Heat pumps and demand side management for renewable energy integration in sustainable communities

The introduction of renewable energy is a key policy for sustainable communities. Some of them are variable energy resources (VERs) since their production varies over the time and are not easily and perfectly predictable. An increasing share of VERs can, indeed, badly impact on the electricity grid. The paper focuses on assessing the effect of introducing a high share of VERs production, taking as reference case a small-size sustainable community, located in Central Italy, which aims to reach, at least, a 30% CO₂ emission reduction by 2025. Different energy scenarios have been considered on the basis of local energy policies defined by the Municipal Energy Plan, MEP. Demand Side Management (DSM) strategies related to the introduction of heat pumps (HP) systems powered by the excess derived from VERs, have been studied to reduce the impact into the power grid. In particular the performed analysis is aimed at finding the optimal configurations necessary to achieve thermal comfort in buildings where HP systems are introduced when Demand Side Management strategies are in action.