Enhancement of building operations: A successful approach towards national electrical demand management

An approach for managing electrical demand through enhanced building operations in hot climates is evaluated and demonstrated in this paper. The approach focuses on implementing enhanced operations in government buildings, since they are easier to implement and administer. These enhanced operations included early reduction of cooling supply before the end of the occupancy period, improved time-of-day control after occupancy period and reduced lighting. A total of eight government buildings with different construction and system characteristics were selected for implementing these enhanced operations. These buildings have a total air-conditioning area of 4.39 x 10(5) m(2) and a combined peak electrical demand of 293 MW. The enhanced operations resulted in demand savings of 8.90 MW during the national peak hour. Temperatures build up inside the buildings were monitored and found to be within acceptable ranges. Guidelines for nationwide implementation in similar buildings were developed based on the results of this work. Implementation is estimated to reduce demand by 488 MW by the year 2030, which amounts to capital savings of $585 million. These projected values would be important to adopt energy efficient policies for the country. Additional reductions in energy and fuel consumption are added benefits, which would result in large financial and environmental savings to the country. Moreover, the enhanced building operations would be an important tool to avoid any blackouts by properly reducing the peak electrical demand as well as operating the power plants with a higher thermal efficiency. (C) 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.