SMART-E: A TOOL FOR ENERGY DEMAND SIMULATION AND OPTIMIZATION AT THE CITY SCALE

Abstract : Adding flexibility to the demand may rationalize energy production. Indeed, it should be possible to maximize the use of low CO2 and low-cost energy production systems by managing the demand at the city scale. In this context, numerical simulation may be a great help for setting up various demand response (DR) strategies in a short-term. For that purpose, a simulation environment called Smart-E which focuses on the thermal and electrical uses of energy in dwellings and commercial buildings has been developed. This library of algorithms is specially designed to simulate hypothetical or real cities and it uses techno-explicit bottom-up models fed with public databases and the specific users’ data. First the paper presents the Smart-E tool architecture. Then, a case study is conducted on a French typical medium city to show how Smart-E may help the aggregator to predict the impact of specific DR strategies. For this purpose two load shedding strategies are tested at the city scale with indoor temperature comfort criteria. Strategies reduce maximum electric power for heating by 25% for 24h.