IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2018 - 75

july/august 2018

Hours with Greater Demand (%)

Average Wind CF (/)

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Cost

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Million €/Year

Hours with Greater Demand (%)

Average Ambient Air Temperature (°C)

the Hp during cold temperatures. similarly, many Hps are Thermal Inertia
de facto equipped with electric resistance heaters to provide the building envelope has a thermal mass that adds inertia
peak load.
to a building's thermodynamics since it takes time to heat up
on a planning scale, hybrid heaters could enable the mini- and cool down. this inherent thermal storage capacity could
mization of electric peaks and avoid generation expansion to be utilized to preheat the building and store heat at times of
meet electric heating demand. the heater itself can be opti- high energy supply and is available at no extra capital cost, as
mized to take advantage of complementarities in the cost structure
of different technologies: Hps have
10
10
6
0.6
high capital costs but relatively low
operational costs, while gas boilers
and resistance heaters have lower
8
8
capital costs and are more expen4
sive to run. a systemwide planning
0.4
analysis (see Heinen et al., 2017 in
6
6
the "for further reading" section)
for a future Irish system with 40%
2
wind generation and 25% heat
4
4
electrification found that, despite
0.3
large natural gas savings, the systemwide cost of Hp electrification
0
2
2
tends to outweigh the benefits due
to power-system investment and
operational cost (figure 8). Hybrid
-2
0.2
0
0
solutions considerably improve
0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
0.75 0.8 0.85 0.9 0.95 1
the cost-benefit analysis. Hybrid
Normalized Demand (/)
Normalized Demand (/)
Hp-resistance (Hp-erH) heaters
(a)
(b)
reduce capital costs for the customer. Hybrid gas boiler-electric figure 7. The average ambient air temperature and wind capacity factor as a funcresistance (B-r) heaters provide tion of normalized demand over eight years of data. (a) Peak demand and temperaan efficient solution to maximize ture and (b) peak demand and wind. (Source: Heinen et al., 2017.)
wind integration, but the majority
of the heating is done using natural
gas, and this solution also favors
500
low marginal cost coal generation,
450
therefore potentially increasing
400
the carbon emissions compared
350
to pure gas boilers. Hybrid Hp-B
300
deployment leads to the lowest
250
system cost due to considerable
200
fuel savings from the Hp usage, a
150
reduction of generation expansion
100
needs and a reduction of custom50
er capital cost for the heater itself
0
(figure 8). also, as opposed to
other solutions, the hybrid Hp-B
does not use a water storage tank,
HP-B B-ERH HP-ERH
HP
HP-B B-ERH HP-ERH
HP
which highlights the high operaGas Price: 12.75 €/GJ
Gas Price: 8.5 €/GJ
tional flexibility of this technology.
In this particular study, distribuPower: Investment
Power: Fuel and CO2
Heat: Investment
tion network reinforcement costs
Heat: Gas and CO2
Net Saving
Net Cost
related to the different heating
technologies were not analyzed
but could tip the balance further figure 8. Electricity and heat-related costs and savings for different technologies
toward hybrid systems.
(HP-B, HP, HP-B, and HP-ERH) relative to gas boiler. (Source: Heinen et al., 2016.)
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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Power & Energy Magazine - July/August 2018