Edinburgh Napier University

  Demand response can be utilized within heating and ventilation of buildings to reduce CO2 emissions and energy costs on both utility and consumer level. During demand response control, some of the indoor environmental parameters (room air temperature or CO2 concentration) are either increased or decreased. Hence, the demand response is a bargaining process between energy cost savings and acceptable impact on indoor environmental quality.

This study determined the real-time pricing-based demand response impact on indoor air temperature and CO2 concentration during occupied time in an educational office building. Additionally, the annual energy cost savings were calculated. Both CAV and VAV ventilation designs were included in the study. The following system parameters were controlled: space heating, supply air temperature and airflow rate. The study was conducted by dynamic energy and indoor environmental simulations with the software IDA-ICE 4.7.1.

The simulations showed that demand response of space heating, supply air temperature and airflow rate can be utilized without significantly affecting the indoor environmental quality (room temperature and CO2 concentration) and still achieve energy cost savings.