Flexible resource endowment of urban buildings considering climate diversity in China

Abstract Decarbonizing power systems necessitates both integrating substantial renewable energy and exploring flexible resources to accommodate their inherent intermittency and variability. Building Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems are emerging as valuable dispatchable resources, offering flexibility for power systems through demand response (DR) programs. As HVAC operation and occupant comfort are highly dependent on temperature and humidity (T&H), their flexibility potential exhibits significant regional disparities across China’s diverse climate. This research systematically investigates the flexibility across 5 representative city clusters (15 cities), to characterize these regional attributes and inform effective guidelines for harnessing this flexibility. We find that under 3 distinct weather conditions (sunny, cloudy, and rainy), the Maximum inter-regional flexibility exceeds the minimum by 61%, 113%, and 134%, respectively. Notably, intra-regional differences are also Substantial, reaching up to 51%, 89%, and 104% for the same weather conditions. Extending this analysis to a national scale, we evaluate the average flexibility per HVAC to be 45.1kW under extremely hot conditions and 16.1kW under hot-humid conditions. This research identifies regional patterns: northern cities exhibit significant diurnal flexibility variations, eastern regions demonstrate pronounced weather sensitivity, central areas show consistent weather response, western regions present distinct city-specific characteristics, and southern cities possess stable and high flexibility. These findings underscore the importance of considering such regional heterogeneity to prioritize efforts in leveraging urban HVAC systems, as well as help power systems optimize the development of renewable energy in China based on complementary HVAC flexibility.