Journal Article

Electric control strategies in an Urban Building Energy Modeling tool - case study on a french neighbourhood

Partenay, V, Herrera, E, Grover-Silva, E, Riederer, P, Garreau, E, Keilholz, W

2025

Overview

Energy management systems (EMS) play a crucial role in optimising thermal and electrical energy consumption in buildings and districts. DIMOSIM, a building and district simulation software, has been developed with a novel electric system model that allows for multi-level control strategies to simulate flexible consumption such as batteries. The new structure integrates simple and robust simulation algorithms while also enabling the external control strategies through socket coupling that can be on a zone, building or district level. This advancement allows researchers to test and implement state-of-the-art control techniques within a well-established simulation environment. This paper presents the development process of the model structure, detailing its design principles and technical implementation. To demonstrate its effectiveness, a case study was conducted using standard control algorithms. The results showed a significant improvement in energy performance, with more than 30% reduction in peak electricity consumption and an increase in self-consumption compared to a baseline without storages and controllers. This work enhances the capabilities of DIMOSIM, making it a powerful tool for researchers and engineers working on next-generation EMS solutions. The structure enables also coupling and interaction between electrical and thermal control signals, such as the use of heat pumps for flexibility issues.

• Publisher: IOP Publishing
• Subject: Algorithms / Case studies / Control algorithms / Coupling / Electric control / Electricity consumption / Energy consumption / Energy management systems / Heat pumps / Simulation