Balancing Energy Demand with Buildings

01.07.2009 - 01.01.2012

Research funding project

The increasingly spread construction of innovative buildings and the according technologies results in a shift from the use of fossil energy resources to the indirect use of electrical equipment such as compression heat pumps, ventilation etc. to meet the primary energy needs. This leads to higher base loads and partially to pronounced peak loads, which alter the load profiles of the buildings. Furthermore, there is the trend, that the number of so-called Energy-Plus-Buildings is increasing. This results in a decentralization of the energy production, which is thereby dependent on the energy supply, and in a poorer predictability due to the complexity of the distribution and supply networks. Accompanying to this development it is therefore necessary to develop new concepts for the operation and application of the building control to reduce the maximal energy consumption to ensure a stable and high-quality power supply. This project addresses the issue of the possible extent of smoothing of load profiles (Peak Shaving) of functional buildings by new automation techniques for the thermal and the electrical operation and thus offering room for a more efficient automation. An assessment of the possible saving of energy and the subsequent CO2-reduction by the improved load profile will be carried out. The saving approach is based on two possibilities for the use of energy management. On the one hand, synergies can occur when assessing buildings which use renewable energy regarding a better coordination and optimization of energy supply and demand. On the other hand, the necessity of using power supplies from peak-load electricity generation plants can be minimized by load shifting and an intelligent storage management. The building or the group of buildings is thereby upgraded to an active consumer within the power grid, thus contributing to a CO2-reduction by a substitution of peak demands by flexible storage processes. The implementation of these innovative automation techniques will be carried out with targeted building components, which are already widely applied in modern building. These components comprise thermo active building systems, cooling and heating buffer storage, the corresponding building automation system and the strategically well-placed use of time-independent energy consumers. In the course of the project BED different cases will be investigated on the basis of thermal simulations with the aim of shifting the thermal and electrical energy taking into account the level of comfort of people. By means of adaptive calculation algorithms the data can be attributed to specific conditions. By the combination of self-learning calculation algorithms and the corresponding conditions it is not only possible to adapt the actions on the conditions, but also to constantly improve the processing of the data. The result of this project will be an intelligent and self-learning automation strategy which can be applied in currently used automation techniques and which serves as interface between an optimal usage of storage techniques, the optimal integration of buildings in regenerative energy systems and the structures of network operators and power suppliers.

People

Institute

E384 - Institute of Computer Technology

Grant funds

FFG - Österr. Forschungsförderungs- gesellschaft mbH (National) Group Basic programs Austrian Research Promotion Agency (FFG)

Research focus

Computational Science and Engineering
Information and Communication Technology
Energy and Environment

Keywords

German	English
Plus-Engergie-Haus	Plus Energy House
Lastmanagement	Load management
Netzintegration	grid integration
Lastverschiebungspotentiale	Load shift potentials

External partner

AIT Austrian Institute of Technolog GmbH