Going Off-Grid to Tackle Big Problems in Energy and Real Estate

Source: Elisa Wood | · ENERGY CHANGEMAKERS · | November 22, 2024

The term “off-grid” conjures a cabin in the woods, not sophisticated urban buildings. But that’s beginning to change, and the latest example is an apartment building in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

What’s most interesting is why the developers of this 225-unit structure chose to forego an electric grid connection. It turns out that onsite energy will be cheaper, cleaner and more reliable than what the local utility would provide, explains Steve Pullins, CEO of ResSET, in Energy Changemakers’ new podcast: Off Grid and Urban: An Apartment Building that Signals the Future.

Pullins, previously chief technology officer at AlphaStruxure, and a longtime innovator in the distributed energy space, is working with Michigan real estate developer 4M on what’s known as SouthTown, a multi-family complex near the University of Michigan.

Expected to break ground in March, the eight-story structure is more than a construction project — big concepts lie behind it.

4M describes the project as a “merging of real estate and energy development into a single practice,” which allows the team to tackle housing affordability in a new way. 

On the real estate front, the project reduces costs by using off-site assembly for as much of the mass timber structure as possible. 

On the energy front, it incorporates onsite geothermal, batteries, solar, fuel cells, carbon capture and renewable natural gas to reduce carbon emissions and spare tenants from what it forecasts will be annual utility rate increases of about 4.5%.