A peak-load reduction computing tool sensitive to commercial building environmental preferences

Demand Response (DR) as an option for electric utility peak load management has gained significant attention in the recent past as it helps to avoid stress conditions and possibly defer or avoid construction of new power generation, transmission and distribution infrastructures. DR in commercial buildings can play a major role in reducing peak load and mitigate network overloading conditions. Small and medium-sized commercial buildings have not historically played much role as a DR resource both due to lack of hardware and software tools and awareness. This paper presents a peak load reduction computing tool for commercial building DR applications. The proposed tool provides optimal control of building’s cooling set points with the aim to reduce building’s peak load, while maintaining occupant comfort measured by the Predicted Mean Vote (PMV) index. This is unlike other studies which use global cooling set point adjustment resulting in an uneven distribution of occupant satisfaction across the building. The approach is validated by experimentation conducted on a simulated medium-sized office building, which reflects an existing commercial building in Virginia, USA. Research findings indicate that the proposed methodology can effectively reduce the simulated building’s peak load and energy consumption during a DR event, while maintaining occupant comfort requirements. The paper also addresses the issue of rebound peaks following a DR event, and offers a means to help avoid this situation.

需求响应（DR）作为电力公用事业峰值负荷管理的一种选择，近年来受到了广泛关注，因为它有助于避免电力系统出现紧张状况，并有可能推迟或避免新建发电、输电和配电基础设施。商业建筑中的需求响应在降低峰值负荷和缓解电网过载方面可发挥重要作用。历史上，中小型商业建筑由于缺乏硬件和软件工具以及相关意识，在需求响应资源方面一直未发挥太大作用。本文介绍了一种用于商业建筑需求响应应用的峰值负荷降低计算工具。该工具对建筑的制冷设定点进行优化控制，旨在降低建筑的峰值负荷，同时通过预测平均投票（PMV）指数来维持居住者的舒适度。这与其他使用全局制冷设定点调整的研究不同，那些研究导致建筑内居住者满意度分布不均。该方法通过在美国弗吉尼亚州一座模拟中型办公楼（该楼反映了当地一座现有商业建筑的情况）上进行的实验得到了验证。研究结果表明，所提出的方法能够在需求响应事件期间有效降低模拟建筑的峰值负荷和能耗，同时满足居住者的舒适度要求。本文还探讨了需求响应事件后出现反弹峰值的问题，并提供了一种有助于避免这种情况的方法。