Connecting the Last Mile: Demand Response in Smart Buildings

Demand response (DR) operates on the last mile in the smart grid that connects the building energy system with utility grid. It enables a building to actively participate in the whole grid energy system. With DR, a building may make a profit by optimizing its energy consumption while helping to achieve the overall targets of energy efficiency and emission reduction for the whole energy system. The recent US Supreme Court ruling on FERC Order 745 has reaffirmed the critical role and functions of demand response. It is expected that demand response will soon become a basic function of smart buildings. In this paper, we summarize the background of demand response, investigate promising automation technology such as OpenADR for demand response applications in smart buildings, and present an OpenADR Interface prototype demonstration for building energy management systems. We demonstrate the realization and benefits of OpenADR integration with state of art building energy management systems, which connects the last mile between the smart grids with the smart buildings.