Simulation of Control Options for HVAC Management of a Typical Office Building

Disponible à l'adresse : http://www.harmonac.info/index.php?id=300International audienceAn investigation of correction of defects, as Energy Conservation Opportunities (ECOs) in HarmonAC project, can be done to fulfill two objectives: to improve thermal comfort and to reduce energy consumption of buildings. Among defect correction, HVAC control appears as a way of significant improvement. HVAC control is examined by using a dynamic simulation to improve the management of HVAC system for two opportunities: centrally, one opportunity is to sequence better Winter and Summer mode; locally, another one is the modification of internal set points to adapt to external climatic conditions. Adaptive comfort is examined to develop new rules for local control. Energy impact and thermal comfort of these two ECOs is investigated in the paper. An analysis of thermal comfort criterion shows that applying the operative temperature of EN15251 increases the consumption of the simulated building compared with a simple temperature control. According to our definition of heating and cooling modes, a good management of water network pumps for a four pipes system can reduce their consumption by 33%. A method to determine heating and cooling seasons is proposed to provide sufficient thermal comfort. A proposal to model the reasoned use of air conditioning equipment are investigated, it achieves a good thermal comfort and reduces the cooling load by 7% for Liege location

Procedures to identify Energy Conservation Opportunities applied to HVAC system: example of VSD of chilled water pumps

International audienceA procedure to identify energy savings of variable speed drive (VSD) applied to chilled water network is proposed. The purpose is to identify on which type of building and climate this opportunity can be preferably examined among the list of Energy Conservation Opportunities (137) identified in the HARMONAC project [1]. First, a preliminary analysis of the likely energy savings is led using two methodologies. A simplified approach is proposed in order to create parametric benchmarks. Results of the parametric simulations for several representative buildings of the French stock can be used to select this ECO according to the approximate potential of energy savings. The effect of appliance loads and climatic condition are examined. These procedures, to identify ECOs on site, could be used to be integrated into inspection procedures across Europe in order to apply Article 9 of Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD)

Evaluation as a "Learning-by-Doing" Tool for the Implementation of Local Energy Efficiency Activities

International audienceWith the "think global, act local" trends, local levels are taking an increasing role in the implementation of action plans, especially in the field of energy efficiency. An inventory of local energy efficiency operations in France confirmed a significant expansion of these activities, but also highlighted how rare their evaluation is, although a rich methodological evaluation material is available. The research question for this study was then how to fill the gap between theory and practice. This was addressed through studying the issue of evaluation use. The first step was to find in the evaluation literature the key components of evaluation use and the success factors to overcome the barriers to evaluation practice previously identified. This was used to adjust our evaluation methods and approach, and then to apply this to a particular case study. Key success factors for evaluation use were highlighted, such as the constructive and regular contacts between evaluators and program partners, and presenting the evaluation as a win-win collaboration. Finally, the main evaluation use was not to quantify the results of the operation, even if it was initially the most important stakeholder expectation, but to learn how to work together, how to supervise and use an evaluation, and how to improve the operation management and the operations themselves. This way, the evaluation really appears to be a learning-by-doing tool for all stakeholders involved in the implementation of local energy efficiency activities

Graphical language for identification of control strategies allowing Demand Response

Proceedings are available at http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/energyefficiency/conference/6th-international-conference-energy-efficiency-domestic-appliances-and-lighting-eedal11Presentation is available at http://www.eedal.dk/Conference/~/media/EEDAL/Sessions/Session%201/Graphical_language_for_identification_of_control_strategies_allowing_Demand_Response_Silva_Duplessis_Adn.ashxInternational audienceDue to new innovations in communication systems, electrical appliances are now capable of participating actively in smart grids control management. Each appliance has already several controls incorporated. In order to determine the best way to control an appliance in a smart grid context, we present a methodology based on a graphical language, which makes possible an easy identification of the available control strategies and will be used for future developments in terms of smart controls. The Language is divided into two different levels of complexity with different results. First level: Based on an empirical description of the controls available to the user, a first graphical representation of the appliance operation can be produced. This will allow the identification of the electric appliance availability for demand response control strategies based on the appliance existing controllers. Second level: This level requires detailed information and/or measurements of the appliance operation, so that more complex control strategies can be deduced. Due to the more complex operation description some of the deduced strategies, for this second level, could need adding new controls to allow their correct application. However it is up to the user of the language to choose the degree of the description complexity. This second level allows the user to know which components are the more energy and power demanding and how they are controlled, meaning that more accurate strategies can deducted. Manufacturers and power utilities can then identify their control strategies to be implemented in terms of demand response for electrical appliances

