Duration: 36 Months (01.09.2016 – 31.08.2019)

Project volume: 2,6 Mio € (gesamt)

Funder: Europäischer Fond für Regionalentwicklung, INTERREG VA der Großregion

Partner outside the TU: IZES, Université de Lorraine, Université de Liège, Universität Luxemburg

Editors in the field of building systems and building technology

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Sabine Hoffmann, M.Eng. Daniel Schmidt

Co-simulation of building, system technology and control in  PtH4GR2ID

In PtH4GR²ID, a co-simulation of the building (construction, usage profile, target temperature) and the thermal storage (water storage, PCM storage, etc.) is carried out with TRNSYS, the current-controlled heat pump using a model in Dymola/Modelica and a model predictive controller programmed in Matlab . The Buildings Control Virtual Testbed (BCVTB) based on the Ptolemy II simulation environment is used as the co-simulation platform.

Short Description

Against the background of climate change and the resulting minimization of CO2 emissions, the Greater Region (GR) has set itself the target of 15.2% renewable energies (RE) in total energy consumption by 2023. In addition to the expansion of regenerative generation plants, this also results in the heat transition. For this purpose, heating systems based on fossil fuels for the provision of heating energy (heating, hot water) must be substituted by more environmentally friendly technologies. This is intended to promote sustainability and reduce environmental pollution as part of the economic and spatial development of the greater region. The use of current-controlled, reversible heat pumps in combination with storage is not only a measure to support the heat transition, but also offers the possibility of a temporal adjustment of electricity consumption to the fluctuating generation from RE. Thus, at times of high regenerative generation, electricity can be temporarily stored in thermal energy storage devices and the share of RE in the total energy consumption can be increased. Since both climate change and the expansion of RE do not represent regional but international challenges, cross-border cooperation is essential.

As part of the Power to Heat context, the potential of power-driven heat pumps in combination with storage technologies is examined from an economic, technical and social point of view. The basis is the development of a sustainable electricity price and RE feed-in dependent control concept for planning the use of heat pumps and storage tanks. After the simulation calculations have been carried out, the findings are evaluated using pilot installations in the greater region. In addition to technical feasibility and cost-effectiveness, social acceptance plays a decisive role here. The aim is to use innovative control concepts for reversible heat pumps to identify optimal operation of the heat pump storage technology in order to take into account the heating and cooling periods with high photovoltaic feed-in. In addition to classic technical storage, new technologies such as component activation and phase change materials (PCMs) are also important. With heat pump storage technology, classic heating systems such as oil heating are to be pushed out of the market and the environmental friendliness of the greater region is to be increased by reducing CO2. Furthermore, this technology acts as a Demand Side Integration (DSI) instrument. The power consumption that is time-adjusted to the generation enables a reduction in the need to expand the distribution grids. The field test phase offers the possibility of validating the simulation results, a better extrapolation of the findings to the larger region and the emergence of a European model region for the heat transition.

For more information Sabine.Hoffmann(at)bauing.uni-kl.de