Economic MPC for a Flemish household with PV and a heat pump

Abstract: The energy consumption of the building sector accounts for 40% of the global use, most ofwhich are employed for Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning, together with WaterHeating. In 2016, the European residential sector represented 25.4% of the final energyconsumption with households using up to 80% of it to meet the heating demands. Suchconsumption calls for energy efficiency and increased use of renewable energy sources.In addition, thermal storage grants an increased integration of renewable energy sourcescombined with the potential of demand-side management. In the push towards near zeroemission buildings, the most promising configuration is all electrical with the provisionof energy with a residential PV. Therefore, this thesis focuses on a control strategy fora residential installation with a heat pump and PV.Economic model predictive control (EMPC) has been determined as a favorable controlstrategy to handle such systems. EMPC allows for many different things, includingconstraint handling and optimal performance in spite of conflicting objectives. The thesisis developed in collaboration with the Belgian start-up ThermoVault, which provideselectric energy services for space and water heaters. After successfully accomplishing theprovision of local services, such as energy efficiency or self-consumption, the intention isto combine the local objectives with an additional external incentive, e.g. provision ofancillary services or time-of-use.Firstly, the thesis aims to provide a regional context of demand response, heat pumpand PV to understand their role in the near future. Moreover, the thesis proceeds tosearch for this second external economic incentive to yield greater economic profits.Upon finding the additional incentive, a control strategy that fits the requirements isproposed accordingly. Finally, a case study representative of a Flemish household isintroduced and the performance of the control strategy is assessed in comparison to asimple ruled-base control. The assessment is performed over three different weeks of theyear, representing the three seasons with heating demands (autumn, winter and spring)in order to extrapolate the results for a whole year. After it, two possible future scenariosare studied: 1) the introduction of a feed-in tariff, instead of the current net-meteringscheme and, 2) the possibility to access real-time pricing at a residential level.