Combining the Demand Response of direct electric space heating and partial thermal storage using LP optimization

• Optimal DR application of partial storage electric space heating load is proposed.
• The optimal DR model is formulated into a simple linear programming problem.
• Efficiently combining the thermal inertia of house and thermal storage to bring optimal DR.

In this paper, we optimize the Demand Response (DR) control of partial storage electric space heating using a Linear Programming (LP) approach. The objective is to combine the DR control of direct electric space heating and partial thermal storage in order to minimize the total energy cost of customers without sacrificing user comfort. The proposed DR control is optimized according to the dynamic prices, which shifts the power demand from peak price periods to the cheapest hours. The optimal load shaping strategy is examined by performing simulations. The simulation results show that the partial heat storage together with thermal inertia of the house can offer much flexibility in DR control. The optimal DR control model can easily be integrated at the household level for better utilization of distributed energy resources under the Smart Grid scenario.