Valuing Energy Efficiency and Distributed Energy Resources in the Built Environment: Preprint

Valuing Energy Efficiency and Distributed Energy Resources in the Built Environment: Preprint
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Total Pages: 0
Release: 2018
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Traditionally, analytical frameworks that underpin building energy policy have focused on the need to reduce annual energy consumption by assessing the cost and efficiency performance of energy-consuming technologies. Investments in distributed energy resources (DERs) such as photovoltaics have generally been evaluated independently, but also on a cost and performance basis. However, buildings are rapidly evolving to incorporate technologies that not just consume energy, but also generate, store, and control energy loads. Concurrently, the electric grid is becoming more dynamic and variable due to the increased proportion electricity production from variable renewable sources. To that end, building energy policy analytical frameworks should be updated to include the interactions between energy efficiency and DERs as well as potential value streams for the grid and building owner that technologies or packages of technologies might offer. As buildings with DERs and controllable loads are able to provide grid services or optimize operations based on electricity rates and grid conditions, the temporal and spatial nature of these technologies should also be incorporated into design decisions. To explore these questions further, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory will use a series of building and electric grid models to simulate the design and operation of a neighborhood of buildings under various electricity rates, grid conditions, and potential compensation scenarios. Scenarios of time-sensitive values for future grid services will also be constructed for use in the analysis. New metrics that can be used in building energy policies will also be explored to capture the responsiveness or flexibility of high efficiency buildings with DERs under various electric grid conditions and future scenarios.

Energy Efficiency in Buildings

Energy Efficiency in Buildings
Author: José Manuel Andújar
Publisher: MDPI
Total Pages: 412
Release: 2020-04-28
Genre: Architecture
ISBN: 3039287028
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Buildings are one of the main causes of the emission of greenhouse gases in the world. Europe alone is responsible for more than 30% of emissions, or about 900 million tons of CO2 per year. Heating and air conditioning are the main cause of greenhouse gas emissions in buildings. Most buildings currently in use were built with poor energy efficiency criteria or, depending on the country and the date of construction, none at all. Therefore, regardless of whether construction regulations are becoming stricter, the real challenge nowadays is the energy rehabilitation of existing buildings. It is currently a priority to reduce (or, ideally, eliminate) the waste of energy in buildings and, at the same time, supply the necessary energy through renewable sources. The first can be achieved by improving the architectural design, construction methods, and materials used, as well as the efficiency of the facilities and systems; the second can be achieved through the integration of renewable energy (wind, solar, geothermal, etc.) in buildings. In any case, regardless of whether the energy used is renewable or not, the efficiency must always be taken into account. The most profitable and clean energy is that which is not consumed.

Enabling Detailed Energy Analyses Via the Technology Performance Exchange

Enabling Detailed Energy Analyses Via the Technology Performance Exchange
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Total Pages: 16
Release: 2014
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One of the key tenets to increasing adoption of energy efficiency solutions in the built environment is improving confidence in energy performance. Current industry practices make extensive use of predictive modeling, often via the use of sophisticated hourly or sub-hourly energy simulation programs, to account for site-specific parameters (e.g., climate zone, hours of operation, and space type) and arrive at a performance estimate. While such methods are highly precise, they invariably provide less than ideal accuracy due to a lack of high-quality, foundational energy performance input data. The Technology Performance Exchange was constructed to allow the transparent sharing of foundational, product-specific energy performance data, and leverages significant, external engineering efforts and a modular architecture to efficiently identify and codify the minimum information necessary to accurately predict product energy performance. This strongly-typed database resource represents a novel solution to a difficult and established problem. One of the most exciting benefits is the way in which the Technology Performance Exchange's application programming interface has been leveraged to integrate contributed foundational data into the Building Component Library. Via a series of scripts, data is automatically translated and parsed into the Building Component Library in a format that is immediately usable to the energy modeling community. This paper (1) presents a high-level overview of the project drivers and the structure of the Technology Performance Exchange; (2) offers a detailed examination of how technologies are incorporated and translated into powerful energy modeling code snippets; and (3) examines several benefits of this robust workflow.

Valuation of Distributed Energy Resources Based on Consumption Data

Valuation of Distributed Energy Resources Based on Consumption Data
Author: Siddharth Rameshbhai Patel
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Total Pages:
Release: 2019
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The electric grid is undergoing fundamental changes. The most well known is taking place at the central nodes of the grid, where new utility scale solar and wind generation plants are increasing the share of energy produced by renewable and intermittent sources. An equally profound though less mature transformation is underway at the peripheral nodes of the grid with the increasing adoption by residential consumers of distributed energy resources (DERs) like rooftop solar, energy storage, and electric vehicles. Whether solar and storage technologies make the leap from eager, early adopters to a mass presence will be determined by how well they align with the needs of residential consumers. This study develops models for the drivers and impacts of widespread adoption of rooftop solar and storage in the residential sector. We take the electricity consumption history of households, as recorded by their smart meters, as the best measure of their primary needs and wants. In the first section of this study, we characterize the effect of pricing policies on the distribution of household electricity cost savings from net-zero sized solar and storage technologies under time-varying prices. We also model and estimate the additional value that coordination services that aggregate resources can provide to households. In the second section, we develop a model for a peer-to-peer rental market for rooftop solar and energy storage. The market rental price, quantity, and participation rate are characterized for varying levels of DER adoption. We find that direct subsidies are a cheaper way to increase adoption if enabling the peer-to-peer market increases distribution grid costs by more than a few percent. In the third and final section, we develop a method to quantify the resilience value that rooftop solar can provide to residential neighborhoods in the aftermath of natural disasters. As a case study, we apply this method to single family homes in San Carlos subjected to an earthquake based on the 1906 San Francisco event. We evaluate the cost and effect of a policy intervention to ensure more geographically uniform resilience, finding that a relatively small nudge can have a significant impact on improving resilience for all households.