A Distributed Intelligent Automated Demand Response Building Management System

The goal of the 2.5 year Distributed Intelligent Automated Demand Response (DIADR) project was to reduce peak electricity load of Sutardja Dai Hall at UC Berkeley by 30% while maintaining a healthy, comfortable, and productive environment for the occupants. We sought to bring together both central and distributed control to provide “deep” demand response1 at the appliance level of the building as well as typical lighting and HVAC applications. This project brought together Siemens Corporate Research and Siemens Building Technology (the building has a Siemens Apogee Building Automation System (BAS)), Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (leveraging their Open Automated Demand Response (openADR), Auto-­Demand Response, and building modeling expertise), and UC Berkeley (related demand response research including distributed wireless control, and grid-­to-­building gateway development). Sutardja Dai Hall houses the Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), which fosters collaboration among industry and faculty and students of four UC campuses (Berkeley, Davis, Merced, and Santa Cruz). The 141,000 square foot building, occupied in 2009, includes typical office spaces and a nanofabrication laboratory. Heating is provided by a district heating system (steam from campus as a byproduct of the campus cogeneration plant); cooling is provided by one of two chillers:more » a more typical electric centrifugal compressor chiller designed for the cool months (Nov-­ March) and a steam absorption chiller for use in the warm months (April-­October). Lighting in the open office areas is provided by direct-­indirect luminaries with Building Management System-­based scheduling for open areas, and occupancy sensors for private office areas. For the purposes of this project, we focused on the office portion of the building. Annual energy consumption is approximately 8053 MWh; the office portion is estimated as 1924 MWh. The maximum peak load during the study period was 1175 kW. Several new tools facilitated this work, such as the Smart Energy Box, the distributed load controller or Energy Information Gateway, the web-­based DR controller (dubbed the Central Load-­Shed Coordinator or CLSC), and the Demand Response Capacity Assessment & Operation Assistance Tool (DRCAOT). In addition, an innovative data aggregator called sMAP (simple Measurement and Actuation Profile) allowed data from different sources collected in a compact form and facilitated detailed analysis of the building systems operation. A smart phone application (RAP or Rapid Audit Protocol) facilitated an inventory of the building’s plug loads. Carbon dioxide sensors located in conference rooms and classrooms allowed demand controlled ventilation. The extensive submetering and nimble access to this data provided great insight into the details of the building operation as well as quick diagnostics and analyses of tests. For example, students discovered a short-­cycling chiller, a stuck damper, and a leaking cooling coil in the first field tests. For our final field tests, we were able to see how each zone was affected by the DR strategies (e.g., the offices on the 7th floor grew very warm quickly) and fine-­tune the strategies accordingly.« less