Towards Positive Energy Districts: Energy Renovation of a Mediterranean District and Activation of Energy Flexibility †
Abstract
:1. Introduction
1.1. Positive Energy Districts and Energy Flexibility
1.2. Objective and Structure of the Study
- The quantification of the energy–environmental impacts of the district retrofitting in order to achieve the PED status;
- The investigation of the activation potential of the energy flexibility of the district in terms of interaction with the electricity grid, self-consumption of energy from local RES and reduction in the carbon footprint, considering signals that reflect the environmental variability of the grid, operational costs and reduction in peak loads. In particular, the research work aims at investigating the potential of control algorithms for the air-conditioning system in order to activate the energy flexibility offered by thermal mass of buildings and at evaluating the influence of energy flexibility on the PED energy balance.
2. Materials and Method
- Develop a model of the district consistent with the real measured data and analyze its behavior in a dynamic simulation regime;
- Evaluate the potential for energy efficiency and integration of renewable energy sources;
- Plan the redesign of the district from a positive energy district perspective;
- Define energy flexibility strategies aimed at managing energy flows in the building cluster;
- Evaluate the impacts in terms of interaction with the electricity grid, self-consumption of energy, energy flexibility and operational CO2 equivalent (CO2eq) emissions.
2.1. Description of the Case Study
2.2. Modeling of the District and Redesign Scenarios
- Building energy modeling of the district and non-steady state simulation;
- Calibration of the model on the basis of monthly measured data of the electricity consumption of the building units;
- Energy efficiency solutions modeling and simulation of the calibrated model by insulating the building envelope, according to the transmittance limit values (Ulim) imposed by current Italian legislation [50] for net zero energy buildings;
- Integration of renewable energy sources through the sizing and modeling, in the TRNSYS environment, of a photovoltaic (PV) system on the roof of the buildings;
- Analysis of the results in terms of energy efficiency and interaction with the electricity grid, environmental impact of the district’s operation phase, energy flexibility of the PED scenario (called “base PED”/“PED”) according to the key performance indicators (KPIs) described in Table 2. Furthermore, the impact on thermal comfort of buildings retrofitting is evaluated on the basis of the European standard EN 16798-1 [51]. Even if the objective and scope of the study does not consist in optimizing thermal comfort, a thermal comfort analysis is carried out with the aim to assess the improvement in the thermal comfort conditions of the occupants as a co-impact of the redesign scenarios. The comfort analysis is performed by monitoring the PMV variable, based on the TRNSYS output values, and calculating the percentage of time in which the thermal comfort conditions fall within the categories I, II, III and IV defined in the standard;
- The PED energy balance is calculated, according to Equation (1), as the difference between the sum of the energy generated by the local RES systems in each time step () and the total energy demand of the district () over a period of one year;
- Development and modeling of energy flexibility scenarios (PED I and PED II) based on the flexible control of the air conditioning system using rule-based control (RBC) algorithms, predicting energy consumption and production through historical climatic data.
- (a)
- Upward modulation of the space heating Tset,h during the low penalty (lp) periods and downward modulation during high penalty (hp) periods;
- (b)
- Upward modulation of the space cooling Tset,c during the hp periods and downward modulation during the lp periods.
3. Results and Discussion
- The calibration of the model on the basis of real measured data;
- The analysis of the thermo-physical behavior and energy consumption of the base case (existing configuration of the district) in a dynamic regime and with a 15 min time step;
- The analysis of the results of the base PED scenario (PED configuration without the use of specific algorithms for activating the energy flexibility of the district) in terms of energy–environment and interaction with the electricity grid;
- The description and discussion of the results of the flexibility scenarios, PED I and PED II, through analysis of the grid interaction, monitored KPIs, balancing of energy flows within the district and study of the dynamic behavior in the 15 min time step;
- Comparison of the scenarios examined and discussion of the energy–environmental and economic benefits and impacts due to flexible control.
3.1. Calibration of the Model and Dynamic Analysis
3.2. Redesign in a PED Perspective
- As visible also from the PMV profile, the thermal comfort conditions have improved during the occupation time; this tendency is confirmed by the annual values reported in Table 4. In particular, as shown in Figure 11, the PMV value is close to zero in some hours of the day (Comfort Category I), for example, between 10:00 and 12:00. In the same hours in the existing configuration of the district to which Figure 9 refers, the PMV trend instead reached values close to −2, indicating a low level of thermal comfort (Comfort Category IV).
