Implementationof micro energy grid: A case study of a sustainable community in China

Abstract This paper presents a micro energy grid to a community and estimates the effect of the urban micro energy grid on the reduction of energy demand and carbon emissions. Micro energy grid enables to share various energy sources generated at local plants and renewable sources for multiple buildings with different energy profiles. A community in China was selected for the implementation of the micro energy grid. A number of key performance indicators(KPIs) were developed to act as a framework for the overall community micro energy grid design. Site-wide strategies were selected to meet the KPIs and minimize the capital cost of the project. Financial analysis on the community micro energy grid model was performed and different scenarios were set up in order to find the optimalconditions for the government incentive, the investment discount rate, system capacity and development (demand) size of the project. It was found that a community in China adopting micro energy grid can achieve 26% carbon emissions reduction and 25% energy consumption savings compared to the conventional building energy systems and its payback period is 51 years with 10% discount rate and a government incentive of $0.052 per kWh.