Domestic Demand-Side Response: The Challenge for Heat Pumps in a Future UK—Decarbonised Heating Market

Autor: Khoa Xuan Le, Christopher Wilson, Raymond Byrne, Nikhilkumar Shah, Ming Jun Huang, Paul MacArtain, Donal Cotter, Neil Hewitt
Rok vydání: 2019
Předmět:
Zdroj: Renewable Energy and Sustainable Buildings ISBN: 9783030184872
Innovative Renewable Energy
Innovative Renewable Energy-Renewable Energy and Sustainable Buildings
Renewable Energy and Sustainable Buildings-Selected Papers from the World Renewable Energy Congress WREC 2018
ISSN: 2522-8927
2522-8935
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-18488-9_60
Popis: It has become a major point of interest and possible bone of contention that in a future near-decarbonised electricity network, i.e. approaching 100% reduction in emissions by 2050, a low carbon space heating market will be enabled through the deployment of electrically driven heat pumps. It is recognised that such a vision will place a significant extra burden on the existing electricity network. This will be especially true of the low-voltage network at Distribution System Operator level, e.g. 11kV or below, but as such systems do not operate in isolation, challenges will also be seen at the Transmission Operator level as well. This may be further complicated by the perceived rapid deployment of electric vehicles well before 2050. Building insulation programmes will reduce heating loads, but experiences have illustrated that current UK best practice lags somewhat behind our European counterparts. Energy demands for heat pumps would therefore reduce and efficiencies would increase depending on the depth of retrofit. The rates of retrofit may require 2050 targets to be met by active energy systems rather than the passive roles of insulation. Demand-side management in its many shapes and forms becomes part of the solution. The thermal mass of buildings can be deployed to understand duration of off-times after a period of heating while maintaining thermal comfort. Understanding end-user behaviour is critically important in this process as it is believed that the smart learning of the behaviour of the building can be subtly tailored to end-user needs. Selective fabric retrofits and selective occupancy controls can adjust these parameters, further giving an element of control to the end-user while satisfying electricity network operator needs. The deployment of energy storage is also an option. Heat pumps and water storage (or sensible heat) trials and experiments reveal both noticeable heat losses from the tanks and large sizes of tanks for significant scales of time management. Finding the space for larger tanks in typical UK housing types would be challenging. However, aggregation of large numbers of these units that are electricity network controlled (at the distribution operator level for example) has the potential to reduce individual storage volumes, thus potentially realising greater social acceptance. Novel materials, e.g. phase change or thermochemical, will deliver further reductions in size, and low-temperature thermal networks may upgrade heat pump performance and increase energy efficiency. Hybrid heat pumps or gas-driven types (adsorption or absorption) will utilise existing gas networks that may be increasingly decarbonised with biogas or hydrogen deployments. Domestic and local photovoltaic (PV) system deployment would provide electricity network relief when accompanied by energy storage. Thermal storage will satisfy thermal comfort needs when operating with heat pumps while battery deployment may operate with electric vehicles and/or electric heat pumps at times of local grid congestion. Such batteries and electric vehicles will also become demand-side response units in their own right, the latter whether you are at home or not, with vehicle-to-grid technology. This paper will link these aspects and others into viable pathways to the decarbonisation of domestic space heating in the UK. It will highlight current progress and research gaps and offers some recent comparisons with Ireland where biogas may offer an alternative scenario.
Databáze: OpenAIRE
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