Thermal Inertia of a Building as Virtual Energy Storage: A Sustainable Solution for Smart Grids

In this paper we have theoretically and experimentally investigated the potential of the thermal mass of a residential building to act as virtual energy storage (VES) in a microgrid environment. Developing a simulation framework in Simulink and calibrating the model parameters through extensive experimental trials, we have explored the critical design space and operational criteria for both VES and the microgrid. We have also proposed a load management scheme to shift the thermal load by preheating or pre-cooling the building that depends on renewable generation, real-time main grid pricing and weather forecasting. Through the simulation based study, we have measured the benefit of our developed scheme that shows promising results such as a cost benefit of ~$0.67 per day.