Energy flexibility of office buildings – Potential of different building types

Abstract

The objective of this study is to investigate and assess the energy flexibility performance of typical Danish office buildings constructed at different periods. Four building study cases have been compared with different heating demands, structural thermal masses, envelope insulation levels and infiltration rates. All cases are equipped with the same novel two-pipe heating and cooling system. Each case is divided in four subcases with variations of heat gains: people load, lighting load, equipment load, solar gain. Analyses and comparisons have been performed on different parameters, including power load shifting and grid adjustment, comfort level, and economical benefits. All investigated cases are tested with two control strategies: a normal reference control strategy and an energy flexibility control. The flexible controller adjusts the indoor temperature set points for heating and cooling depending on different energy price levels.

Bioclimatic Architecture Strategies in Denmark: A Review of Current and Future Directions

“…In addition, even though the concept of using thermal mass as a passive strategy is not new, as already 2001 one study dealt with this topic [45], a drastic increase in research was seen in the past five years. In those studies, the focus was on load shift potential and energy flexibility [43,44,[48][49][50][51][52] with the idea to use the building as passive thermal energy storage [50]. This passive thermal energy storage can then compensate for variations of renewable energy source production in an integrated Smart Grid system.…”