Building Energy Flexibility Assessment in Mediterranean Climatic Conditions: The Case of a Greek Office Building

The EU energy and climate policy has set quantitative goals for decarbonization based on the energy efficiency and the evolution of energy systems. The utilization of demand side flexibility can help towards this direction and achieve the target of higher levels of penetration in regard to intermittent renewable energy production and carbon emission reduction. This paper presents a simulation-based assessment of thermal flexibility in a typical office building in Greece, which is a representative Mediterranean country. The use of variable speed heat pumps coupled with hydronic terminal units was evaluated. The research focused mainly on the evaluation of energy flexibility offered by energy stored in the form of thermal energy by utilizing the building's thermal mass. The demand response potential under hourly CO2eq intensity and energy prices was investigated. The flexibility potential was evaluated under different demand response strategies, and the effect of demand response on energy consumption, operational costs, CO2eq emissions and thermal comfort was analyzed and discussed. The results showed that both control strategies based on both the CO(2eq)intensity signal and spot price signal have, in some cases, the potential for cost and emission savings, and in other cases, the potential to depreciate in terms of emissions and cost the increase of energy consumption due to load shifting.