Transactional network: Improving efficiency and enabling grid services for buildings

Because of a need to reduce electricity consumption and to make electricity generation cleaner, there is an impetus to improve the energy efficiency of the building stock and widespread installation of distributed variable renewable energy generation. Soon, a significant fraction of transportation energy will be in the form of electricity. Significant gains in building operational efficiency are possible because between 20% and 30% of the energy consumed in commercial buildings is typically wasted because of poor or inefficient building operations. To address these problems, the U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office is supporting the development of the concept of a “transactional network” that supports energy, operational, and financial transactions between building systems (e.g., rooftop units), and the electric power grid using applications, or “agents,” that reside either on the equipment, on local building controllers, or in the Cloud. This article describes the transactional network concept, the platform, and two example agents/applications within VOLTTRON™ that improve operational efficiency and enable grid services for packaged air conditioners and heat pumps (rooftop units). It also describes the results from testing the concept at some demonstration sites.