Standardizing Performance Metrics for Building-Level Electrical Distribution Systems

Moazzam Nazir, Omkar Ghatpande, Willy Bernal Heredia, Cameron Wierzbanowski, Daniel Gerber and Avijit Saha
Additional contact information
Moazzam Nazir: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Omkar Ghatpande: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Willy Bernal Heredia: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Cameron Wierzbanowski: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA
Daniel Gerber: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Avijit Saha: National Renewable Energy Laboratory, Golden, CO 80401, USA

Energies, 2021, vol. 15, issue 1, 1-18

Abstract: Building-level electrical distribution systems comprise a myriad of current-carrying equipment, conversion devices, and protection devices that deliver power from the utility or local distributed energy resources to end-use building loads. Electric power has traditionally been generated, transmitted, and distributed in alternating current (AC). However, the last decade has seen a significant increase in the integration of native direct current (DC) equipment that has elevated the importance of DC distribution systems. Numerous studies have comparatively examined the performance of various electrical distribution systems in buildings but have failed to achieve uniform conclusions, primarily because of a lack of consistent and analogous performance evaluation methods. This paper aims to fill this gap by providing a standard set of metrics and measurement boundaries to consistently evaluate the performance of AC, DC, or hybrid AC/DC electrical distribution systems. The efficacy of the proposed approach is evaluated on a representative medium-sized commercial office building model with AC distribution and an equivalent hybrid AC/DC and DC distribution model, wherein the AC distribution model is concluded to be the most efficient. The simulation results show variation in computed metrics with different selected boundaries that verify the effectiveness of the proposed approach in ensuring consistent computation of the performance of building-level electrical distribution systems. This paper provides an initial set of guidelines for building energy system stakeholders to adopt appropriate solutions, thus leading to more efficient energy systems.

Keywords: AC and DC electrical power distribution; buildings; energy efficiency; metrics; standardization (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/1/136/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1996-1073/15/1/136/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jeners:v:15:y:2021:i:1:p:136-:d:711220

Access Statistics for this article

Energies is currently edited by Ms. Agatha Cao

More articles in Energies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().