Building integrated low impact ICT networks

Urban renewable energy systems are being deployed at an increasing rate in the UK and worldwide as corporations and homeowners alike respond to legislation and incentives to reduce their carbon emissions in mitigation of climate change. However, the uncertain nature in time and magnitude of building integrated renewable energy generation coupled with an equally uncertain building level demand means that local matching and utilisation of this potentially high value low carbon electricity resource is difficult to achieve with any reliability at short timescales and so not only is the full value of the renewable asset not realised but neither is the potential value of flexible demand assets. The research undertaken in this thesis centres on increasing the potential for exploitation of building integrated resources to address this issue. This thesis is focused on development of a novel form of building integrated asset management controller which takes these real world uncertainties into account in matching flexible demand with an intermittent renewable supply with the twin objectives of minimising carbon emissions and unnecessary import/ export of electrical energy and hence reducing the overall impact of demand for electricity. The proposed controller is aimed at control of fleets of appliances at the building level and can operate independently of any third party. The network design characteristics and deployment technologies of this novel control strategy are detailed with focus on application to industry standard networks of low power mobile computing devices and other flexible demands in office buildings. Finally, a case study demonstration of the control as integrated within an ICT network shows how the control operates in practice to minimise the cost and carbon emissions impact of electricity consumption by actively matching renewable generation with demand in a consistent and reliable manner. The thesis concludes with suggestions for further work and potential applications of the control method.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

phd

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

doctoral-pg

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Strathclyde

Year dc:date.issued

2011

Author dc:creator

• Stewart, Matthew

DOI

10.48730/n56k-c593

Identifier

T13136

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:strathclyde:zg64tm00z