Multi-modal Building Energy Management System for Residential Demand Response

Demand response is proposed as a solution to handle the fluctuations in the power supply in a scenario with higher penetration of renewable energy sources. While demand response already offers a positive business case in certain domains it still lacks matureness in other areas, especially in the residential domain. This paper aims at providing a feasibility study of residential demand response by designing and validating a novel multi-modal Building Energy Management System (BEMS) that enables demand response provision and energy efficient control from residential buildings. The proposed consumer-centric BEMS monitors the building performance and its surroundings, interacts with the residents, optimally controls local Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) and provides demand response to an aggregator. The design decisions and the consequent architecture are detailed. A prototype of the envisioned BEMS has been developed and deployed in a testbed - a 12-storey residential building located in Denmark. The prototype performance, the data monitoring capabilities, interaction with the residents and controllability of local DER of the BEMS are demonstrated.