Thermal energy is stored in the building fabric before the event, and the cool mass carries the zone through the reduction without active cooling.

The reduction is visually disguised from the grid operator, which typically results in a larger credited reduction after the event.

The cooling work is shifted into a lower-price tariff window that immediately precedes the event and takes advantage of off-peak rates.

The cooling equipment is stress-tested before the event begins so that any faulty component can be identified before the reduction.

The BMS software has become infected with malware that silently disables the energy-saving rules during normal operating hours.

Manual overrides have accumulated, so much of the building now runs against operator adjustments rather than the original rules.

The BMS has reached the end of its designed service life and the entire system must now be replaced with a newer generation of equipment.

The regional electricity grid has shifted toward cleaner sources, and this generation-mix change has automatically raised total consumption.

A CO2 sensor, because the ventilation rate needs to scale with the number of occupants and rising CO2 reflects that density level.

A PIR sensor, because an occupancy signal from a motion detector is sufficient for setting an appropriate fresh-air supply rate.

Either sensor performs equivalently, because both generate a binary occupied-or-not output on which the controller can act.

Neither sensor is appropriate, because lecture-hall ventilation should be run at the full design rate during all scheduled teaching hours.

The generators held in reserve are undersized for their duty, which forces excessive fuel consumption during every startup.

The generators held in reserve burn coal exclusively while the rest of the fleet runs on natural gas or renewable sources.

The generators held in reserve tend to be older and less efficient, selected for their fast-start capability rather than their efficiency.

The generators held in reserve are located closer to population centres, which inflates the emissions attributed to them.

A supervisory dashboard.

A control loop.

A commissioning routine.

A scheduled override.

Starting additional power plants to increase generation until the demand level is reached.

Sending a signal so that participating consumers reduce their load for the duration of the stress period.

Disconnecting residential customers automatically to preserve service for industrial sites.

Raising wholesale electricity prices until enough new generation becomes profitable to dispatch.

On-site hardware consumes less electricity than an equivalent cloud-based deployment of the same functionality.

On-site servers produce faster dashboard updates for building occupants who browse the BMS interface directly.

Cloud servers are unable to translate between the BACnet, Modbus, and KNX protocols that a BMS commonly uses.,m,m

Life-safety and continuous control functions must keep running even when the internet connection is lost.

Measure the electrical consumption of individual pieces of equipment inside a building and send the data to the utility.

Carry demand response event signals between the utility, the aggregator, and the participating building systems.

Directly control HVAC actuators, dampers, and lighting fixtures on the field bus inside the building.

Calculate the baseline consumption that is used to verify the size of a reduction after an event has ended.

Replace both OpenADR and BACnet with a single proprietary vendor protocol that unifies the two sides of the system.

Receive OpenADR events and translate them into BACnet commands that adjust setpoints, dim lights, and cycle equipment.

Store a baseline of past consumption on the BACnet side and transmit that baseline over OpenADR before every single event.

Encrypt the OpenADR traffic before it reaches the BACnet equipment so that the field bus remains secure from external access.

Real-Time Pricing, because the rate reflects wholesale market conditions and changes every hour of the day.

Critical Peak Pricing, because a very high rate applies on a limited number of stress days with day-ahead notice.

Interruptible Load pricing, because customers agree to reduce load by a fixed amount when asked by the utility.

Time-of-Use pricing, because the rate is set in advance on a daily schedule that customers can plan around.