The Carbon Emissions Impact of Demand Flexibility

This report by RMI evaluates the technical potential of demand flexibility in office and multi-family buildings to reduce carbon emissions by utilizing time-of-use emission factors, specifically within the context of New York City's Local Law 97.

• The capacity for demand flexibility to reduce emissions increases as the electrical grid decarbonizes. In New York City's current grid, reductions are limited to 3%, but for an all-electric office building, this could rise to approximately 10% by 2030 as more variable renewable generation is added, and up to approximately 40% as the grid reaches full decarbonization.
• Demand flexibility provides increasing fractions of emissions reductions for buildings regardless of the specific type of variable renewable generation resources added to Zone J during its transition to a decarbonized future grid.
• The effectiveness of demand flexibility is dependent on the selection of the emissions signal, specifically its type, timestep, and level of advance notice. The analysis indicates that the most significant emissions reductions are achieved using a marginal emissions signal characterized by the shortest possible timestep and shortest level of advance notice.

APA

RMI (2021). The Carbon Emissions Impact of Demand Flexibility. https://rmi.org/resources/the-carbon-emissions-impact-of-demand-flexibility/

Chicago

RMI. The Carbon Emissions Impact of Demand Flexibility. 2021. https://rmi.org/resources/the-carbon-emissions-impact-of-demand-flexibility/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=RMI |title=The Carbon Emissions Impact of Demand Flexibility |date=18 February 2021 |url=https://rmi.org/resources/the-carbon-emissions-impact-of-demand-flexibility/ |access-date=17 August 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{rmi2021carbon, author = {{RMI}}, title = {{The Carbon Emissions Impact of Demand Flexibility}}, institution = {RMI}, year = {2021}, month = feb, url = {https://rmi.org/resources/the-carbon-emissions-impact-of-demand-flexibility/}, urldate = {2026-08-17}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }