The contribution of buildings to the clean energy transition

When it comes to reducing the use of fossil fuels and mitigating the effects of climate change, experts increasingly suggest that the way forward is to run complex networks and machines, like cars, or buildings’ heating and cooling systems, on clean sources of electricity. Electric devices are often more efficient, in addition to producing less pollution than burning fossil fuels does. But mass adoption of electric power is easier said than done. In this spring’s School of Engineering Dean’s Lecture, held on April 26, Tufts alum Alexis Abramson, E95 and EG98, outlined some of the challenges and opportunities presented by electrification. 

Each year, Kyongbum Lee, Dean of the Tufts School of Engineering and Karol Family Professor, invites prominent guest speakers to deliver Dean's Lectures on the Tufts campus. Now Dean of Dartmouth College’s School of Engineering, Abramson is a nationally-renowned expert on thermal transport and the energy efficiency of buildings (and the first fellow dean to deliver a Tufts Engineering Dean’s Lecture). Speaking to an audience of Tufts students, faculty, staff, and fellow alumni, she said, “We have to think about what electrification looks like – the costs, the technology, and associated policies. How might it look and change?”

There is a substantial growing need. Some models predict that American demand for electricity will double by 2050. With the call for electric power higher than ever and expected to continue to rise, the buildings sector is a key use area. In buildings, Abramson said, space and water heating are the biggest drivers of electricity use. The greater the difference between the ideal interior temperature of a building and the actual temperature outside, the more energy expended by the building’s heating and cooling systems to maintain that ideal temperature. 

On Tufts’ Massachusetts campuses or Dartmouth’s in New Hampshire, a chilly winter’s day leaves a building’s heating system to heat the difference between a 30-degree exterior and a comfortable 70-degree indoor space. The electrical grid has to be able to keep buildings warm even when temperatures dip well below average – for instance, during the handful of days each Boston winter where the temperature drops below zero – but electrical grids can’t handle that maximum load at all times. 

“Your grid has to be able to provide four times the average energy needed just for those five [exceptionally cold] days [of the winter],” said Abramson. And that outsized energy draw goes beyond just one building – it will be needed for every nearby residence and commercial building, all at once, on a grid that can’t be built four times bigger simply to handle the energy load of those five days a year.

It’s a challenging problem that forces utilities to try to perform a delicate balancing act, Abramson said, and requires creative thinking to address. Solutions will be broad and multidisciplinary, and include adequate electrical and thermal energy storage to bank energy during low-use periods and save it for times of need, smart buildings that can track and adjust energy consumption, and a smart grid that can accommodate for load shifting. Abramson outlined the benefits of heat pumps, which are 2.2 to 4.5 times more efficient than a gas furnace, as one potential tool that works well in cold climates.

Abramson brings her own expertise to the ongoing global efforts to build solutions. Before her appointment as dean at Dartmouth’s School of Engineering, she was chief scientist of the Emerging Technologies Division in the U.S. Department of Energy Building Technologies Program, and she also previously served as a technical advisor for a $1 billion effort to mitigate the effects of human-driven climate change. She co-founded a startup, Edifice Analytics, that runs virtual energy audits and helps optimize energy use in buildings. 

Abramson first cultivated her interest in thermal transport as a student at Tufts School of Engineering, where she completed a BS and an MS in Mechanical Engineering before going on to earn her PhD from UC Berkeley. As Dean of the School of Engineering at Dartmouth, Abramson has led an expansion of the school since her appointment in 2019. As a professor of engineering, she continues to teach courses on topics like energy sustainability, and heat, mass, and momentum transfer.