Modeling the impact of integrating solar thermal systems and heat pumps for domestic hot water in electric systems – The case study of Corvo Island

Diana Neves and Carlos A. Silva

Renewable Energy, 2014, vol. 72, issue C, 113-124

Abstract: The use of solar thermal systems with electricity backup and heat pumps as hot water suppliers in residential buildings seems to be a very promising way to increase energy efficiency. Nevertheless, the massive adoption of such solutions in small networks (neighborhood, village) may induce problems in the electric grid management. This study explores the impact of such systems in small electric grids, using an hourly electricity backup load model. To test and validate the model, we used the island of Corvo (Azores), a small isolated community where it is being implemented a project of electrification of domestic hot water systems (DHW). We consider different load scenarios to manage the backup of DHW systems and analyze its consequences on the peak load and overall energy demand. For Corvo, for the best case where the backup is limited and distributed along off-peak hours, we observed an increase of 24% in the peak load and 7.5% in the annual energy demand. Critical values of peak load are found in winter, when daily solar irradiation is lower than 2000 Wh/m2/day. We conclude that the solar thermal systems are responsible for most of the peak load increase, but since they have the flexibility to adjust the electric backup hours due to the thermal storage capacity, the use of these systems can minimize the impact on the grid. Heat pumps on the other hand, albeit being more efficient in terms electric backup, are less flexible to contribute to the grid management as they operate continuously.

Keywords: Domestic hot water; Solar thermal; Heat pumps; Renewable energy; Isolated micro-communities; Hybrid renewable energy systems contents (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2014
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (16)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0960148114003875
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:renene:v:72:y:2014:i:c:p:113-124

DOI: 10.1016/j.renene.2014.06.046

Access Statistics for this article

Renewable Energy is currently edited by Soteris A. Kalogirou and Paul Christodoulides

More articles in Renewable Energy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().