Heat Pump Load Management Using Learned Demand Response
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Solution Overview
Problem
Heat pump systems pose challenges in stabilizing energy supply and demand, particularly during seasons of high demand like summer and winter, as existing methods struggle to adjust power consumption effectively, leading to frequency fluctuations in the electric power system.
Innovation Solution
A management device that oversees multiple heat pump systems, utilizing a request transmitting unit, consumption information receiving unit, database, and learning unit to predict and adjust energy consumption based on past responses, incorporating factors like season, day, time, and weather, and offering incentives to achieve stable supply and demand balance.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If rechargeable batteries are deployed to balance power supply and demand, then power system stability is improved, but deployment cost and difficulty increase significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The patent replaces expensive rechargeable batteries with a software-based management system that uses inexpensive communication protocols and databases to achieve power balance. The system transmits simple request signals to heat pump systems and records their responses in a database, avoiding the need for costly energy storage hardware while maintaining power system stability.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent introduces a management device as an intermediary between the power system and heat pump systems. This mediator transmits energy consumption requests to multiple heat pump systems and collects their actual consumption data, coordinating power demand adjustment without requiring direct complex control of each individual system or deployment of expensive battery infrastructure.
2Productivity
If heat pump systems are managed to adjust energy consumption, then supply and demand balance is improved, but prediction accuracy of system responses deteriorates without learning from past behavior
Solution Approach 1:
The patent establishes a feedback mechanism where the management device receives actual energy consumption data from heat pump systems and stores it in a database. By continuously recording and analyzing the response characteristics of each system, the management device improves its prediction accuracy over time, enabling more efficient energy consumption adjustments while maintaining high prediction precision.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent uses the database to preliminarily analyze past response characteristics of heat pump systems before issuing new control requests. This preliminary learning from historical data allows the management device to predict system responses with higher accuracy, improving the efficiency of energy adjustment operations.
Data Source
AI summary
A management device manages plural heat pump systems to bring a total amount of energy consumed by the heat pump systems closer to a target value. The management device includes a request transmitting unit, a consumption information receiving unit, a database, and a learning unit. The request transmitting unit transmits requested values of energy consumption to each of the heat pump systems. The consumption information receiving unit receives actual values of energy consumption from each of the heat pump systems. The database stores response characteristics of consumers having each of the heat pump systems with respect to the requested values of energy consumption. The learning unit learns the response characteristics and reflects learning results based on past records of responses of each of the consumers with respect to the requested values of energy consumption in the database.