Assessing the impacts of advanced control for storage heating in UK social housing

In this paper, building simulation was used to assess the impact of smart electric heating control on heating performance and costs in UK social housing. A smart storage heating controller model was developed, comprising two elements: 1) day-ahead heating load prediction, based on outside air temperature and solar radiation; and 2) load shifting of the predicted heating charge to the lowest cost periods of a flexible tariff. A pre-simulation was used to generate a regression equation for heating charge as a function of day-ahead mean air temperature and solar insolation; this mimicked a controller learning process. The controller was applied to a case study of 1960's UK high rise housing. The simulation results showed that, compared to conventional storage heating control, the smart controller resulted in energy savings of 18-24%, and cost savings of 20-50%. There were some negative effects on indoor air temperatures, but comfort in the principal occupied spaces was maintained. Much of the cost saving was attributable to switching from an off-peak tariff to the timevarying tariff, and to reduced energy use due to better charge estimation. Moving demand to low-cost periods had a more marginal impact on heating costs.