Meeting Minutes: DRAFT

IBPSA-USA Urban Scale Simulation Research Subcommittee Meeting

January 19, 2016

Submitted by: Peter May-Ostendorp

Present:

  • Ralph Muehleisen (co-chair)
  • Peter May-Ostendorp (co-chair)
  • Fried Augenbroe
  • Ben Polly
  • Greg Pavlak
  • Jamie Bull
  • RuchiChaudry
  • Sang Hoon Lee
  • WangdaZou

Introductions

  • Affiliations?
  • What is everyone working on?
  • Fried Augenbroe:Leads the Building Energy Modeling research group at Georgia Tech. Has been doing campus and larger scale simulation for a long time. Among 10 current students, 5 are interested in urban energy modeling.
  • Ben Polly:Building and thermal systems. Analysis team, BEM, validation of models. Involved in Denver, CO area on some urban/district projects. Looking at enhancing OpenStudio platform; some researchers at NREL doing national, residential scale.
  • Greg Pavlak:Recently graduated PhD from CU, worked on issues related to MPC applied to entire campus of buildings. Generating benefits for electric grid as well as building simultaneously. Working with Q Coefficient on commercializing MPC technology. Hope College adjunct faculty.
  • Jamie Bull (added after meeting via email): EngD candidate at University College London but based in Spain, working with the UCL Centre for Energy Epidemiology on SimStock (along with Brain Coffey, Phil Haves of LBNL and others). SimStock is a simulation framework/inference engine for building and running EnergyPlus simulations of building stocks, based on various sources of input data. To date we have used this on a high street of mixed building types, and also on samples of buildings of the same type (health centres and offices). Most recently we have been using a genetic algorithm to tune the mapping of responses to a fairly detailed telephone survey onto specific inputs to EnergyPlus models. I've also done a little bit of work on creating and modelling domestic building archetypes as inputs for an energy networks optimisation project which is looking at the trade-offs between investment pathways involving building refurbishment, distributed energy generation, network upgrades, fuel switching, etc. Finally, my EngD research is into the implications of including life cycle cost and carbon footprint in schools stock refurbishment decisions, which also encompasses energy simulation at a portfolio scale.
  • RuchiChaudry:Has been leading urban scale building energy modeling for a long time in the UK. Running Energy Efficient Cities Initiative past 5 years. London-wide as well as specific districts. Focus: integration with GIS, coupling to subsystems, as well as the data challenge.
  • Sang Hoon Lee:Researcher at LBL, Did neighborhood scale analysis for PhD. LBNL conducting urban systems research, integrating building energy modeling (Modelica) with urban scale data sets.
  • WangdaZuo:Working on Modelica-based simulation. Recently started company to simulate and optimize energy consumption of net zero energy community.
  • Ralph: all of the labs are using some of their LDRD funds for urban scale simulation research

Existing Mission and Scope

  • Are we broad enough here? Too broad?
  • Did we miss a core part of the definition? Are there other terms defining what we’re all doing here?
  • No comments.

Other Activities

  • Research opportunities
  • Possible large-scale funding opportunity, Ralph: DOE just stepped up funding for smart grid-related activities. $220m over 3 years. NREL, PNNL, ANL, LBNL all got some. Comes through a variety of sources, including EERE, BTO, Fuel Cells, etc.
  • Metro Energy Initiative, DOE: looks like it will be run out of BTO, uncertain scope. Millions per year in research going to labs, universities, private industry.
  • NSF has several initiatives out on community resiliency
  • DOT has a Smart Cities call; $50 million; large focus on urban-scale simulation of transportation, mobility, buildings, grid
  • Wangda: many are doing work on smart city, smart grid from an electrical standpoint, from a grid simulation standpoint
  • Ralph: hyper-local weather information for better MPC prediction
  • Fried: potential for an NSF-funded ERC in this area; they are large and under construction.
  • Who else needs to be involved?
  • Peter: need some industry participation as well
  • What other societies are covering this topic?
  • NSF Cyber Physical Community
  • IEEE Smart Cities
  • ASCE Infrastructure Resiliency
  • Do we need a liaison?
  • Action:Wangdato serve as liaison to NSF
  • Action: Ralph willing to act as liaison to IEEE, trying to get into infrastructure resiliency with ASCE
  • Core participants/members vs. interested parties
  • Interested in core membership: Fried, Wangda, Greg, Sang Hoon, Ben
  • Interested in participation/correspondence: Jamie, Ruchi, Paul Ruyssevelt (Director of Centre for Energy Epidemiology, added per Jamie’s request)

Organizing Activities and Sharing Info

  • Sharing resources
  • Action: Ralph, call to anyone’s students who may have a solution
  • Action: Peter to distribute survey on info sharing options to group

Upcoming activities

  • Ralph: potential for an informal meeting at ASHRAE, similar to Emerging Simulation Technology group
  • Action: send Ralph note if interested in ASHRAE meet-up

IBPSA-USA Urban Scale Simulation SubcommitteeMeeting minutes, 1/19/2016, DRAFT