Earliest Deadline Control of a Group of Heat Pumps with a Single Energy Source

Jiří Fink and Richard P. Van Leeuwen
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Jiří Fink: Department of Theoretical Computer Science and Mathematical Logic, Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University in Prague, Malostranské Náměstí 25, Praha 2, Prague 11800, Czech Republic
Richard P. Van Leeuwen: Department of Computer Science, Mathematics and Electrical Engineering, University of Twente, P.O. Box 217, Enschede 7500 AE, The Netherlands

Energies, 2016, vol. 9, issue 7, 1-16

Abstract: In this paper, we develop and investigate the optimal control of a group of 104 heat pumps and a central Combined Heat and Power unit (CHP). The heat pumps supply space heating and domestic hot water to households. Each house has a buffer for domestic hot water and a floor heating system for space heating. Electricity for the heat pumps is generated by a central CHP unit, which also provides thermal energy to a district heating system. The paper reviews recent smart grid control approaches for central and distributed levels. An online algorithm is described based on the earliest deadline first theory that can be used on the aggregator level to control the CHP and to give signals to the heat pump controllers if they should start or should wait. The central controller requires only a limited amount of privacy-insensitive information from the heat pump controllers about their deadlines, which the heat pump controllers calculate for themselves by model predictions. In this way, a robust heat pump and CHP control is obtained, which is able to minimize energy demand and results in the desired thermal comfort for the households. The simulations demonstrate fast computation times due to minor computational and communication overheads.

Keywords: model predictive control; optimization; smart grids, smart control; renewable energy integration; domestic hot water; floor heating; thermal storage; heat pump control; combined heat and power control (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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