Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling

With the increasing demand for electricity, it is causing a growing burden on the power grid. In order to alleviate the pressure on the power system, a series of demand response (DR) strategies have emerged. This paper studied the DR potential and energy flexibility on city-scale building clusters u...

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Main Authors: Anni Xu, Chengcheng Song, Wenxian Zhao, Yixing Chen
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2025-03-01
Series:Buildings
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Online Access:https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/15/7/1051
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author Anni Xu
Chengcheng Song
Wenxian Zhao
Yixing Chen
author_facet Anni Xu
Chengcheng Song
Wenxian Zhao
Yixing Chen
author_sort Anni Xu
collection DOAJ
description With the increasing demand for electricity, it is causing a growing burden on the power grid. In order to alleviate the pressure on the power system, a series of demand response (DR) strategies have emerged. This paper studied the DR potential and energy flexibility on city-scale building clusters under pre-cooling combined with temperature reset. This study firstly selected 18 types of buildings, each containing three construction years as prototype buildings, to represent the 228,539 buildings in Shenzhen. Then several pre-cooling strategies were developed, and after comparative analysis, the optimal strategy was obtained and applied to the entire Shenzhen building cluster, with simulation and analysis conducted for the nine administrative districts. Among them, this paper used AutoBPS-DR and added pre-cooling code based on the Ruby language to automatically generate building models with DR strategies and finally simulated the energy consumption results by EnergyPlus. The results showed that a pre-cooling duration of 0.5 h and a change of 2 °C in both pre-cooling temperature and reset temperature was the optimal strategy. Under this strategy, small and medium prototype buildings can achieve better results, with a maximum load reduction of 23.89 W/m<sup>2</sup> and a reduction rate of 56.82%. In the simulation results of the building cluster, Guangming District showed the best results. Finally, the peak electricity reduction amount and reduction rate of the entire building cluster were calculated to be 0.007 kWh/m<sup>2</sup> and 21.87%, respectively, with the maximum cost saving and saving percentage of 0.081 CNY/m<sup>2</sup> and 15.05%, respectively. From this, it can be seen that the Shenzhen building cluster had shown considerable DR potential under the pre-cooling strategy.
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spelling doaj-art-c2bd5c3dd4554f608fc7fcf6cc6e9a802025-08-20T03:06:29ZengMDPI AGBuildings2075-53092025-03-01157105110.3390/buildings15071051Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy ModelingAnni Xu0Chengcheng Song1Wenxian Zhao2Yixing Chen3College of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, ChinaCollege of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, ChinaCollege of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, ChinaCollege of Civil Engineering, Hunan University, Changsha 410082, ChinaWith the increasing demand for electricity, it is causing a growing burden on the power grid. In order to alleviate the pressure on the power system, a series of demand response (DR) strategies have emerged. This paper studied the DR potential and energy flexibility on city-scale building clusters under pre-cooling combined with temperature reset. This study firstly selected 18 types of buildings, each containing three construction years as prototype buildings, to represent the 228,539 buildings in Shenzhen. Then several pre-cooling strategies were developed, and after comparative analysis, the optimal strategy was obtained and applied to the entire Shenzhen building cluster, with simulation and analysis conducted for the nine administrative districts. Among them, this paper used AutoBPS-DR and added pre-cooling code based on the Ruby language to automatically generate building models with DR strategies and finally simulated the energy consumption results by EnergyPlus. The results showed that a pre-cooling duration of 0.5 h and a change of 2 °C in both pre-cooling temperature and reset temperature was the optimal strategy. Under this strategy, small and medium prototype buildings can achieve better results, with a maximum load reduction of 23.89 W/m<sup>2</sup> and a reduction rate of 56.82%. In the simulation results of the building cluster, Guangming District showed the best results. Finally, the peak electricity reduction amount and reduction rate of the entire building cluster were calculated to be 0.007 kWh/m<sup>2</sup> and 21.87%, respectively, with the maximum cost saving and saving percentage of 0.081 CNY/m<sup>2</sup> and 15.05%, respectively. From this, it can be seen that the Shenzhen building cluster had shown considerable DR potential under the pre-cooling strategy.https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/15/7/1051peak demand reductionpre-cooling strategyurban building energy modelingdemand responsetime-of-use electricity price
spellingShingle Anni Xu
Chengcheng Song
Wenxian Zhao
Yixing Chen
Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling
Buildings
peak demand reduction
pre-cooling strategy
urban building energy modeling
demand response
time-of-use electricity price
title Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling
title_full Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling
title_fullStr Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling
title_full_unstemmed Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling
title_short Demand Flexibility of Pre-Cooling Strategies for City-Scale Buildings Through Urban Building Energy Modeling
title_sort demand flexibility of pre cooling strategies for city scale buildings through urban building energy modeling
topic peak demand reduction
pre-cooling strategy
urban building energy modeling
demand response
time-of-use electricity price
url https://www.mdpi.com/2075-5309/15/7/1051
work_keys_str_mv AT annixu demandflexibilityofprecoolingstrategiesforcityscalebuildingsthroughurbanbuildingenergymodeling
AT chengchengsong demandflexibilityofprecoolingstrategiesforcityscalebuildingsthroughurbanbuildingenergymodeling
AT wenxianzhao demandflexibilityofprecoolingstrategiesforcityscalebuildingsthroughurbanbuildingenergymodeling
AT yixingchen demandflexibilityofprecoolingstrategiesforcityscalebuildingsthroughurbanbuildingenergymodeling