Evaluation as a "Learning-by-Doing" Tool for the Implementation of Local Energy Efficiency Activities

International audienceWith the "think global, act local" trends, local levels are taking an increasing role in the implementation of action plans, especially in the field of energy efficiency. An inventory of local energy efficiency operations in France confirmed a significant expansion of these activities, but also highlighted how rare their evaluation is, although a rich methodological evaluation material is available. The research question for this study was then how to fill the gap between theory and practice. This was addressed through studying the issue of evaluation use. The first step was to find in the evaluation literature the key components of evaluation use and the success factors to overcome the barriers to evaluation practice previously identified. This was used to adjust our evaluation methods and approach, and then to apply this to a particular case study. Key success factors for evaluation use were highlighted, such as the constructive and regular contacts between evaluators and program partners, and presenting the evaluation as a win-win collaboration. Finally, the main evaluation use was not to quantify the results of the operation, even if it was initially the most important stakeholder expectation, but to learn how to work together, how to supervise and use an evaluation, and how to improve the operation management and the operations themselves. This way, the evaluation really appears to be a learning-by-doing tool for all stakeholders involved in the implementation of local energy efficiency activities

A functional analysis of electrical load curve modelling for some households specific electricity end-uses

Proceedings are available at http://iet.jrc.ec.europa.eu/energyefficiency/conference/6th-international-conference-energy-efficiency-domestic-appliances-and-lighting-eedal11Presentation is available at http://www.eedal.dk/Conference/~/media/EEDAL/Sessions/Session%207/EEDAL_GRANDJEAN_Arnaud_Presentation.ashxInternational audienceIn the next decades the European residential sector will face a series of deep technical and behavioural breaks. Among them are : the integration of new electrical domestic end-uses, the development of plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles, the increase of heat pumps implementations, the improvement and the technological changes in small electrical appliances. This will imply some behavioural modifications in the lifestyles. For example, the wishes in terms of comfort and the way electrical devices are used will evolve significantly. The energy consumption is likely to increase but the residential load curve will also be strongly modified. We then propose a functional analysis which enables to take into account, for each end-use, according to its own specificities, the key points that allow to build-up a relevant load curve. This will lead us to step down at the appliance level which will be the starting point of our modelling method. After a general description of the methodology, we will present three case studies for the following end-uses: washing, cooling and lighting. We will consider for each device the main determining factors of which are the technical features, the occupancy patterns of the household members, the activity scenarios in the dwellings, the climate. This bottomup approach will generate intrinsically some kind of diversity needed to represent the temporality and the level of the power demand for a large number of households. This methodology allows, after an aggregation step, the calculation of the load curves for households at various spatial scales

Can Energy Savings from Operations Promoting Energy Efficient Behaviors in Office Buildings be Accounted for?

International audienceWhen looking for solutions to mitigate the growth of energy consumption in the commercial buildings sector, research works often focus on the energy performance of buildings. Indeed, many studies established how large the technical improvement potential was in this sector. But cost-effective energy savings can also be achieved in a complementary way by an improved energy management promoting energy efficient behaviors, because energy consumptions depend on both energy performance of buildings and equipments, and end-users behaviors. Past experiences tend to show that if awareness operations were widely disseminated, a significant amount of energy savings could be realized. It is likely that more and more organizations engage such operations. Unfortunately, their real impacts remain rather unknown and uncertain, mainly because they are not perceived as a serious option. Consequently they are implemented in very heterogeneous ways. Thus, their results may vary a lot too. This paper first reminds success factors analyzed in previous works, before presenting monitoring guidelines to ensure that energy savings can be accounted for. This methodological approach could be an entry to consider the inclusion of behavioral actions in schemes accounting for energy savings, such as white certificates. The option to include awareness operations in an energy management service appears to create good conditions ensuring the quality of the operations and therefore an accounting system reliable enough for certified energy savings. Admitting this new kind of energy service in white certificates schemes would on the one side provide a clear recognition of behavioral actions, and on the other side promote quality standards ensuring more homogeneity and effectiveness among this kind of operation

