordination to financing and implementation. By providing more accessible audits and faster, quality designs, the platform will be able to reduce the upfront cost and time barriers associated with electrification upgrades and help more households take advantage of the myriad benefits of electrification such as cost savings, improved living conditions, and increased energy independence. The streamlined and affordable process will also enable the existing contractor workforce to provide more households with the means to access incentives and rebates that can lower net installation costs by thousands of dollars.