GSA seeks innovative clean energy and decarbonization technologies for testing in federal buildings as part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda

August 01, 2024

General Services Administration, Department of Energy issue Request for Information for technologies that increase sustainability of buildings

WASHINGTON - Today, the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA), in collaboration with the U.S. Department of Energy, announced a new Request For Information (RFI) focused on enabling energy efficiency and decarbonization in commercial buildings, contributing to a more efficient electric infrastructure and improving resiliency and occupant health.

GSA is investing $30 million of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funds to enhance the sustainability of federal buildings. This investment will facilitate the testing of innovative technologies through GSA's Center for Emerging Building Technologies. The Center consists of three interconnected programs: the Green Proving Ground, the Applied Innovation Learning Lab, and Pilot to Portfolio. By testing new building technologies in federal buildings, these programs help GSA make smarter investments and enable and encourage wider market adoption of clean energy innovations.

"Public-private partnerships, exemplified by the Green Proving Ground program, can expedite the adoption of emerging technologies, bolstering the U.S. economy, enhancing competitiveness, and generating jobs," said GSA Administrator Robin Carnahan. "With 42% of emissions coming from the built environment, Inflation Reduction Act funding will be instrumental in achieving our net-zero emission goals for federal buildings."

The new Request for Information seeks to identify emerging and sustainable technologies in the following categories:

• Deep Energy Retrofits
• All-Electric Buildings and All-Electric Vehicle Fleets
• Healthy and Resilient Buildings
• Low-Embodied Carbon Building Materials
• Net-Zero Operations
• Packages of Emerging and Sustainable Technology Solutions

Submissions must be technologies and solutions that are technically and commercially ready for evaluation in occupied, operational buildings. The government will pilot selected technologies in one of GSA's programs described above (for federally owned facilities), the U.S. Department of Energy's Demonstrating Efficient Solutions in Buildings program (for privately owned facilities), or a combination of these programs.

The RFI is open for submissions beginning August 1, 2024, until September 13, 2024. Parties interested in submitting an application can review the request on sam.gov at Solicitation #FY25RFI080124. Please direct inquiries regarding the RFI to [email protected].

The GPG program leverages GSA's extensive real estate portfolio to evaluate innovative building technologies in real-world settings. The evaluations are intended to assess the technical and operational characteristics of the technologies and their potential for future wide-scale adoption. Since 2011, the GPG program has evaluated 107 technologies, 23 of which have been deployed across more than a third of GSA's federally owned portfolio. Each year, these GPG technologies avoid the emission of 116,000 tons of carbon dioxide and save the government $28 million.

The Inflation Reduction Act includes $3.4 billion for GSA to use its buying power to promote the development and manufacturing of low-embodied carbon construction materials and make federal facilities more sustainable and cost-efficient. GSA's Inflation Reduction Act projects will implement new technologies and accelerate GSA's efforts in achieving a net-zero emissions federal building portfolio by 2045. Through these investments, GSA estimates that it could reduce its operational greenhouse gas emissions by over 2 million metric tons of CO₂. That is the equivalent of taking about 500,000 gasoline-powered passenger vehicles off the road for one year.

For more information, visit gsa.gov/gpg.

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About GSA: GSA provides centralized procurement and shared services for the federal government, managing a nationwide real estate portfolio of nearly 370 million rentable square feet, overseeing about $100 billion in products and services via federal contracts, and delivering technology services that serve millions of people across dozens of federal agencies. GSA's mission is to deliver the best customer experience and value in real estate, acquisition, and technology services to the government and the American people. For more information, visit GSA.gov and follow us at @USGSA.

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