Short Description

This test case is used to verify that self-consumption of renewable energy sources in a coupled heat and power network improved using distributed power-to-heat appliances compared to a base scenario without power-to-heat. This means that energy flows flowing out of the network are reduced. At the same time energy imports should not increase. Relevant effort variables of both networks, i.e., bus voltages, supply temperatures and differential pressures, must stay within the allowable range. Also, the loading of the transformer is not allowed to reach critical levels. Otherwise the test fails.

Electric boilers are used as power-to-heat appliances. They consist of an electric heater, for the conversation of power to heat, and a thermal energy storage, for the (short-term) storage of generated heat. To plan the operation of the storage unit and the electric heater, a model predictive controller is used. The aim of the controller is to minimize negative residual load of the electric network. To enable this planning, negative residual load in the electric as well as heat demand in the heat network need to be known/predicted. This test assumes perfect knowledge of these time-series data and, thus, does not focus on the quality of predictions.