Automated Demand Response Pilots & Implementation
A Distributed Intelligent Automated Demand Response Building Management System at Sutardja Dai Hall at UC Berkeley
This project develops and demonstrates an automated Demand Response management system for UC Berkeley’s CITRIS building to achieve peak demand reduction while maintaining the building as a healthy, productive, and comfortable environment for the building occupants. The Siemens Apogee Building Management System with OpenADR will be implemented. Optimization and control algorithms for demand management will be developed that take into account a multitude of factors that affect cost: comfort, HVAC, lighting, and other building systems, climate, and usage/occupancy patterns. These factors will be examined from the perspective of vastly increased potential for sensing and instrumentation via low-cost wireless communications.
Collaborative Project with CANmet, NRC.
Demand Response Quick Assessment Tool (DRQAT) - Collaborative Project with National Resources Canada
DRQAT has been expanded to include advanced thermal storage system such as ice-storage, and additional demand response control strategies. This project also added prototypical commercial buildings in Canada along with Canada's national weather data and utility rates.
Statewide Automated Demand Response – IOUs and ISO
This project supports collaboration with PG&E, SCE, SDG&E and the ISO to demonstrate OpenADR statewide. Key project goals include:
- To support the investor-owned utilities for their deployment
- To provide technical support to PG&E with their pilots (Participating Load and Small commercial)
- To explore OpenADR opportunities with SMUD
- To collect and compile State-wide OpenADR Experience
- To develop case studies
AutoDR Commercialization and Implementation Plan Scoping Study
This scoping study lays the foundation the implementation of PG&E's automated demand response pilot program during the summer of 2007 (15 MW of Critical Peak Pricing [CPP] demand response).
Additional Contacts
Demand Response Evaluation and Case Study at a UC Campus with Chilled Water Storage
Campus demand response evaluations are often difficult because of the complexities introduced by central heating and cooling, non-coincident and diverse building loads, and existence of a single electrical meter for the entire campus. At the University of California at Merced, a two million gallon chilled water storage system is charged daily during off-peak price periods and used to flatten the load profile during peak demand periods. The goal of this research is to study demand response savings in the presence of storage systems in a campus setting. First, University of California at Merced summer electric loads are characterized; second, its participation in two demand response events is detailed. In each event a set of strategies were pre-programmed into the campus control system to enable semi-automated response. Finally, demand savings results are applied to the utility’s DR incentives structure to calculate the financial savings under various DR programs and tariffs. A key conclusion to this research is that there is significant demand reduction using a zone temperature set point change event with the full offpeak storage cooling in use.
From PCTs to Auto-DR for Small and Medium Commercial Facilities
This study characterizes small commercial buildings by market segments, systems and end uses; develops a framework for identifying demand response (DR) enabling technologies and communication means; and reports on the design and development of a low‐cost OpenADR enabling technology that delivers demand reductions as a percentage of the total predicted building peak electric demand. The results show that small offices, restaurants and retail buildings are the major contributors making up over one third of the small commercial peak demand. The majority of the small commercial buildings in California are located in southern inland areas and the central valley. Single‐zone packaged units with manual and programmable thermostat controls make up the majority of heating ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems for small commercial buildings with less than 200 kW peak electric demand. Fluorescent tubes with magnetic ballast and manual controls dominate this customer group’s lighting systems. There are various ways, each with its pros and cons for a particular application, to communicate with these systems and three methods to enable automated DR in small commercial buildings using the Open Automated Demand Response (or OpenADR) communications infrastructure. Development of DR strategies must consider building characteristics, such as weather sensitivity and load variability, as well as system design (i.e. under‐sizing, under‐lighting, over‐sizing, etc). Finally, field tests show that requesting demand reductions as a percentage of the total building predicted peak electric demand is feasible using the OpenADR infrastructure.
Performance Platform: Information Management for DR in Large Facilities
A technology evaluation of the design, deployment, and results from PG&E's six-month 2006 Automated Critical Peak Pricing Program (Auto-CPP) was conducted to evaluate the feasibility of deploying automation systems that allow customers to participate in critical peak pricing (CPP) with a fully-automated response.
