This Annex is concerned with enabling buildings to participate as flexible demand assets in energy systems.   

It builds on the work of IEA EBC Annexes 67, 81 and 82.  It will provide building owners and energy market participants with a framework of concepts, procedures, tools and evidence - that can enable trustworthy, automated, cost-effective trading of flexibility resources from buildings; at scale. 

The Annex will consider the technologies available for delivering flexibility from heating and cooling systems in individual buildings – with a focus on supporting adoption of simple, repeatable, scalable solutions. The Annex will also consider the digital infrastructure necessary for coordinating and automating dispatch of large numbers of flexible load resources, in local and national energy markets/schemes. The Annex will also consider the ability of flexible energy resources to reduce carbon emissions, based on the time-of-use carbon intensity of the energy source.

Background 

At COP28, jurisdictions committed to double the global average annual rate of energy efficiency improvements. The IEA identifies ‘Leveraging digital innovation to enhance system-wide efficiency’ as one of its ten strategic principles for achieving this[1].

In addition to improving energy efficiency (reducing overall consumption), ‘system-wide efficiency’ includes the emerging need for load shifting (managing the time of energy consumption)[2]. Load shifting in buildings can be achieved with various thermal and electrical energy storage assets that routinely occur in buildings (eg hot water, HVAC, electrical batteries, electric vehicles).  These assets are known as 'flexible' loads and are capable of being dispatched using modern digital technologies. 

Flexible loads are expected to become a critical resource for improving the security of energy systems, as part of the transition to variable renewable energy resources.  In their Net Zero Emissions by 2050 Scenario, the IEA[3] is calling for a tenfold increase in demand response availability from buildings between 2020 and 2030.

In addition to energy security benefits, flexibility enables buildings to reduce emissions by consuming energy when the instantaneous carbon intensity of the energy source is lower.  ‘Time stamped’ carbon emissions accounting, will become progressively more important (compared with carbon accounting using average annual emissions factors) as the energy system transitions to variable renewable energy sources.  

Consistent with IEA recommendations, this new Annex aims to combine the learnings of Annex 81 'Data-Driven Smart Buildings' and Annex 82 'Energy Flexible Buildings Towards Resilient Low Carbon Energy Systems', to unlock the availability of flexible loads in buildings. This is expected to be achieved by focussing on (i) the digitalisation framework necessary for automating asset dispatch and resource quantification, and (ii) by improving the TRL/CRL of flexible heating and cooling products and services.        

Key research questions that this Annex will address include:

• What heating and cooling flexibility products and services are the most widely useable, predictable and cost-effective (with a target cost of <$200/kVA)?
• How can energy flexibility be characterised and communicated, in operational settings, to continuously inform markets of forecast availability of the flexibility resource?  How can this be automated and certified?
• How can flexibility resources be managed (in aggregate) to both improve the certainty that outcomes will be delivered, and avoid rebound effects when flexible resources return to service?
• What measurement and verification methodologies and algorithms can account for uncertainty, to fairly and cost-effectively determine delivered flexibility after a demand response event?      
• Can semantic web technologies enhance ‘machine-readability’ in a way that can automate flexibility services in buildings and/or energy trading processes, and support innovative business models?  
• How can data-driven approaches be used (i) to reduce the various technical and commercial barriers to sourcing flexibility services from buildings, and (ii) to package flexibility resources in a way that is attractive in various energy markets and regulatory environments?

The Annex has evolved from expert discussions under the auspices of the Mission Innovation (MI) ‘Affordable Heating and Cooling’ Innovation Community, and through combined meetings of experts from IEA EBC Annexes 81 and 82. 

Annex Vision

The vision of the proposed Annex is to provide building owners and energy market participants with a framework of concepts, procedures, tools and evidence - that can enable trustworthy, automated, cost-effective trading of flexibility resources from buildings at scale. 

Annex Scope

The focus of the proposed Annex is on unlocking flexibility from heating and cooling systems in both residential and commercial buildings.

The scope relating to ‘concepts, procedures and tools for unlocking flexibility’ relate to

• The automation, controls and digitalisation infrastructure required, in buildings, to enable heating, cooling and metering equipment to (i) receive information (eg price signals or load shift requests) from external markets, (ii) optimise energy consumption in response to the information and (iii) advise external markets of the outcomes of demand response actions.
• The standard information and data structures, that need to be exchanged between actors in energy markets, to enable trustworthy trading of flexibility resources from buildings, and to drive relevant business models.

Annex scope also includes:

• Reporting on real world buildings and communities that are demonstrating flexibility services. 
• Development and stress testing of flexibility scenarios and flexibility resource orchestration algorithms in virtual digital twin benchmarking environments.
• Investigating the impact of shifting to time of use carbon accounting, and the potential of this to encourage adoption of flexibility in buildings.      

 Annex Objectives

The Annex objectives are to

• Advance the TRL/CRL of flexible load technologies available in buildings, 
• Develop the digital framework(s) for exposing flexible load resources to energy markets/schemes,
• Demonstrate the potential for automating flexibility aggregation and orchestration processes through modern digitalisation technologies,
• Assess the potential to use flexible loads to reduce emissions in building, by better matching demand with grid time-of-use emissions, and

• Drive adoption of Annex results through case studies, business model innovation and results dissemination.