Using Heat Pump Energy Storages in the Power Grid

The extensive growth of installed wind energy plants lead to increasing balancing problems in the power grid due to the nature of wind fields and diurnal variations in consumption. One way to overcome these problems is to move consumption to times where wind power otherwise cause overproduction and large fluctuations in prices. The paper presents a method which takes advantage of heat capacity in single-family houses using heat pumps which are anticipated to be installed in large numbers in Denmark in next decade. This type of heating gives a large time constant and it is shown possible to move consumption without compromising the comfort of house residents. In the paper an optimization exploiting forecasts of weather and energy prices combined with prediction models of house dynamics is presented. The results show that with the presented method it will be possible to move a substantial amount of energy from one time to another.