Demand side management in smart buildings by intelligent scheduling of heat pumps

A major component of the future Smart Grid is an adaptive demand side that allows to handle the fluctuating power supply based on renewable energies. In this paper, we present an evolutionary algorithm that allows for shifting electrical loads generated by heat pumps. Our approach is based on overheating the hot water storage in order to get a higher degree of freedom for scheduling. In our scenario, we assume time-variable price and load limitation signals as well as a prediction for local power generation from photovoltaic panels to incentivize the load shifting. Using these signals, we consider the future thermal demand to schedule the heat pump such that electricity costs are decreased. Our simulations show that heat pumps and hot water storages bear potential to shift loads over a time span of up to multiple hours, thus providing economical storage capacity. In doing so and based on electricity prices from the stock exchange, we were able to significantly decrease electricity costs for operating the heat pump.