Electric Boiler and Heat Pump Thermo-Electrical Models for Demand Side Management Analysis in Low Voltage Grids

The last fifteen years many European countries have integrated large percentage of renewable energy on their electricity generation mix. In Denmark the 21.3% of the electricity consumed nowadays is produced by the wind, and it has planned to be the 50% by 2025. In order to front future challenges on the power system control and operation, created by this unstable way of generation, Demand Side Management turns to be a promising solution.
The storage capacity from thermo-electric units, like electric boilers and heat pumps, allows operating them with certain freedom. Hence they can be employed under certain coordination, to actively respond to the power system fluctuations. The following paper presents two simple thermo-electrical models of an electrical boiler and an air-source CO2 heat pump system. The purpose is using them in low voltage grids analysis to assess their capacity and flexibility as active loads. The models were simulated under different Danish daily domestic hot water and space heating profiles. Results showed that under high heating demand conditions the flexibility of this kind of units may be drastically restricted due to their continuous operation.