Achievable Energy Flexibility Forecasting of Buildings Equipped With Integrated Energy Management System

Buildings’ achievable energy flexibility refers to the real load reduction amount in an incentive-based demand response (DR) event, which presents dynamic, subjective, and uncertain characteristics. It is different from the buildings’ theoretical energy flexibility, which refers to its physical load reduction potential during a certain time period and is static and certain. The former serves as a foundation in a DR aggregator’s market transaction strategy formulation process and thereby calls on the necessity of its accurate forecasting. However, most of the existing literature focuses on the latter one, which is not necessarily equal to the real achievable flexibility. Therefore, to help DR aggregators bid accurately in the ancillary service market, this paper proposes an achievable energy flexibility forecasting method for a building equipped with an integrated energy management system based on the decision tree model. The impact of gas-fired equipment on buildings’ achievable-energy-flexibility is also taken into account in the proposed method. The case study indicates that the proposed method exhibits promising performance in forecasting the achievable energy flexibility of a building.