Commercial Buildings Research and Development

Commercial Buildings Research & Development
Home > Technologies & Systems > HVAC/CHP: Distributed Energy Site Simulation

Distributed Energy Site Simulation

Collage of various images associated with Distributed Energy Site Simulation research including: a schematic of Building Energy Flows, powerline workers in Toyko, Japan, a wall of monitors at the Honeywell Energy Information Center, a line chart, PV panels—Aichi Project, Dolan Technology Center—the CERTS Migrogrid Test Bed.

Motivation / Problem Statement

Designing, installing and operating combined heat and power (CHP) systems in buildings is typically more complex than industrial applications because of imbalance of electricity and heat loads, variable weather and occupancy, etc. The challenge is to create systems such that their economics is robust to variable conditions, and carbon emissions reductions are guaranteed.

Activities / Approach

Develop the Distributed Energy Resources Customer Adoption Model (DER-CAM) and related tools to pick and schedule building scale CHP and microgrids.

Accomplishments / Outcomes

DER-CAM in use at 5 research institutions around the world and undergoing continuous improvement.

Future / Follow-on

Better integration of DER-CAM with building energy simulation and stochastic frameworks to further optimize outcomes.

Relationship to Other Projects

Ongoing Consortium for Electric Reliability Technology Solutions (CERTS) work on microgrids is closely related. On-site generation systems could be microgrids, and could provide power quality and reliability benefits in addition to CHP.

Principal Investigator

  • Chris Marnay
  • (510) 486-7028

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