The electricity grid in the United States continues to experience rapid changes both on the supply and demand sides. On the supply side, its generation fuel mix is shifting away from coal and nuclear sources towards natural gas and renewable energy sources. At the same time, grid operators must balance an increasing supply of non-dispatchable and intermittently available sources such as wind and solar. On the demand side, an increasing share of demand is now met by distributed energy resources (DER) such as solar photovoltaics (PV), which are also supplying energy to the grid through net metering. These changes are driven by in large part by retiring less efficient fossil fuel-based generation sources, low natural gas prices, policies supporting renewable energy, and continued decline in renewable energy costs. At the same time, concerns about climate change have also begun to shift both supply-side and demand-side fuel sources away from fossil fuel-based sources to renewable energy sources. Utilities are committing to 100% renewable energy goals as municipalities adopt electrification policies for buildings in an effort to reduce carbon emissions.

 

Fundamentally, grid operators must balance electricity supply with demand. In order for the operators to have enough generation capacity in reserve to meet periods of peak demand, utilities need to build new generation capacity requiring often costly and long-term investments. To defer the construction of new generation capacity, utilities often implement programs that reduce, shed, or shift load through demand-side management, energy efficiency, or demand response programs. Buildings have the potential to offer grid services through implementation of demand-side management strategies by utilizing existing and new technologies that enhance electrical load flexibility. This presentation summarizes the current literature on grid-interactive efficient buildings (GEBs) that can provide grid services. In particular, the presentation provide categories and examples of measures and technologies that are suitable for GEBs according to the several criteria. These criteria include demand-side management strategies, potential to provide grid services, technology maturity, and ability to perform analysis in whole-building simulation software.


A Review and Categorization of Grid-Interactive Efficient Building Technologies

Division / Sponsor:
Advanced Energy Systems Division (AESD) & Solar Energy Division (SED)

Paper Proceedings: https://asmedigitalcollection.asme.org/ES/ES2020/volume/83631

ES2020 - Virtual Conference 

Supporting the need among researchers worldwide for additional online and multimedia content, ASME now offers the ASME Conference Video Collection. This platform will collect and provide long-term access to conference presentation videos, encompassing all technology areas within ASME's technical conference and events program. About 30,000-40,000 engineers across all mechanical engineering and related disciplines participate in ASME conferences each year. This includes authors of approximately 6,000 to 8,000 technical papers published by ASME, the majority of whom also submit video presentations for our virtual conferences. The video collection will be available as an add-on to existing product packages or as a separate subscription.