Modelling of a population of Heat Pumps as a Source of load in the Great Britain power system

The developments of large-scale renewable energy cause significant challenges for the operation of power system. Demand Side Response (DSR) based Thermostatically Controlled Loads (TCLs) may offer a broad range of potential benefits on system operation and reliability. This paper investigates the modelling of aggregated small loads, such as Heat Pump (HP). The simplified thermodynamic model of a residential single Air Source Heat Pump (ASHP) was developed and simulated using Matlab. A decentralized temperature control algorithm was used to control the ON/OFF cycle of the heat pump offering comfort to the customer. The behaviour of a population of controlled heat pumps was examined. Seven case studies were conducted to identify a suitable number of individual heat pump models that can be used to represent the total number of heat pumps in the UK according to the National Grid 2030 medium uptake scenario. Simulation results showed that an aggregation model of 5,000 individual heat pumps is suitable to represent the total number of heat pumps in the GB power system.