Adaptive Energy Optimization Toward Net-Zero Energy Building Clusters

Traditionally viewed as mere energy consumers, buildings have adapted, capitalizing on smart grid technologies and distributed energy resources to efficiently use and trade energy, as evident in net-zero energy buildings (NZEBs). In this paper, we examine the opportunities presented by applying net-zero to building communities (clusters). This paper makes two main contributions: one, it presents a framework for generating Pareto optimal operational strategies for building clusters; two, it examines the energy tradeoffs resulting from adaptive decisions in response to dynamic operation conditions. Using a building cluster simulator, the proposed approach is shown to adaptively and significantly reduce total energy cost.