Coupling Demand Response and PDCA to Lean Building Operations: A Proof-of-Concept

The Plan-Do-Check-Act (PDCA) approach allows stakeholders to identify potential changes and measure their impacts on a small scale prior to making a larger investment in such a change. One change that could be evaluated through PDCA is the installation or implementation of energy efficiency measures (EEMs). Building owners may be reticent to implement energy efficiency measures (EEMs) without fully understanding their costs and benefits. A PDCA approach coupled with demand response (DR) – whereby building owners reduce electricity consumption during periods of peak electricity demand in exchange for incentive payments – allows owners to assess EEM performance in a pilot study prior to making a larger investment in the EEM. Various EEMs can help building owners and operators shift their energy consumption to off-peak hours to earn DR incentives, e.g., reducing lighting power via controls, precooling a building prior to the peak hours. This paper documents how one building owner, Arizona State University, leveraged PDCA to identify DR strategies for a campus building and then used results from the DR event to identify permanent EEMs for the building. This case study serves as a proof of concept that indicates that a PDCA approach that leverages DR implementation supports identification of EEMs for permanent installation.