Evaluation of the potential regulation capacity of water heater loads

With the rapid development of smart grid, advanced metering, modern control and communication technologies, demand-side response technology has grown up greatly. As a kind of high elastic and coefficient demand response resource, the thermostatically controlled loads have become a major research focus. This paper involved the influence of various factors on potential regulation capacity of electrical water heaters in demand response. First, a detailed understanding of the thermal dynamic process of water heaters was made and the thermal dynamic mathematical model of a water heater was summarized. Then, 1000 water heaters were aggregated as a whole to be investigated. With different ambient temperature, water demand, thermostat set-points and temperature dead-bands, water heaters' lifetime and load regulation capacity vary. The simulation results show that the different factors impacts the potential regulation capacity of electrical water heaters in different ways and to different degree.