Optimal Recharging Strategy for Battery-Switch Stations for Electric Vehicles in France

Most papers that study the recharging of electric vehicles focus on charging the batteries at home and at the work-place. The alternative is for owners to exchange the battery at a specially equipped battery switch station (BSS). This paper studies strategies for the BSS to buy and sell the electricity through the day-ahead market. We determine what the optimal strategies would have been for a large fleet of EVs in 2010 and 2011, for the V2G and the G2V cases. These give the amount that the BSS should offer to buy or sell each hour of the day. Given the size of the fleet, the quantities of electricity bought and sold will displace the market equilibrium. Using the aggregate offers to buy and the bids to sell on the day-ahead market, we compute what the new prices and volumes transacted would be. While buying electricity for the G2V case incurs a cost, it is possible to generate revenue in the V2G case, if the arrivals of the EVs are evenly spaced during the day. We compare the total cost of implementing the strategies proposed with the cost of buying the same quantity of electricity from EDF

Raising awareness for energy efficiency in the service sector: learning from success stories to disseminate good practices

International audienceEnergy efficiency in the service sector is a key issue because of the important growth of its energy consumption. The energy performance of buildings and equipment can be improved through technical investments, but this has to be linked with an efficient management and good practices in order to reach better energy efficiency levels in a cost-effective way. Experience feedback concerning awareness activities in the service sector highlights the interesting opportunities of energy efficiency improvements they represent. This paper first draws a synthesis of the available feedback in this area to detect factors of success for this kind of activities. More than twenty operations from Europe and North America were analyzed looking at items such as the stakeholders involved, the actions implemented, the communication means, and the evaluation performed. Then a case study describes an EDF pilot operation in South East of France. An awareness campaign was led in four particular EDF buildings to inform the employees of the best practices and to involve them to apply these advice. Different action packages were used to compare their efficiency. The evaluation emphasizes the success of the operation, with around 10% of energy savings (i.e. more than 270 MWh/a). More than 80% of the employees said they changed their energy behavior and other indicators show their commitment and satisfaction towards the campaign. Finally, suggestions are made to disseminate good practices at a broader scale, especially out of the "initiated" circle. Building up a know-how from the evaluation of past experiences makes easier the development of process such as networking, experience sharing, and including these activities in energy services offers and in white certificates systems

Selection of procedures for air conditioning audit and definition of the associated training package

In the current transformation of the air conditioning (AC) market, important efforts should be achieved to improve the energy efficiency of these systems all along their life cycle. To detect and define the performance degradation of these facilities, a global approach has to be developed and the complexity of the systems implies the creation of reliable and efficient audit procedures and methods. In the AUDITAC project, we will describe the features of the two levels audit methods; pre-audit (or walk-through) and (detailed) audit. In order to support the harmonisation of the implementation of the AC systems inspection, starting from the inspection schemes already on the market, we assessed their effectiveness and establish a link with the operation and maintenance practices. The decision for renovation will be developed in its aspects of energy savings and economic feasibility. In order to disseminate and involve easily the AC actors in the audit methods, we have developed a basic training package (TP) about auditing AC facilities. This tool has been created to prepare and introduce air conditioning actors (energy managers, facilities owners, technicians related to AC etc…) to the compulsory inspection and to disseminate the advantages and opportunities that the subsequent audit can give. The audit approach is globally explained in the TP from cooling production to distribution, operation and maintenance and finally control strategies. Quantitative indicators for best practices and improvement examples are showed to support decision of renovation. Basically, the TP has been designed for a public with an educational level of post-high school and can be used in different scenarios (students with HVAC class, inspection technicians, energy managers’ information etc…)