Ramanunni Parakkal Menon

Concordia University

Buildings consist of systems that have to interact and coordinate with various systems to function smoothly. It is essential to have models and representations of buildings in forms that are easy to read for effective simulation, control, and optimization of building systems. It is also necessary for integrating and creating novel applications and...

Many key studies in recent times have proposed integration of renewable energy and transition to 100% renewable energy as a solution to tackling climate change. However, there is little consensus and a wide range of assumptions made across the various studies. This study attempts to draw the most reliable set of parameters identified and numbers av...

The design, operational planning, and integration of wind power plants with other renewables and the grid face challenges attributed to the intermittent nature of wind power generation. Addressing this issue necessitates the development of a smart wind power (and in particular wind speed) forecasting approach. This is a complex task due to substant...

Decarbonizing buildings is crucial in addressing pressing climate change issues. Buildings significantly contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions, and reducing their carbon footprint is essential to achieving sustainable and low-carbon cities. Retrofitting buildings to become more energy efficient constitutes a solution. However, building ener...

The evolution of cities to smart cities has demonstrated that the citizens’ quality of life is increased. Moreover, city planning follows an organized structure covering the citizens’ needs. This structure leads to generating smart communities. As a result, megacities based on smart communities can be developed. Communication systems that send and...

This chapter deals with the fundamental components that are used to build a smart house and building. This chapter also shows how smart homes and buildings are sensed and controlled. An intelligent house also has to improve the quality of life of seniors and handicapped people, so this chapter presents some strategies to achieve that goal.

Today’s cities have multiple networks and stakeholders tasked with meeting the district’s thermal and electrical demands, which is becoming an increasingly complex task. The Paris agreement and United Nation’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) necessitate sustainable solutions that improve energy efficiency while providing insight on strategic p...

The concept of Positive Energy Districts (PEDs) has emerged as a promising approach to achieving sustainable urban development. PEDs aim to balance the energy demand and supply within a district while reducing the carbon footprint and promoting renewable energy sources. Urban–Industrial Symbiosis (UIS) is another approach that involves the exchange...

Within smart grids, end-users often seek to reduce electricity costs using a home energy management system, while the power utility aims to optimize the grid operation. This article proposes a novel three-level framework to tackle the contradictory nature of the objectives of end-user and distribution system operators (DSOs) by upward and downward...

To date, the assessment of the energy flexibility to be delivered by existing buildings and by their legacy HVAC systems is hindered by a lack of commonly agreed-upon methodologies. There are many research works in the field; however, many of them are focused on the design stage or, in case of addressing building operation, they are based on contro...

Demand Response is an attractive option to solve the problem of balancing supply and demand while providing flexibility to the grid. Buildings have been identified as highly valuable flexibility resources due to the increase of thermoelectric devices such as heat pumps for space heating and Domestic Hot Water (DHW). However, current methods for est...

There has been increased focus on improving the security and efficiency of the electricity grid resources. Many solutions have been proposed. Demand Response (DR) and Demand Side Management (DSM) are popular solutions in studies towards achieving these goals. This paper elucidates on the work being done within a Horizon 2020 (H2020) project, Sim4Bl...

This paper is framed within the context of intra-day optimal control of polygeneration systems and storage connected to microgrids. In particular, the paper proposes an optimal control strategy that accounts for both electrical and thermal processes taking place in multi-building energy networks. To this end, the proposed optimal control strategy,...

Modern concepts for grids are being developed owing to the increasing stress put on the electrical producers and the burgeoning need for thermal demands due to varying climate conditions. The increasing awareness of the depletion of natural resources has also been a driver in the direction of modern grids which are more efficient and less susceptib...

The concept of smart grids being developed involves interdependence between the electrical, thermal and material flows. Control strategies are required for the optimal operation of these modern grids. This paper studies the optimal design of multi-node microgrids integrating heat pumps and cogeneration units considering optimal predictive control s...

The optimal energy control and management for smart grids as per virtual power plant concepts is of great importance for the coming future of the electricity grid and the energy market. The optimal energy management for housing applications necessitates the combined use of heat and electricity by the way of technologies like cogeneration engines, h...