Quantifying the active demand response potential: impact of dynamic boundary conditions

Abstract

The use of thermal energy storage using the thermal mass of buildings is often suggested as a key technology to improve the penetration of renewable energy sources and counter grid stability problems. Therefore a quantitative assessment of the flexibility provided by structural thermal energy storage and its relation to the building design is a prerequisite to instigate a large scale deployment of dwellings as active storage technologies that can be used in a demand response context. In this work a generic, simulation-based, dynamic quantification method is presented to characterize the potential of structural thermal storage for active demand response (ADR). Thereby it is shown that, in contrast to traditional storage technologies, the ADR characteristics are not constant but vary significantly as result of the dynamic boundary conditions.status: publishe