Rural areas have benefited from far less energy system research than urban areas. However, 20% of the US population lives in rural areas [1], and rural residents’ energy burdens are on average 30% higher than urbanites’ [2]. Additionally, rural communities face unique decarbonization challenges, such as larger, older, less dense housing stock, fewer financial resources, and high resiliency needs [2]. The tradeoffs between resiliency, cost, and engineering practicality for rural energy systems make design and optimization difficult. Creating multi-energy systems by combining diverse energy generation and distribution equipment poses a promising solution to these conflicting goals. However, current energy system proposals for rural areas are overly simplistic, and existing modeling tools are inadequate to optimize and evaluate innovative systems. To achieve equitable, zero-carbon energy solutions for rural communities, this project develops a modeling toolkit to 1) design and optimize multi-energy systems considering thermal, hydraulic, and electrical system dynamics and controls, 2) efficiently handle a range of community characteristics (e.g., community size, climate, density), and 3) implement efficient optimization of large, non-convex systems of equations to improve system design and control.

To address these research gaps and the existing challenges facing rural decarbonization, this project will design and optimize innovative rural energy systems considering thermal performance, resiliency, and energy efficiency by novelly integrating the advanced modeling tools Modelica, URBANopt, and the Julia programming language. The outcomes of this project will be 1) an open-source Modelica-based toolkit that designs and analyzes innovative multi-energy systems for rural areas, 2) novel methods for co-simulation between URBANopt, Modelica, and Julia for enhanced energy modeling capabilities, and 3) a comprehensive technical analysis rural decarbonization opportunities using multi-energy systems.

Sources

[1] “2020 Census Urban Areas Facts,” United States Census Bureau.

[2] L. Ross et al., “The High Cost of Energy in Rural America: Household Energy Burdens and Opportunities for Energy Efficiency About the Authors Acknowledgments,” 2018.