Demand for cooling has been increasing around the world for the last couple of decades due to various reasons, and it will continue to increase in the future particularly in developing countries. Traditionally, cooling demand is met by decentralised electrically driven appliances which affect energy, economy and environment as well. District Cooling Plant (DCP) is an innovative alternative means of providing comfort cooling. DCP is becoming an essential infrastructure in modern city development owning to many benefits compared to decentralized cooling technology. Demand Response Management (DRM) is largely applied for Demand Side management of electrical grid. Demand of electrical energy is closely connected with the demand of alternative form of energy such as heating, cooling and mechanical energy. Therefore, application of DR concept should be applied beyond the electrical grid; in particular, it could be applied to any interconnected district energy systems. District Cooling Plant is one of a potential candidate and Demand Response management solutions can be applied to DCP for sustainable operation. The study of demand response and its applicability has not been attempted previously for district cooling systems. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to evaluate its applicability and economical feasibility. This thesis focused on some of the DR objectives which have the potential to implement for DCP of a mixed-use city. General published data on mixed use city developments and a specific city in Dubai was taken as a case study to show the usefulness on DRM objectives. This study primarily addressed the issues related to load management. The findings are: DRM creates greater flexibility in demand management without compromising service levels. Also it reduces the operation cost and impact to environment. However implementation is a big challenge. Therefore implementation strategies are also proposed as a part of recommendation which includes a generic model for demand response management. Moreover, a review is provided on key enabling technologies that are needed for effective demand response management. Finally this thesis concludes with recommendations for prospective applications and potential future works.

<div>The internal and external interactions between the complex structural and behavioral characteristics of the system of interest and the surrounding environment result in unpredictable emergent behaviors. These emergent behaviors are not well understood, especially when modeled using the traditional top-down systems engineering approach. The intrinsic nature of current complex systems has called for an elegant solution that provides an integrated framework in Model-Based Systems Engineering. A considerable gap exists to integrate system engineering activities and engineering analysis, which results in high risk and cost. This thesis presents a framework that incorporates indefinite and definite modeling aspects that are developed to determine the complexity that arises during the development phases of the system. This framework provides a workflow for modeling complex systems using Systems Modeling Language (SysML) that captures the system’s requirements, behavior, structure, and analytical aspects at both problem definition and solution levels. This research introduces a new level/dimension to the framework to support engineering analysis integrated with the system architecture model using FMI standards. A workflow is provided that provides the enabling methodological capabilities. It starts with a statement of need and ends with system requirement verification. Detailed traceability is established that glues system engineering and engineering analysis together. Besides, a method is proposed for predicting the system’s complexity by calculating the complexity index that can be used to assess the complexity of the existing system and guide the design and development of a new system. To test and demonstrate this framework, a case study consisting of a complex district cooling system is implemented. The case study shows the framework’s capabilities in enabling the successful modeling of a complex district cooling system. The system architecture model was developed using SysML and the engineering analysis model using Modelica. The proposed framework supports system requirements verification activity. The analysis results show that the district chiller model developed using Modelica produces chilled water below 6.6 degrees Celsius, which satisfies the system requirement for the district chiller system captured in the SysML tool. Similarly, many such requirement verification capabilities using dynamic simulation integration with the high-level model provides the ability to perform continuous analysis and simulation during the system development process. The systems architecture complexity index is measured for the district cooling case study from the black-box and white box-perspective. The measured complexity index showed that the system architecture’s behavioral aspect increases exponentially compared to the structural aspect. The systems architecture’s complexity index at black-box and white-box was 4.998 and 67.3927, respectively.</div>