VOLTTRON: An Open-Source Software Platform of the Future

Buildings consume more than 30% of the total primary energy expended worldwide and contribute to a third of the world?s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. In the United States, buildings consume more than 40% of the total energy and contribute almost 38% of GHG emissions. In addition, the buildings in the United States consume more than 75% of the electricity generated. The need to mitigate climate change is driving efforts to make U.S. electric power generation cleaner, and this provides new impetus for improving the operating efficiency of buildings at scale and increasing the hosting capacity of distributed renewable generation. Because these renewable generation technologies are variable in nature, they create significant short- and long-term imbalances between supply and demand.