- The energy demand for space heating is about halved. As can be seen in Figure 11, the insulation of the building envelope determines a decrease in the internal air temperature of the thermal zone used as an example, which is more delayed over time and a reduction in the heating load peaks compared to the reference case.
- Regarding the cooling season, for the days displayed in the graph, the energy consumption for cooling has slightly increased, while the air temperature profile is on average higher in the hours the air-conditioning system is switched off due to the higher internal loads, caused by the lower heat transmission through the building envelope.
3.3. Comparison of PED Scenarios and Contribution of Energy Flexibility
4. Conclusions
Author Contributions
Funding
Institutional Review Board Statement
Informed Consent Statement
Data Availability Statement
Acknowledgments
Conflicts of Interest
Nomenclature
Abbreviations | Índices | ||
FF | Flexibility Factor | c | consumed |
g | Energy generation | el | Electric |
KPI | Key Performance Indicator | eq | Equivalent |
l | Energy consumption | g | generated |
MPC | Model Predictive Control | hp | High penalty |
P | Power | lp | Low penalty |
PED | Positive Energy District | T | Time period |
RBC | Rule Based Control | t | Time |
RES | Renewable Energy Source | set | Set-point |
T | Temperature | ||
U | Transmittance |
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Building Type | Lighting [W/m2] | Equipment [W/m2] | COP [-] | EER [-] |
---|---|---|---|---|
Office building | 8.31 | 20.97 | 2.8 | 2.44 |
Restaurant | 6 | 34.76 | 3.32 | 3 |
Pizzeria | 7 | 262.60 | 3.41 | 3.21 |
Café-Pub | 11.12 | 30.29 | 3.39 | 2.95 |
Laundry store | 3.09 | 327.77 | 3.41 | 3.21 |
Nautical store | 2 | 5.90 | 3.95 | 3.5 |
Building Component | U* | Ulim | U** |
---|---|---|---|
Vertical Exterior Walls | 0.77 | 0.38 | 0.358 |
Ground Floor | 1.53 | 0.4 | 0.377 |
Exterior Roof | 2.24 | 0.27 | 0.25 |
Windows | 1.27 | 2.6 | 1.27 |
Comfort Cat. | Office 1 | Office 4 | Restaurant Hall | Cafè-Pub Hall |
---|---|---|---|---|
Cat. I | +4% | +5.15% | +1.8% | +4% |
Cat. II | +3.29% | +4% | +5.39% | +5.46% |
Cat. III | +2.21% | +4.93% | +4.61% | +5.92% |
Cat. IV | −9.53% | −14% | −12% | −15.27% |
Scenario | FF (Emissions) | FF (Res) | ||
---|---|---|---|---|
Base | - | - | −0.73 | - |
PED | 0.44 | 0.49 | 0.06 | −0.02 |
PED I | 0.48 | 0.52 | 0.13 | 0.05 |
PED II | 0.51 | 0.55 | 0.18 | 0.11 |
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Marotta, I.; Péan, T.; Guarino, F.; Longo, S.; Cellura, M.; Salom, J. Towards Positive Energy Districts: Energy Renovation of a Mediterranean District and Activation of Energy Flexibility. Solar 2023, 3, 253-282. https://doi.org/10.3390/solar3020016
Marotta I, Péan T, Guarino F, Longo S, Cellura M, Salom J. Towards Positive Energy Districts: Energy Renovation of a Mediterranean District and Activation of Energy Flexibility. Solar. 2023; 3(2):253-282. https://doi.org/10.3390/solar3020016
Chicago/Turabian StyleMarotta, Ilaria, Thibault Péan, Francesco Guarino, Sonia Longo, Maurizio Cellura, and Jaume Salom. 2023. "Towards Positive Energy Districts: Energy Renovation of a Mediterranean District and Activation of Energy Flexibility" Solar 3, no. 2: 253-282. https://doi.org/10.3390/solar3020016
APA StyleMarotta, I., Péan, T., Guarino, F., Longo, S., Cellura, M., & Salom, J. (2023). Towards Positive Energy Districts: Energy Renovation of a Mediterranean District and Activation of Energy Flexibility. Solar, 3(2), 253-282. https://doi.org/10.3390/solar3020016