Event Description

With the emerging trend towards fully electrified buildings, plus the demands from a growing IT sector, utilities and building portfolio managers are facing growing peak demands while also seeking solutions towards decarbonization and grid resilience. This session features three emerging HVAC strategies, with detailed case studies that can move these ideas from research to implementation.

Carlos Duarte will present a recently published simulation study exploring how radiant cooling systems can reduce strain on the grid during peak demand hours, evaluating numerous parameters such as the scheduling of system operation to optimize for climates. With simulations of 16 climate zones in California, plus 14 additional climates, these results can inform optimization for load shifting in radiant systems.

Jiwon Park will discuss a case study of an all-electric medical office building that implemented heat recovery chillers to reduce emissions, providing a higher coefficient of performance than air-to-water heat pumps, with a smaller equipment footprint. Results show the technical feasibility of these systems, but also their complexity and variability, with a proposed new metric for assessing performance in such systems.

Finally, Tharanga Jayarathne will describe the field implementation and validation of a novel control strategy that optimizes supply air temperature resent. Recent implementations in three commercial buildings demonstrate its potential as a cost-effective and scalable control strategy, with energy or cost savings up to 20%.

This event is free and open to the public, and co-sponsored by PG&E and UC Berkeley’s Center for the Built Environment.

Registration will open and be announced through CBE’s outreach channels soon.