Implementation of demand response for a block of buildings for active participation in the electricity market

Abstract

There has been increased focus on improving the security and efficiency of the electricity grid resources. Many solutions have been proposed. Demand Response (DR) and Demand Side Management (DSM) are popular solutions in studies towards achieving these goals. This paper elucidates on the work being done within a Horizon 2020 (H2020) project, Sim4Blocks, funded by the EU, on the implementation of DR for a group of buildings with thermal and electric demands. The project tackles three issues that are of importance to realization of DR for end-users: (1) What hardware and communication protocols are required to ensure that existing devices (especially thermal devices) can participate in the electricity market? Would it be possible to future-proof the methodology developed? (2) How do we optimise the thermal and electric energy flows such that demand and comfort are satisfied while minimising stress in the electric grid and (3) How do we integrate the optimisation algorithms and associated software with the hardware so that the entire hardware-software framework works seamlessly. With these questions in mind, hardware, communication protocols, Domain Specific Languages (DSL) and optimisation frameworks are utilised and developed such that end-user buildings with thermal and electrical devices can participate in the electricity market. The entire framework developed is validated through demonstration on three pilot sites in three different countries with different sets of devices (Switzerland, Germany and Spain). These sites consisting of end-user buildings that have thermal and electrical devices which are conventionally found in today's market. Thus, through the development and demonstration of such a framework, Sim4Blocks is able to analyse the strengths, weaknesses and bottlenecks existing in today's devices, control methodologies and market constraints and suggest solutions to overcome them.