Development and Application of an Inverse Building Model for Demand Response in Small Commercial Buildings

This paper describes development of an inverse building model and its application in studying the performance of a demand-limiting (DL) control strategy. The demand-limiting strategy involves precooling (PC) a building during unoccupied times, maintaining the zone temperature setpoints at the lower limit of comfort during off-peak, occupied periods, and then limiting the peak cooling rate to a target for on-peak, occupied times that keeps zone conditions within comfort limits. Data from the Iowa Energy Center (IEC), which is typical of small commercial buildings, were used to train an inverse model that was then employed as a tool to evaluate the potential for peak load reduction through control of building thermal mass. The potential for demand limiting was investigated through parametric analysis compared with night-setup (NS) control.