Flexible buildings may already be here, thanks to the creation of a model by a Ph.D student in civil and environmental engineering at Carnegie Mellon University, we might be able to improve the overall efficiency of the grid and cut building emissions significantly.
Elvin Vindel and his team created a model for demand flexibility in HVAC systems that will provide solutions in energy demand management for building managers and grid operators.
There are already existing methods for estimating the flexibility of commercial buildings that have focused on thermal flexibility while it simplifying the response of the HVAC system. However, this usually leads to low accuracy in flexibility predictions that limited the chance of using buildings for grid services that can improve reliability.
With this new model, it will define flexibility as a property of the installed mechanical system by leveraging the data streams generated and stored in modern building automation systems.
They use smart meters and sensors that deliver real-time data from HVAC systems to them. This new model, it will provide more accurate demand flexibility prediction for drops in demand compared to existing approaches while supporting a scalable model acquisition process for use in buildings, according to TechXplore.
With this new model developed, it only shows that building managers and operators can work together to achieve significant reductions in energy demand. If a property can provide the grid with a more accurate and timely picture of its demand flexibility, then the grid managers can better balance and actuate energy demands while they provide incentives to building managers that are able to lower their demand.
Vindel's team has tested the model on three building simulations under different climates across the US. They are also planning to do more testing on real-world HVAC systems this summer to validate the findings of their latest research.
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Building Emissions Today
In the US alone, the buildings and other human activities are emitting the same amount of greenhouse gases as the entire transportation sector. It is a global issue where buildings are the second-largest emitter of carbon dioxide, being exceeded only by the energy sector.
This is because of the two ways that buildings emit greenhouse gases: through energy consumption, and through the diffusion of carbon dioxide and other gases that happen as a result of the construction and maintenance of buildings.
The emissions from buildings also cause the levels of carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere to increase and contribute to the global warming. The amount of carbon dioxide produced from buildings is less compared to the energy sector, but the effect of this is not necessarily less in terms of reality.
With this new model, it gives hope that soon enough, we will be able to cut down on emissions significantly.
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Written by April Fowell
