Assessing the electric demand-side management potential of Helsinki's public service building stock in ancillary markets

Abstract

• Feasibility assessment of demand respose in a Nordic building stock. • Ventilation fans are the most prominent electric ancillary market loads of buildings. • Upscaling demand response is limited by the inhomogeneity of buildings. With demand response (DR), a building may contribute to balancing the electric grid by amending its consumption according to the grid's momentary need. DR has its origin in industrial processes. As most buildings consume far less energy than industrial sites, several buildings must be bundled together for a comparable effect; however, because of the diversity among the buildings and their use, performing a realistic assessment of their DR potential is not a straightforward task. In this paper, the DR potential of a large group of buildings is assessed using a novel method based on construction time building codes. The method is applied to the public service building stock of the city of Helsinki, which comprises approximately one thousand buildings. The result is an estimate of the economic value generated in the ancillary demand-response market. This paper contributes to the academic society by being one of the first such assessments concerning buildings in northern climatic zones, where district heating and heating in general have predominance over chillers and cooling.