Super-GX: Scale Grid-responsive Supervisory Control for Multiple Commercial Buildings and EV Charging
The Regents of the University of California
Recipient
Recipient Location
$0
Amount Spent
Active
Project Status
Project Update
Since the project began this summer, all subcontracts have been executed. TRC worked with the team to develop a spreadsheet detailing several potential grid flexible energy measures for commercial buildings, which were integrated into the Grid-Flexible Measure Initial Report. Altura has begun analyzing the interfaces between the supervisory controller and the Building Management Systems (BMS) and other code support needed to implement the measures this summer at UC Irvine. The team has begun conversations with Honda America on the integration with the Honda America site. UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment is developing building assessment tools in conjunction with the semantic model to ease energy measure evaluation and integration.
The Issue
While the demand response potential for large commercial building electrical energy is well-documented, adoption is slow due to several technical, social, and economic issues. These include “siloed” energy systems (for example, Heating Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) equipment and lighting systems); lack of education and training for building owners and decision-makers, building managers, and building engineers; lack of trust in open-source solutions; and the cost of labor to interface with specific points in legacy Building Automation Systems. Because these issues cut across multiple disciplines, no single entity has addressed these barriers. However, the rapidly changing electricity grid—spurred by climate-change-driven electrification, renewable energy resources, and energy storage—encourages a new approach to scaling the adoption of large commercial energy flexibility.
Project Innovation
The primary innovations are in
1) facilitating market deployment by partnering with established manufacturers and associate building software data vendors to develop a process that uses a semantic model and supervisory software layer to automate screening, develop new algorithms/analytics/asset-point modeling, and contribute through established libraries and ontologies, and
2) providing community benefit and market adoption by developing and deploying building engineer and contractor training.
Project Goals
Project Benefits
This project will result in the ratepayer benefits of greater electricity reliability and lower costs by increasing demand flexibility (including reducing peak demand which reduces emissions). Grid-responsive electricity consumption helps to prevent power outages and can reduce demand charges faced by commercial buildings. Super-GX has the potential to reduce statewide summer electrical demand peak by 1.98 GW and winter peak by 0.93 GW if implemented in all existing commercial buildings with a building automation system. Assuming an annual adoption rate of 2%, up to a maximum adoption rate of 20%, in 15 years the statewide summer electrical demand peak will reduce by 0.40 GW and the winter peak will reduce by 0.19 GW, resulting in total energy savings of 51.3 GWh, total GHG emissions savings of 18.4 million kilograms, and energy cost savings of $11.7 million (assuming an average rate of $0.228/kWh) across that 15-year period.
Consumer Appeal
Improved buy in from building engineers/operators enhances consumer appeal by demonstrating a strong commitment to optimized system performance, reliable operations, and overall consumer satisfaction.
Affordability
Through reduced peak demand and the associated bill reductions will lead to lowered costs.
Environmental Sustainability
The project will increase demand flexibility that will allow for increased renewable energy integration and mitigate overgeneration, which will lead to a cleaner electricity grid and reduced emissions from energy produced using fossil fuels.
Reliability
Through reduced peak demand, overall stress on the electrical grid is minimized, which enhances system reliability and operational stability.
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