Potential Energy, Demand, Emissions, and Cost Savings Distributions for Buildings in a Utility’s Service Area

• Published in: Energies (Basel) Vol. 14; no. 1; p. 132
• Main Authors: Bass, Brett, New, Joshua, Copeland, William
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Basel MDPI AG 01.01.2021
• Subjects: Buildings; Commercial energy; Construction; Cost control; Customer services; Decision making; demand side management; Electric rates; Electricity; Electricity distribution; Emissions; Energy; Energy conservation; ENERGY CONSERVATION, CONSUMPTION, AND UTILIZATION; Energy consumption; Energy efficiency; Energy management; Energy modeling; grid-interactive efficient buildings; Industrial plant emissions; Optimization; Potential energy; Power; Service areas; Simulation; urban-scale energy modeling; valuation; United States > US; Tennessee
• DOI: 10.3390/en14010132
• ISSN: 1996-1073

Several companies, universities, and national laboratories are developing urban-scale energy modeling that allows the creation of a digital twin of buildings for the simulation and optimization of real-world, city-sized areas. Prior to simulation-based assessment, a baseline of savings for a set of utility-defined use cases was established to clarify the initial business case for specific energy efficient building technologies. In partnership with a municipal utility, 178,337 OpenStudio and EnergyPlus models of buildings in the utility’s 1400 km2 service area were created, simulated, and assessed with measures for quantifying energy, demand, cost, and emissions reductions of each building. The method of construction and assumptions behind these models is discussed, definitions of example measures are provided, and distribution of savings across the building stock is provided under a maximum technical adoption scenario.