CH-24-C033 - Benefits of Integrated Energy Systems for Multi-Family End-Use Load Including EV Charging

With today’s energy challenges and a nationwide goal of 50% reduction of end-use carbon footprint, researchers have developed holistic approaches to multi-system integration. This includes fuel-switching, energy storage, and on-site power generation with renewable energy features. Integrated Energy Systems (IESs) are an emerging approach to maximize efficiency and resilience for residential and commercial Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC), water heating (WH), and plug loads using off-the-self components with Distributed Energy Resources (DER) and energy storage. IESs include a combination of HVAC, water heating, on-site power generation, and thermal storage equipment that, when properly designed and integrated, can balance energy grid supply and demand while exploiting multiple energy resources. At the nano- and micro-grid scales, IESs can improve overall operating costs and efficiencies, minimize emission levels, and provide resilient systems at the building level. This paper describes a microgrid level IES developed for multi-family building applications in the U.S. national average cold climate zone 4, including electric vehicle (EV) charging loads. This IES, designed by GTI Energy and their manufacturer partners, includes a photovoltaic (PV) array, micro-combined heat and power (mCHP), cold-climate air-source heat pumps, and hydronic forced-air and storage tank systems, and level-2 EV charging stations. Using GTI Energy’s Virtual Test Home (VTH), a load-based evaluation approach that integrates real-time weather and building energy modeling with testing equipment in a hardware-in-the-loop approach, this microgrid IES has been evaluated and optimized throughout the heating and cooling season of Chicago 2023. This paper will present daily microgrid IES performance evaluated in the VTH to showcase operating cost benefits and carbon footprint reduction in multi-family building applications with EV charging stations. This paper will include a modeled comparison between this holistic approach and a conventional baseline system to estimate energy, cost, and carbon reduction in multi-family buildings.