Status

ongoing

Motivation

Energy flexibility aims to combine conflicting interests of energy suppliers, grid and building operators and developers, as well as users and society by furthering the utilization of predictable but volatile renewable energy supply of future magnitudes.

Energy flexibility further relieves energy grids and reduces the necessity of additional energy storage capabilities. Buildings and Quarters play a vital role in this process, their construction, appliances and usages lending themselves to adaptation for flexible utilization of renewable energy.

Users are however known to react very sensitively to changes in building operation and control over building comfort. Further research on user's acceptance of energy flexible services is therefore needed, as monetary incentives - although intensely researched - represent only one aspect of evolving user behaviour.

The current challenge is to quantify and balance the multiple dimensions of advantages and disadvantages, which arise from flexible energy services for each stakeholder.

Project goals

This project aims to improve planning of energy flexibility in construction and refurbishment in three key areas:

1. Extension of existing static models of thermal user comfort to include dynamic effects
2. Quantification of the ancillary service by energy flexibility by preparation of a quarter-hourly resolved carbon emission and "availability-of-RES"-signal for the future Austrian power grid
3. Holistic evaluation of the developed comfort model and ancillary service signals on three different examples of possible plus energy quarters (Therefore the shipyard site Korneuburg can be seen exemplarily in Figure 1) including the evaluation of life cycle cost and life cycle assessment.

Methodology

The methodological core of the project consists of the experimental investigation of user comfort in flexibly controlled buildings. On the one hand, this is carried out through a randomized blind study in the so-called "ACR test box", a room-sized laboratory environment with controllable surface temperatures, orientation and solar radiation.

This should yield to a "first setting" for the evaluation of the dynamic user acceptance of different comfort conditions and the physiological characteristics, e.g. the heart variability. On the other hand, residents of real buildings and homes with dynamically controllable TABS are asked about their satisfaction with the building and their willingness to flexibly adjust the interior temperature, and in the course of a two-month test run, the limits of thermal loads flexibilisation is determined for this test group.

At the same time, the modeling of the CO2-free energy system of Austria and the development of a simulation model that can show the examined dynamic control and their effects on comfort, emissions, energy consumption and cost-effectiveness at district level are in progress. Finally, the developed comfort, CO2 and simulation models are used to evaluate 3 potential plus energy neighborhoods in terms of their energy flexibility.

Expected results

The project results are expected to be:

1. Experimentally verified dynamic user comfort model, that allows inference on user's acceptance on thermal energy flexibility measures
2. A quarter-hourly resolved carbon emission and availability-of-RES-signal for the future Austrian power grid according to the main RES scenarios 2030 – 2050, allowing for the assessment of energy flexibility in the context of energy transition
3. Holistic evaluation of three potential flexible plus energy quarters including results 1 and 2, as well as heuristic methods for its optimization

Project management

UAS Technikum Wien, competence field Renewable Energy System

Project or cooperation partners

• IBO - Institut für Bauen und Ökologie
• Stadtgemeinde Korneuburg
• Stadtentwicklungsfonds Korneuburg (SEFKO)
• Käferhaus GmbH
• Aichinger Hoch- und Tiefbau GmbH
• WEB Windenergie AG
• Kleboth und Dollnig ZT GmbH
• Medizinischen Universität Wien, Institut für Umwelthygiene (UMW)

UAS Technikum Wien, competence field Renewable Energy System
Ing. DI Dr. Manfred Tragner
Giefinggasse 6
A-1210 Vienna
Tel.: +43 (664) 619 2541
E-mail: manfred.tragner@technikum-wien.at
Web: www.technikum-wien.at