Newton Square, Pa.-based Balfour Beatty Communities, a leading developer of privatized family housing for the military, will offer residents at Navy installations in the Southeast smart meter information and personalized conservation tools to help them trim energy usage through a grant from the Department of Energy.
The Smart Grid Data Access award from the Energy Department will fund a “Switch 4 Good” program that will test three strategies for conserving energy — baseline management by house type, digital outreach campaigns and personal energy-use coaching. The pilot study will take advantage of an effort to transfer responsibility for utility costs to families living on base at 11 Navy installations.
Balfour Beatty will consider expanding the most successful programs throughout its military housing locations.
“The Switch 4 Good program is the first and largest program of its kind that leverages real-time data and several behavior change initiatives simultaneously,” said Tabitha Crawford, senior vice president for sustainability and innovation for the Balfour Beatty Capital Group, according to a press release.
Published in Defense Communities magazine 12 July 2012.