Demand response of large residential buildings - a case study from “Seestadt Aspern”

To provide evidence for the suitability of demand response using large scale buildings, several demonstration building were built in the “Seestadt Aspern” development area in Vienna, Austria. In case of a residential building, the building heating and domestic hot water system was specifically designed to support demand response with a multitude of different sources, namely thermal, photovoltaic and hybrid solar collectors as well as several heat pumps using ground water, waste air and ground. Hot water tanks and a long-term ground storage are available as well. A simulation study was performed to get a first estimation for the demand response potential of the building, using a model that will further be used to test actual controls and also verify demand response. This paper discusses on the one hand the simulation of the residential building and its energy systems, on the other hand the demand response realized in the simulation experiments, which was able to lower energy costs by as much as 13.5 percent.