Grant: Alliance Grants

Implementation of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) is a means to increase the portion of renewable energy in the electric system while reducing CO2 emissions, but even in a market like Québec, where electricity from the grid is already all renewable, customers may want to install in the near future such DER in order to reduce their electricity costs and to participate in the global optimization of the electric system, partly in response to incentive measures such as dynamic tariffs and electrification of transport. These new DER will affect the way that the grid operates, and the utility will have to adapt the way they manage the grid, not only by changing the way they deliver electricity, but also by developing and using flexibility from the building load, building-integrated renewable energy systems and building-connected electric vehicles (EVs). Buildings, which consume a great deal of Canada's energy resources and over half of its electricity production, have significant potential to develop such flexibility. In addition to the urgent need to develop and activate building energy flexibility and manage power demand through predictive control, there is a need to integrate the design of retrofit measures for existing buildings that will improve both energy efficiency and flexibility potential such as the addition of energy storage. Hydro-Québec, Concordia University, Regulvar, CanmetENERGY and BGI Analytics have joined forces to propose a research program that has the potential to result in major benefits to Canada. The research is organized around three axes: 1) Modelling and activating building energy flexibility for enhanced integration of distributed renewable energy resources and smart grid interaction; 2) Scaling from single buildings to clusters and categories of buildings; 3) Application case studies. The work will result in novel model predictive control strategies to predict and activate the energy flexibility potential of buildings with DER, as well as retrofit measures for enhanced energy efficiency and flexibility. The results of the research will greatly reduce peak demand during peak periods for the grid and facilitate the flexible integration of renewable energy resources in building design and operation.