Battery life-cycle optimization and runtime control for commercial buildings demand side management: A New York City case study

Abstract

In metropolitan areas populated with commercial buildings, electric power supply is stringent especially during business hours. Demand side management using battery is a promising solution to mitigate peak demands, however long payback time creates barriers for large scale adoption. In this paper, we have developed a design phase battery life-cycle cost assessment tool and a runtime controller for the building owners, taking into account the degradation of battery. In the design phase, perfect knowledge on building load profile is assumed to estimate ideal payback time. In runtime, stochastic programming and load predictions are applied to address the uncertainties in loads for producing optimal battery operation. For validation, we have performed numerical experiments using the real-life tariff model serves New York City, Zn/MnO2 battery, and state-of-the-art building simulation tool. Experimental results shows a small gap between design phase assessment and runtime control. To further examine the proposed methods, we have applied the same tariff model and performed numerical experiments on nine weather zones and three types of commercial buildings. On contrary to the common practice of shallow discharging battery for preventing phenomenal degradation, experimental results show promising payback time achieved by optimally deep discharge a battery.