Optimizing urban-scale energy use with uncertainty from occupant behaviour

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Energy use in urban areas accounts for over 70% of global green house gas (GHG) emissions. Therefore, thorough understanding of their energy supply and demand patterns is critical for achieving any substantial reductions in energy use and related emissions. Energy demand, particularly in buildings, is subject to several sources of uncertainty; among which occupant behaviour is one of the least understood and accounted for. The applicant's doctoral and post-doctoral research introduced new approaches to evaluate and quantify occupant behaviour's effect on energy use uncertainties in buildings at both the design and operational stages. However, the propagation of these uncertainties and their effect on temporal and spatial energy use patterns at the district and wider urban-scales are still largely unknown. Accounting for these uncertainties is crucial for urban-scale energy systems (e.g. district heating/cooling, micro grids with distributed renewable energy generation), especially as new strategies are explored to manage building-grid interactions (e.g. battery or thermal storage and demand response). The long-term objective of this research program is to design and operate resilient net-zero energy communities that optimize energy use in buildings and their interaction with the grid, while considering uncertainty from occupant behaviour. Over the next five years, the applicant and his students will mainly focus on demand-side uncertainties in urban energy systems by 1) quantifying the impact of occupant behaviour on urban-scale energy use, and 2) developing urban-scale energy simulation workflows that integrate occupant-related uncertainty. The overall research program aims to address matching energy supply and demand at different temporal and spatial scales, which is essential for integrating distributed renewable energy sources and improving energy efficiency in urban areas. Outcomes of this research program will lead to optimizing urban energy systems by leveraging inter-building diversity to achieve significant reductions in Canada's energy consumption and related GHG emissions. It builds upon the applicant's expertise in statistical modelling and building simulations to position Canada as a leader in the nascent research field of urban-scale energy modelling. Overall, this research program represents an important step towards designing smart and resilient communities, which are key to meeting Canada's long-term goal of cutting 80% of GHG emissions by 2050 and eventually becoming a carbon neutral economy.