Comfort-constrained distributed heat pump management

TL;DR

This paper presents a demand response control strategy for heat pump systems in buildings, utilizing programmable thermostats and system-level modeling to enhance wind power integration and grid stability.

Contribution

It introduces a novel control methodology that incorporates customer constraints and system-level data for better heat pump load management in renewable energy integration.

Findings

Effective management of heat pump loads for wind power integration

Use of component-level state data improves control accuracy

Simulation results show increased renewable energy utilization

Abstract

This paper introduces the design of a demand response network control strategy aimed at thermostatically controlled electric heating and cooling systems in buildings. The method relies on the use of programmable communicating thermostats, which are able to provide important component-level state variables to a system-level central controller. This information can be used to build power density distribution functions for the aggregate heat pump load. These functions lay out the fundamental basis for the methodology by allowing for consideration of customer-level constraints within the system-level decision making process. The proposed strategy is then implemented in a computational model to simulate a distribution of buildings, where the aggregate heat pump load is managed to provide the regulation services needed to successfully integrate wind power generators. Increased exploitation of wind resources will place similarly themed ancillary services in high-demand, traditionally provided by dispatchable energy resources that are ill-suited for the frequent power gradients that accompany wind power generation.