How ADM improves grid reliability in an increasingly electrified world

In an era where the demand for electricity continues to rise, it's crucial to explore innovative solutions that enhance grid reliability. Automated Demand Management (ADM) emerges as a key player in this scenario, offering a strategic approach to optimizing energy consumption. Let’s discover how ADM improves grid reliability and addresses the growing challenges in an increasingly electrified world.

Demand Flexibility:

To understand ADM's impact, let's consider a scenario involving individual thermostats collectively contributing to reduced cooling demand. By gradually adjusting set points over several hours in a coordinated manner, a significant reduction in cooling demand and electricity consumption can be achieved. ADM essentially provides demand flexibility, allowing for manipulation of cooling demand to benefit both consumers and the grid.

Factors Driving the Need for Demand Flexibility:

Several global trends are converging, necessitating a closer look at demand management and flexibility. The surge in intermittent power production from solar and wind, aiming to combat climate change, presents challenges to the existing grid infrastructure. Additionally, changing global temperatures lead to increased cooling (or heating) and electrical loads, exacerbated by the growing prevalence of electric cars and the shift to electric heating systems. These factors underscore the importance of demand flexibility in adapting to evolving energy landscapes

Challenges with Lithium-Ion Batteries:

While batteries have often been seen as a solution for demand flexibility, the increasing cost of lithium-ion batteries poses a challenge. This emphasizes the need for alternative strategies like ADM to effectively address the rising demands on the grid.

ADM as a Solution:

ADM, at its core, enables the optimization of operational efficiency. By integrating fault detection and diagnostics (FDD) into the ADM solution, malfunctioning or inoperable equipment can be identified and rectified, ensuring optimal performance. This approach incentivizes users to address issues promptly, leading to significant energy savings.

Precooling and Load Shedding:

ADM employs precooling strategies to carefully monitor and control peak demand, ensuring a balanced approach that doesn't compromise other aspects of building operations. The separation of the signal modulating load shedding from the algorithm executing load shedding allows for customized solutions based on the specific needs of customers, whether it be peak demand charges, demand response initiatives, or reliable scheduling.

User Controls for Granular Management:

When looking for an ADM solution, a differentiating factor is the provision of user controls at the zone level. This empowers facility operators to maintain comfort as a top priority while delivering the savings the corporate team is requesting of them. This granular level of control is vital in ensuring that complex strategies do not interfere with specific zones, especially those serving high-profile tenants or areas with distinct heat loads.

Measuring and Verifying Results:

ADM's success is measured through machine learning-driven baseline models that compare predicted energy consumption with actual results. This not only quantifies energy savings but also ensures that comfort levels within zones are maintained. This rigorous measurement and verification process instills confidence in the system's effectiveness.

Looking Forward: The Adaptive Buildings Ecosystem:

For Buildings IOT, ADM and adaptive setpoints are just the beginning of an adaptive buildings’ ecosystem. Getting started with you now gives you first access to future developments in airside optimization, economizer optimization, and enhanced scheduling, all aimed at driving down costs, increasing the value of adaptive buildings, and ensuring long-term customer satisfaction.

For everyone looking into advanced supervisory controls, automated demand management is an easy and impactful place to start. By providing demand flexibility, addressing current challenges, and incorporating user-friendly controls, the Buildings IOT adaptive buildings suite stands as a crucial component in the evolution of smart, energy-efficient buildings. As we navigate the complexities of an ever-changing energy landscape, the adaptive buildings ecosystem, with ADM at its core, promises a sustainable and resilient future.