Abstract
In cold climates, electrical power demand for space conditioning becomes a critical issue for utility companies during certain periods of the day. Shifting a portion or all of it to off-peak periods can help reduce peak demand and reduce stress on the electrical grid. Sensible thermal energy storage (TES) systems, and particularly electrically heated floors (EHF), can store thermal energy in buildings during the off-peak periods and release it during the peak periods while maintaining occupants’ thermal comfort. However, choosing the type of storage system and/or its configuration may be difficult. In this paper, the performance of an EHF for load management is studied. First, a methodology is developed to integrate EHF in TRNSYS program in order to investigate the impact of floor assembly on the EHF performance. Then, the thermal comfort (TC) of the night-running EHF is studied. Finally, indicators are defined, allowing the comparison of different EHF. Results show that an EHF is able to shift 84% of building loads to the night while maintaining acceptable TC in cold climate. Moreover, this system is able to provide savings for the customer and supplier if there is a significant difference between off-peak and peak period electricity prices.
Highlights
In cold climate, intense energy consumption periods during winter [1] compels utility providers to meet the demand with peaking power plants and/or by purchasing the electricity at high prices from the market
With the increase of the insulation thickness, heat loss to the ground decreases: a higher proportion of the heat flux ends up in the room resulting in an increase in the maximal floor surface temperature (FST) and the operative air temperature
A thicker layer of insulation between the ground and the concrete layer is desirable for an electrically heated floors (EHF)
Summary
Intense energy consumption periods during winter [1] compels utility providers to meet the demand with peaking power plants (usually using fossil fuel) and/or by purchasing the electricity at high prices from the market. One approach is to encourage users to shift their consumption themselves. There are several types of price scales: with only two periods per day (“Time of use”); with a higher price only when the grid is stressed (“Critical peak pricing”) or with a variable price every hour depending on the real price in the electricity market [2]. Several studies used these price scales to decrease peak consumption [3,4,5]
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