Executive Summary : | Buildings account for 40% of global energy consumption and 30% of GHG emissions, with over 60% of this demand attributed to lighting and space cooling. However, building occupants continue to express dissatisfaction with their indoor environments, necessitating smart energy management in individual buildings and communities to ensure comfort and minimal energy expenditure. This proposal explores interventions on the supply- and demand-side to enable residential and commercial buildings to consume energy efficiently and environmentally friendly. The supply-side interventions will focus on increasing renewable generation to meet building energy demand through on-site generation, contracted solar/wind supply, and/or energy storage. The project will develop analytics that satisfy building demand with renewable generation economically and reduce environmental impact. Solutions such as thermal storage and batteries will be investigated for self-consumption of on-site renewable generation. Sharing resources across multiple buildings in a community can also increase the contribution of on-site renewables to building energy demand more economically.
The demand-side interventions involve active load management of lights and HVAC systems, which directly influence occupant comfort. Analytics will be designed to optimize occupant comfort with minimum energy and environmental impacts, assessing occupant comfort and taking actions to avoid energy wastage while leveraging available renewable supply. Tools to estimate building occupancy, assess thermal comfort, and optimize building energy consumption will be designed to promote efficiency and clean energy utilization. |