Elexity, Inc. — Department of Energy SBIR Phase I: 13

Description

To minimize the impact of each distributed solar installation on the grid (and hence, to increase the use of solar everywhere), customers must be able to use a greater percentage of the energy generated by their own solar panels within their own building or facility. Currently, systems within commercial and industrial facilities are poorly adapted to this objective. PV production is often monitored, but that information is seldom used by on-site systems such as building energy controls, lighting controls, storage systems, or any other potentially flexible loads within a facility. In this project, the EE Team will investigate the technical feasibility of creating an extensible, modular simulation model of electrical load flexibility in each major facility subsystem that will maximize local use of locally-generated solar energy. The proposed research fits well with DOE’s stated interest in increasing the penetration of distributed solar everywhere. Accurate modeling of the value of load flexibility will help vendors of lighting controls, building controls, solar arrays, storage systems, and numerous other technologies to identify new opportunities to offset solar variability and increase the adoption of distributed solar. In Phase I, the Extensible Energy (EE) Team will create a prototype simulation model with three primary components: - A “central broker” that will request changes in load from various building subsystems in response to changes in local solar output and total building load - An “energy agent” that will simulate a particular building subsystem (e.g., a lighting controls system, or a bank of electric vehicle (EV) charging stations), and will respond to requests from the central broker by varying loads of that subsystem - A “rules engine” that will evaluate different operating rules for a building using the broker-agent architecture described above. This Phase I prototype will include simple rules for at least four energy agent types: heating ventilation and cooling (HVAC) controls, lighting controls, stationary storage (e.g., a single large battery), and EV charging stations. Phase I will test potential methods of interaction between the energy agents and central broker, and will demonstrate simulated balancing of building loads and local solar output at a one-minute level of resolution for one complete day under a variety of conditions. Future phases will extend these results to one year, will include more refined models of each subsystem, and will develop the central broker into a product ready for commercialization. There are excellent immediate and longer-term commercial opportunities for the proposed system. Vendors of building controls, PV systems, energy storage systems (both batteries and thermal storage), smart chargers, and a host of other systems need access to the proposed simulation tool. Access to such a simulator will reduce cost and time to market of key smart building technologies. Further, a lightweight, general-purpose energy optimizer like the proposed central broker would be a boon to all facilities with distributed solar installations. The EE team has the experience and expertise to develop, market, and sell such a product to key market participants. Keywords: Solar, PV, Smart Meter, Load Balancing, Simulation, Storage, Demand Response, Software, Cloud