Energy, emissions and economic implications of distributed generation, smart grids, super energy efficient houses and electric cars in Canada

In an effort to reduce energy costs, reliance on fossil fuels and emissions of greenhouse and other harmful gasses, governments, electricity suppliers and home-owners are increasingly pursuing and supporting renewable energy, and cogeneration based distributed electricity and heat generation options, as well as smart-grid solutions to maximize the benefits of distributed generation. Parallel with these developments is the increasing interest in super energy efficient houses with smart appliances and electric/hybrid cars. In the next two decades, depending on the policies and strategies adopted, the proliferation of these new technologies has the potential to transform the energy supply and demand landscape in Canada.

The proposed research project has two objectives that aim to facilitate the technoeconomic evaluation of advanced energy technologies and strategies for the Canadian residential sector:

1. to develop minute-scale time step models for residential-scale energy storage systems; energy storage and appliance control systems and schemes; and minute-scale appliance load curves;

2. to develop a comprehensive techno-economic modeling tool and use that tool to investigate the energy, emissions and economic implications of distributed generation, smart grids, super energy efficient houses and electric cars in the Canadian residential sector.

The modeling tool will be based on an expanded and updated version of the Canadian Hybrid Residential End-Use Energy and GHG Emissions Model (CHREM) and incorporate the new models developed. CHREM was developed and validated by the applicant and his graduate students. CHREM consists of close to 17,000 houses statistically representative of the Canadian housing stock (CHS) as of 2003, and utilizes a high-resolution building energy simulation program as its simulation engine. CHREM is capable of simulating the performance of residential scale solar and cogeneration technologies, thermal storage systems and building envelope options at minute-scale time steps. It is the most sophisticated and versatile residential energy and emissions model in existence.

To achieve the objectives CHREM will be updated to be representative of the current CHS using new data available from the EnerGuide for Houses database and statistical data, and expanded by developing and adding new models for electric vehicle charging, residential electricity load curves for each major appliance, electrical and thermal energy storage systems, including car batteries, and appliance and thermal/electrical storage control schemes facilitated by smart-grid and smart-meter technologies.

A series of scenarios suitable for the Canadian context will be developed and evaluated using the new and expanded CHREM to assess the energy, emissions and economic performance of the selected scenarios as well as the electricity demand and consumption characteristics.