ESTIMATING DEMAND RESPONSE POTENTIAL OF BUILDINGS USING A PREDICTIVE HVAC MODEL

Increasing penetration of intermittent renewable electricity into the grid, coupled with development of new communica-tion and control strategies, is creating challenges and opportu-nities for demand response (DR) to balance the grid. This pa-per presents a model characterization of a controllable buildings Variable Air Volume HVAC (VAV HVAC) system capable of im-plementing control strategies that provide flexibility to the grid. A Model Predictive Controller (MPC) capable of reliably vary-ing the modeled power by ±20%, or up to ±2 GW on a national scale, every five minutes without compromising occupants com-fort was built. A climate analysis was performed in order to as-sess the availability of controllable resources in sixteen cities. It is found that this control strategy could be implemented up to 99 % of the time in the hottest regions, but as low as 10 % of the time in the coldest