Model predictive control approach to online computation of demand-side flexibility of commercial buildings HVAC systems for Supply Following

Commercial buildings have inherent flexibility in how their HVAC systems consume electricity. We investigate how to take advantage of this flexibility. We first propose a means to define and quantify the flexibility of a commercial building. We then propose a contractual framework that could be used by the building operator and the utility to declare flexibility on the one side and reward structure on the other side. We then design a control mechanism for the building to decide its flexibility for the next contractual period to maximize the reward, given the contractual framework. Finally, we perform at-scale experiments to demonstrate the feasibility of the proposed algorithm.