Assessing the Risk to Indoor Thermal Environments on Industrial Sites Offering AHU Capacity for Demand Response

Increasing participation in demand response within the industrial sector may be crucial to growing the levels of available flexible capacity required to reliably control national electricity grids as renewable generation increases to satisfy emission targets. This research aims to assist the uptake of demand response in the industrial sector by investigating risk to indoor thermal environments on industrial sites offering air handling unit capacity for demand response. This evaluation uses a systematic model-based approach, calibrated and validated with empirical data from a relevant case study industrial building to assess risk through a number of scenarios. The conditions investigated cover several relevant grid response times and durations, and national and international extreme external ambient temperatures in the past, present and future under a variety of temperature limits. The study demonstrated that there is very low risk to the case study site participating in demand response, with only 15 of 264 initial and 284 of 936 total scenarios triggering any risk. The major factors affecting risk levels identified were more stringent temperature limits and the influence of more extreme climates. The development and implementation of this concept has considerable potential to benefit industrial participants and the wider national electricity grids.