Demonstration of Transactive Control of Commercial Buildings as Energy Nodes

Modern buildings have multiple distributed electrical resources (DERs) such as renewable energy sources and energy storage devices, flexible loads, and utility connection. Coupled with smart meters and new energy pricing plans, these physical assets present new opportunities for building operators to save energy, reduce operational costs, avoid carbon emissions and improve occupant comfort. The concept of Energy Nodes is proposed to represent the electrical resources and loads within a building and their electrical interactions, which can be programmed/controlled through software. A scaled-down hardware emulation test-bed representing commercial buildings is developed with commercial DER interfaces, controllable loads and Transactive Energy based Energy Management System to realize a cyber-physical Energy Node. Through studies on this test-bed, it is demonstrated that the proposed energy nodes can automatically act based on building operator's economy preferences, save electricity bills, and provide Demand Response service by reacting to electricity price signals from the markets.