Buildings as energy storage in a smart grid

The purpose of the project is, based on existing data from detailed measurements, to investigate typical Danish detached single-family houses' ability to act as energy storage in a future smart grid. Introduction of an increasing share of renewable energy in the energy system will call upon flexibility. Danish houses are traditionally constructed of heavy materials and most of them have a reasonably good insulation level. Theoretically, this opens to the use of discontinued heating, without loss of thermal indoor comfort to create flexibility in the grid. Statistical analyses of existing data on buildings' heating and cooling performances will reveal the Danish housing stock's capability to postpone or accelerate the uptake of electricity, using heat pumps to heat the houses, or local water storages in the houses and in this way provide flexibility to the grid. The statistical analyses will be supplemented by dynamic simulations of archetype houses to analyse the full national potential for increasing the flexibility offered by Danish single-family houses. Additionally, the dynamic simulations will be used to investigate possible improvements of the existing houses in order to increase the flexibility potential.