Commercial building energy flexibility
Less energy. A stronger rating. The same building.
GridAra's IPEOS software manages the latent flexibility in your building, connecting to your BMS over existing protocols to deliver lower energy use, a stronger NABERS position, and a more valuable asset. Nothing is installed in the core plant. Nothing changes for tenants.
Our solution
IPEOS: a seven-day-cycle orchestration layer.
IPEOS, the Intelligent Precinct Energy Operating System, is an orchestration layer, not a piece of hardware. Across the full weekly cycle, Monday to Sunday, it reads live data from your building management system, coordinates on-site solar and battery storage, and moves heating and cooling load in time to match cheap generation and grid demand, within limits you agree in advance.
The problem
For an asset owner, a building's energy performance is now a value decision.
A 2025 update to NABERS benchmarks has pushed a portion of B and C-grade office buildings below the 5.5-star threshold many government and corporate leases require. The Commonwealth's own leasing requirement has already moved from 5.5 to 6.0 stars for new government leases from July 2026.
That gap is widening, not closing. A building that slips below the threshold is harder to lease and worth less. The flexibility that could hold its rating, and its value, is already in the building's own plant.
Energy saving and sustainability
The GridAra IPEOS Solution
One integration turns the flexibility a building already has into lower energy use and stronger sustainability performance. It benefits the asset owner, the tenant, and the earth. No new hardware goes into the building's core systems, and occupant comfort does not change.
For the asset owner
Less energy bought, a stronger NABERS position, and data that is ready to report.
Solar and battery are installed at the building under a power purchase agreement, at no capital cost. They cut how much grid electricity the building buys. Moving heating and cooling load away from peak periods lowers energy use and demand charges at the same time. Verified metering data feeds straight into NABERS assessments and ESG reporting, protecting the rating that commercial and government leases increasingly require.
For the tenant
The same comfort, in a measurably greener building.
The building is cooled ahead of the peak and then coasts through it, all in the background. Zone temperatures never leave the agreed band. The building uses less energy overall, and its verified energy performance gives the tenant real figures for Scope 2 reporting and sustainability commitments, not estimates.
For the earth
More renewable energy used, and less fossil generation called on.
IPEOS moves heating and cooling load into the solar window. More of the building then runs on clean generation, and less on the evening peak, when grid electricity is at its most carbon-intensive. Using the building's own thermal mass for storage avoids the embodied carbon of extra batteries. Across many buildings, that coordinated flexibility becomes a firm, low-carbon resource that helps the grid take on more renewable energy.
The weekly rhythm
IPEOS reads the week, not just the day. Before a weekend of low occupancy it winds heating, cooling and plant down to a holding level, so the building is not conditioning empty floors.
From late Sunday it brings each zone back up gradually, so the building is ready for Monday morning without the single large startup surge that drives demand charges and strains the grid. The building is comfortable when people are in it, and quiet when they are not.
Looking ahead: precinct energy sharing
Where several buildings sit under common ownership and share a single grid connection, IPEOS can go a step further and coordinate them as one shared energy network. Rather than exporting a building's surplus solar to the grid, or curtailing it, the platform sends that energy to a neighbouring building that needs it. More of the precinct's own generation is used on site, less is drawn from the grid, and the shared solar and battery are used more fully across the day.
This depends on the site being set up for it: common ownership, one connection point, and metering that supports internal energy attribution. It is the same orchestration engine extended across a precinct, which GridAra develops with a site once the building-level model is running. It is not a general arrangement between separately owned or separately connected buildings, which carries different regulatory requirements.
Why now
The category is being defined this decade.
NABERS has begun a three-year, government-supported programme examining whether energy flexibility should be formally recognised within building ratings.
CSIRO has separately completed a flexibility pilot across more than 200 buildings.
The market and its regulators are actively defining the category GridAra is built to serve.
Start with a building assessment.
No new hardware inside your core systems. No change to occupant comfort. Commissioning takes six to twelve weeks from first site visit to full operation.