Capacity Utilization of Building Energy (CUBE) via Multi-Scale Metrics

Lead Performer: Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory – Livermore, CA
Partners:
-- New York University Center for Urban Science + Progress – New York, NY
-- Contra Costa County – CA
-- New York State Energy Research & Development Authority – Albany, NY
-- New York Power Authority – White Plains, NY
-- Pacific Gas & Electric – San Francisco, CA
DOE Total Funding: $3 million
Project Term: October 1, 2018 – September 30, 2021
Funding Type: Lab Call

Project Objective

The CUBE project will develop metrics to evaluate peak shaving and shifting capacities of buildings over multiple time scales for grid services. The developed metrics will provide a consistent measure to evaluate building’s peak shaving and shifting capacities, which will help various stakeholders – including grid operators, regulators, building energy managers, potential and current building owners, developers, and users – make decisions to leverage building energy flexibility for their financial and operational interests and needs. Grid services of various time scales that will be explored include capacity (multi-year), energy (day- to hour-ahead/real-time), and voltage support (day- to hour-ahead in distribution). The focus of this project will be on investigating differences in building energy flexibility (i.e., peak shaving and shifting capacities) by region, climate, building end use (e.g., residential vs. commercial), and control functionality (i.e., levels of automated control).

Project Impact

By developing a set of transparent flexibility metrics to numerically characterize different building capacities and flexibilities, building owners will be able to determine to what extent their building can provide grid services through load management. A standard set of metrics will increase the ability for buildings to engage in providing building grid services.

Contacts

DOE Technology Manager: Monica Neukomm
Lead Performer: Jhi-Young Joo, Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory