Buildings as Batteries - Unlocking Grid Flexibility from Smart Management of Domestic Heating

The proposed optimization model offers the possibility to find the optimal dispatch of heating units to satisfy the thermal demand of buildings, white simultaneously providing flexibility services by leveraging on the energy stored within the envelope. This enables the aggregation of buildings to participate in Ancillary Services Market (ASM) as a Demand Response (DR) provider. The resulting day-ahead program ensures that the state-of-charge of the building (i.e., its indoor temperature) is maintained at a level that allows decreasing or increasing the consumption as a response to a power regulation request from the operator, while maintaining acceptable thermal comfort conditions to the users. Preliminary results demonstrate the available flexibility potential from three different building types under diverse weather conditions, with smart management of the consumption trajectory white saving on operational costs