Evaluation of the potential regulation capacity of water heater loads

With the rapid development of smart grid, advanced metering, modern control and communication technologies, demand-side response technology has grown up greatly. As a kind of high elastic and coefficient demand response resource, the thermostatically controlled loads have become a major research focus. This paper involved the influence of various factors on potential regulation capacity of electrical water heaters in demand response. First, a detailed understanding of the thermal dynamic process of water heaters was made and the thermal dynamic mathematical model of a water heater was summarized. Then, 1000 water heaters were aggregated as a whole to be investigated. With different ambient temperature, water demand, thermostat set-points and temperature dead-bands, water heaters´ lifetime and load regulation capacity vary. The simulation results show that the different factors impacts the potential regulation capacity of electrical water heaters in different ways and to different degree.