Control Challenges in Microgrids and the Role of Energy-Efficient Buildings [Scanning the Issue]

It now seems inevitable that power grids of the future will be massive stochastic networks whose nodes are themselves microgrids comprising generation and storage units, inverters and power conditioning elements, together with controllable aggregations of appliances and other load classes. There will be significant amounts of power coming from wind, solar, and cogeneration enabled by combined heat and power plants (CHPs), and there will be new opportunities for demand response (DR) and ancillary services coming from grid-specific communication technologies that will coordinate energy storage, distributed energy resources (DERs), and flexible schedulable loads connected within low-voltage distribution networks. As power grids move away from centralized generation sources toward a system with large numbers of small and distributed production units, novel information and communication concepts will be needed to ensure secure and reliable power delivery to consumers whose requirements are themselves increasingly varied, although also often flexible. The combination of residential and commercial buildings accounts for approximately 40% of the annual energy consumption in the United States [4], and similar statistics apply worldwide [5]. Commercial buildings represent 45% of that figure. Any opportunity to improve efficiency in buildings will open the door for significant energy savings throughout the world. Such opportunities exist: research has shown that up to 40% of the energy used by HVAC systems in commercial buildings is wasted due to faulty operation [2]. There are many other opportunities for improved efficiencies, including increased utilization of nearby DERs such as wind and photovoltaics, thereby reducing the fraction of generated energy that is dissipated in line losses associated with long-distance transmission lines. By appropriately implementing a smart building operator (SBO) within a building automation system (BAS), recent research has shown that energy distribution through facility microgrids can be simultaneously optimized for efficiency, occupant comfort, and the building’s ability to participate in DR power markets. (See, for example, [6]–[8].) This work makes certain assumptions about the homogeneity of appliances that comprise the load networks within the facility microgrid. While such assumptions may be valid in some new construction and certain other ideal cases, the built environment is largely heterogeneous, and variations This special issue brings together recent research on the efficient use of energy in commercial, residential, and other types of buildings and facilities.