Improved energy demand management in buildings for smart grids: The US experience

Abstract Over the last decade, advancements in information technology, communications, and controls drove investments in infrastructures to enable smart grids worldwide. More recently, growing integration of renewable generation in electricity grids around the world presented issues such as unplanned forecast errors, intrahour variability, over generation, and steep ramping of renewable resources. In this chapter, we provide a building-centric view of the smart grid, including descriptions of demand-side activities and their impact, how to facilitate the growing need for flexibility of demand-side resources, and the vision of multiple domains of timescales for which buildings can transact with electricity grid signals. We also give examples of how these concepts have been implemented in buildings and projects around the United States.