Minimizing the energy grid exchange in a neighbourhood via Model Predictive Control of heat pumps and batteries: First insights for PV expansion scenarios

In the STORY project, a pilot in Belgium is investigating the smart control of flexible devices, including storage, in a residential neighbourhood. The STORY partner ACTILITY has developed several use cases within the pilot, including the minimization of the electricity exchange between the neighbourhood, supplied by a single low voltage (LV) distribution grid feeder, and the rest of the distribution grid. The use case intends to limit the required connection capacity of the neighbourhood with the grid due to better alignment of local variable renewable electricity generation (e.g. PV generation) with its consumption through smart consumption control. Such alignment would increase self-consumption of the prosumers and bring them tangible savings since they could reduce their grid connection capacity (as set by their main home fuse power).

By using Model Predictive Control (MPC) to schedule the consumption of flexible loads, e.g. heat pumps (HP) or batteries, during the periods of high PV production, the alignment can ensure that a neighbourhood with a high penetration of PV generation does not suffer grid stability issues. Namely, during the night, unaligned consumption of the heat pump to heat the building or produce domestic hot water can cause high peaks, while during sunny days, the PV installation injects a high amount of power on the distribution grid. The objective of the MPC controller is to optimally schedule the heating periods together with the PV production to minimize the maximum energy exchanged with the grid.

The full document is available here: ACT.News