Modelling of Heat Pump Load Profiles for Grid Expansion Planning

In order to meet European goals in terms of reductions of greenhouse gas emissions, other sectors besides the electricity sector must be decarbonised. Especially, the heating and cooling sector, which is responsible for 50 % of Europe’s final energy consumption has a high potential for this purpose. Due to their high efficiency, heat pumps represent a key technology to achieve these goals. However, an increasing number of heat pumps has an effect on peak loads, feeder voltages and line loadings in power systems. In order to plan power grid expansion adequately, we present a model in this paper, which determines load profiles for representing buildings and heat pumps systems. With regard to resident buildings, we consider different building types and refurbishment levels. With regard to heat pumps systems, we consider different heat sources, control methods, storage systems and hot water demand. In the last section of this paper, we compare load profiles of different system designs. As a conclusion we point out that power peaks caused by use of a heating element or by hot water demand might cause problems for the existing power grid. Finally, we discuss how heat pumps can contribute to a more flexible demand in order to reduce grid reinforcement.