The impact of a grid-connected building’s design characteristics on its ability to participate in energy arbitrage schemes by using battery storage under real-time electricity pricing conditions

The Building sector is responsible for a significant part of the worldwide energy consumption and the consequent carbon emissions. Their energy consumption depends on several factors, such as their heating, ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) configuration and design characteristics. Due to the energy transition and focus on sustainability, the building sector has evolved with several building types of different attributes mentioned in the literature. Most of these types are considered to work in synergy with the grid, relieving pressure on the infrastructure. Smart Grid Optimised Buildings (SGOBs) are fully-electric and constitute a novel concept according to which buildings must be in close relationship with the grid, responding to its notifications and using their integrated systems such as battery storage to perform specific services, such as arbitrage and exporting excess electricity back to the grid. While the majority of the research and the literature have focused on either large-scale energy storage towards the maximisation of the revenue streams or on small-scale building integrated storage in combination with renewables, there is a significant research gap on the utilisation of battery storage in buildings and the impact their design characteristics have on their arbitrage performance. This project suggests three operational dispatch strategies for battery-enabled building arbitrage under real-time electricity prices, implemented in MATLAB. Commercial buildings with different design characteristics are simulated (DesignBuilder/EnergyPlus) and used as input of the MATLAB model to investigate their suitability to participate in the arbitrage scheme. In terms of the percentage of the peak loads shifted, the fabric’s energy efficiency was proved to have the highest impact on the building’s arbitrage, followed by the ventilation strategy and the window-to-wall ratio (glazing). Cost-benefit-analysis was performed for a 10-year period, including a financial reward mechanism to make the arbitrage scheme as cost-effective as the no storage scenario; the average reward was calculated to be 22.84p/kWh shifted when exports take place and 16.66p/kWh shifted without exports.