Quantifying the grid support of building energy systems

As an effort to reduce carbon emissions, Germany plans to significantly increase the use of wind and PV electricity. Since wind and PV plants cannot be dispatched deliberately like conventional power plants, increased flexibility on the demand side is needed to efficiently utilize the intermittent renewable generation. This Dissertation evaluates the suitability of building energy systems in non-residential buildings to provide load flexibility by adapting their load and generation trajectories according to the market need. It is explored how the "grid support" of buildings can be quantified, how grid-supportive present-day building energy systems are operated, and which approaches are most suitable to improve the grid support of buildings. To this end, four different flexibility and storage options (batteries, fuel switch, water tanks, and the thermal building mass) are compared in terms of improvement in grid support and impact on energy efficiency.