Consumer central energy flexibility in office buildings

Energy flexibility in buildings will play an important role in the smart energy system. Office buildings have more potentials to provide energy flexibility to the grid compared to other types of buildings, due to the existing building management, control systems and large energy consumption. Consumers in office buildings (building owners/managers and occupants) take a main role for adopting and engaging in building energy flexibility. This paper provides a systematic review of consumer central energy flexibility in office buildings with the discussion of social, technical and business aspects. This paper clarifies the correlations of consumers‟ concerns, external influential factors, energy flexibility resources and technology with eight hypotheses. This paper suggests that technical solutions with the integration of distributed energy resources, building management and control system can boost energy flexibility in the office buildings.