TA-23-C064 – Energy Storage Potential of Electrical Appliances for Office Buildings Based on User Surveys

Energy storage in buildings can improve consumption of renewable electricity, thus helping to achieve zero-carbon buildings. The battery is considered as effective option for energy storage as it can provide high response power with a prompt response speed. However, considering the space limitation and safety, the fixed battery may be not able to provide enough storage capacity and more possibilities need to be investigated to increase the storage ability. Actually, the electrical appliances in buildings also have the potential to provide direct and short-term energy storage as people increasingly tend to buy the electrical appliances that can unplug for convenience. Hence, in order to understand the current situation of energy storage for electrical appliances and investigate the future energy storage capacity, we have conducted a study on the prospects of energy storage of electrical appliances for the office building. Firstly, we conducted a two-part survey. The first part is to investigate the current situation of energy storage for electrical appliances, including the type and the power of electrical appliances. For electrical appliances in the market that already have batteries, the data including the battery capacity, materials, and increased prices compared to the appliances that cannot store energy were collected. The second part is the online survey of office workers, the data collected includes the users' habits of using electrical appliances, whether there is a demand for energy storage for various appliances, expected energy storage capacity for various electrical appliances and the acceptable price increase. By analyzing the data, we can find out whether users have energy storage needs and expected energy storage value. In addition, by analyzing the price and cost of the energy storage appliances, we can find out the appliances with the potential for energy storage. In the future work, the total electrical energy storage capacity potential of an office building can be estimated by referring the study. The research findings can also provide the reference for the future development of electrical appliances energy storage, and demonstrate the potential and possibility of building-side electrical appliances to contribute for flexibility management.