Codes for Loads: Bringing Energy Codes into the 21st Century with Time-of-Use Efficiency.

Buildings are becoming more efficient and more renewable energy is coming online every day. These trends are being driven by market forces, as well as aggressive climate and energy efficiency policies, in jurisdictions across North America. Major changes to the grid will occur, and in some places already are occurring, due to major changes to the energy supply mix (mainly, more wind and solar energy). Because wind and solar are intermittent resources (and their supply-side generation profiles are often not easily aligned with demand-side load profiles), building-grid harmonization is becoming more important on both sides of the meter. The specific operational needs of the grid, and the emissions impact of energy consumption, vary increasingly by location, season, and time of day. In general, it is becoming clear that buildings have an important, and growing, role in catalyzing the clean, reliable, affordable, and safe operation of the electricity grid. Energy codes and building standards have an important role in ensuring that buildings help, rather than impede, building-grid harmonization. This paper examines a selection of energy conservation measures that shape, shift, or otherwise modify the building's demand profile to support building-grid harmonization. This set of measures is used to demonsrate how energy conservation codes can begin to incorporate these additional grid-based values into energy code scopes and metrics. The paper builds out a framework to ensure that energy codes can consider building-grid harmonization benefits in a productive manner based on five principles for code applications to grid integration measures. Guided by these principles, the paper explains the conceptual framework, including a formula for calculating total design load credits in a building, and identifies specific opportunities for code compliance enhancements. For example, energy modeling could support a sensitivity analysis to identify specific high-priority, high-impact code modification/update options (e.g. equipment, physical features of buildings) that could be used to develop a matrix of credits that could be traded in the code. Performance-based pathways are also considered. The paper discusses ways in which load management measures can be commissioned and verified to ensure predicted performance. Finally, the paper discusses recommended research and next steps. The foundational analysis and code framework laid out in this paper will help codes to remain relevant and impactful as building-grid interactions, and the grid itself, continue to evolve. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]