Simulation of domestic heat demand shifting through short-term thermal storage

Heat demand management through demand shifting will be crucial to enable load balancing in a future electricity grid with large domestic heating loads.  Using dynamic models, in IES-VE and TRNSYS, of a 2-bedroom dwelling with typical operational schedules, this research demonstrated that a mixture of active and passive Thermal Energy Storage (TES) within the existing building infrastructure could enable up to 4 hours of heat demand shifting, without significantly affecting the indoor thermal comfort. However, this is strongly dependent on the building having very good thermal mass and performance to increase the TES effectiveness and decrease the thermal comfort degradation. The research provides a good starting point for developing more accurate models, which could enable greater understanding of the techno-economic feasibility of domestic scale TES, and the impact on the efficacy and benefits by variables such as household demography, building size, type and location.