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cBuilding Controls Measures Can Reap Substantial Energy Rewards
TL;DR - EEMs and DR could reduce annual energy consumption and emissions by 30% immediately. It would have a greater impact then any other proposed solution for reducing emissions, reduce operational expenses across every industry, while using existing technology, and at a lower cost then any other strategy.
In 2017 I started engineering applications for Demand Response in large commercial buildings. This report was given to me at the time and was the basis for some of the strategies we used. After moving on, I lost my reference copy and have been looking for it ever since. Finally today I found it.
“the study concluded energy savings approaching 30 percent across all building types are possible in warm and cool climates. In addition, several building types—stand-alone retail stores, auto dealerships and secondary schools—could register savings of more than 40 percent. Extrapolated across the nation’s building inventory, such outcomes could profoundly reduce America’s overall energy consumption.”
Energy Efficiency Measures (EEM) are implemented to address annual building consumption (energy used over a period of time). There’s many different EEMs to address the variety of mechanical systems in a building. These focus on inefficiencies like heating and cooling running simultaneously, or systems not properly scheduled to shut off during unoccupied times. They can be precise enough to identify when a single component is using more energy then it should, in some cases even predicting it before it happens and automating the necessary response.
Demand Response (DR) programs address a buildings power, also referred to as demand (the amount of power being used at a specific moment in time). This is useful for days where peak demand approaches the maximum capacity available, triggering an automatic signal sent to the building to reduce their demand. Options include shutting unused systems off or adjusting setpoints to reduce heating or cooling. More advanced techniques include round robin cycling of equipment, or reducing airflow to ease heating or cooling requirements. While extremely useful during the 20 days or so out of the year of extreme temperatures or weather conditions, it’s also useful in combination with Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) like solar, wind, etc. Everyone is familiar with the “duck curve”, DR provides the solution.
These are two separate tools, however, EEMs can be useful when planning a DR strategy. This study uses 43 EEMs and DR measures, 9 prototypical buildings, 5 additional buildings similar to a prototypical building, in 16 U.S, limate regions. This group represents 51% of total floor space and 57% of the energy consumed.
In 2017, Demand Response (DR) solutions were just starting to gain traction. Building automation solutions at this time had limited options for communicating. Remote access to the systems was a fairly new option, but it was still common to see a building with multiple systems that couldn’t communicate with each other. Still with those limitations, real world solutions were achieving the same results as the simulations in the study. 30% reductions were so commonplace that building owners started questioning why they didn’t operate their buildings like this year round. Utilities that helped fund these DR programs were always quick to discourage it. DR was meant to be used during peak demand, they had no interest in uses that reduced their potential revenue.
In the years since, that technology advanced at a staggering rate, supervisor controllers can now monitor and control entire campuses, all the way down to the individual parts. Trended data is used to analyze systems and identify preventative or predictive maintenance. All of this making the EEMs referenced in the study far more advanced today than 7 years ago.
The DR strategies have been refined to perfection. If a utility needs 500 MW of reduced demand during peak times or grid emergencies, DR delivers.
In my personal experience over the last 5 years, there’s been exactly three buildings that we weren’t able to implement at least a 30% reduction. Each of them had already spent millions to achieve the highest level of certification for energy efficiency.
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TL;DR - EEMs and DR could reduce annual energy consumption and emissions by 30% immediately. It would have a greater impact then any other proposed solution for reducing emissions, reduce operational expenses across every industry, while using existing technology, and at a lower cost then any other strategy.
In 2017 I started engineering applications for Demand Response in large commercial buildings. This report was given to me at the time and was the basis for some of the strategies we used. After moving on, I lost my reference copy and have been looking for it ever since. Finally today I found it.
“the study concluded energy savings approaching 30 percent across all building types are possible in warm and cool climates. In addition, several building types—stand-alone retail stores, auto dealerships and secondary schools—could register savings of more than 40 percent. Extrapolated across the nation’s building inventory, such outcomes could profoundly reduce America’s overall energy consumption.”
Energy Efficiency Measures (EEM) are implemented to address annual building consumption (energy used over a period of time). There’s many different EEMs to address the variety of mechanical systems in a building. These focus on inefficiencies like heating and cooling running simultaneously, or systems not properly scheduled to shut off during unoccupied times. They can be precise enough to identify when a single component is using more energy then it should, in some cases even predicting it before it happens and automating the necessary response.
Demand Response (DR) programs address a buildings power, also referred to as demand (the amount of power being used at a specific moment in time). This is useful for days where peak demand approaches the maximum capacity available, triggering an automatic signal sent to the building to reduce their demand. Options include shutting unused systems off or adjusting setpoints to reduce heating or cooling. More advanced techniques include round robin cycling of equipment, or reducing airflow to ease heating or cooling requirements. While extremely useful during the 20 days or so out of the year of extreme temperatures or weather conditions, it’s also useful in combination with Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) like solar, wind, etc. Everyone is familiar with the “duck curve”, DR provides the solution.
These are two separate tools, however, EEMs can be useful when planning a DR strategy. This study uses 43 EEMs and DR measures, 9 prototypical buildings, 5 additional buildings similar to a prototypical building, in 16 U.S, limate regions. This group represents 51% of total floor space and 57% of the energy consumed.
In 2017, Demand Response (DR) solutions were just starting to gain traction. Building automation solutions at this time had limited options for communicating. Remote access to the systems was a fairly new option, but it was still common to see a building with multiple systems that couldn’t communicate with each other. Still with those limitations, real world solutions were achieving the same results as the simulations in the study. 30% reductions were so commonplace that building owners started questioning why they didn’t operate their buildings like this year round. Utilities that helped fund these DR programs were always quick to discourage it. DR was meant to be used during peak demand, they had no interest in uses that reduced their potential revenue.
In the years since, that technology advanced at a staggering rate, supervisor controllers can now monitor and control entire campuses, all the way down to the individual parts. Trended data is used to analyze systems and identify preventative or predictive maintenance. All of this making the EEMs referenced in the study far more advanced today than 7 years ago.
The DR strategies have been refined to perfection. If a utility needs 500 MW of reduced demand during peak times or grid emergencies, DR delivers.
In my personal experience over the last 5 years, there’s been exactly three buildings that we weren’t able to implement at least a 30% reduction. Each of them had already spent millions to achieve the highest level of certification for energy efficiency.
#industry
source
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