Increasing flexibility of combined heat and power plants with Power-to-Heat

Increasing shares of renewable energy sources in the German electricity market increase the need for flexibility in order to reduce curtailment of low variable cost RES generation. Power-to-Heat (PtH) is an option to provide additional flexibility. This paper evaluates the flexibility gain a PtH installation provides using the example of adding it to a district heating facility. Therefore we compare a setting consisting of a CHP unit and a conventional gas-fired boiler unit with an extended setting including the PtH unit. We present all relevant changes between the two unit endowments. The results show that the regulatory framework has a crucial influence on usage and profitability of a PtH unit.