Skip to main content

Enhancing User Comfort in Demand Response Solutions for Water Heaters: User-Centric Hot Water Management

  • Conference paper
  • First Online:
  • 1220 Accesses

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 738))

Abstract

Demand Response (DR) solutions for tank electric water heaters (WHs) let residential consumers benefit financially, however, a negative impact of DR on personal comfort may force users to reject them. To facilitate DR implementation in practice, there is a need to consider the end-user’s comfort. Typically, DR for WHs concerns only the user satisfaction with a variable water temperature. This paper extends the conventional control by considering the tap water flow as a variable during water activities. The main contributions of this paper are (i) a model to relate user comfort with the tap water flow rate, (ii) the control mechanism consisting of the pre-heating control and the flow control to maintain the user comfort. Simulations demonstrate that the proposed control coupled with the suggested user interface can inform about available trade-offs between energy consumption and comfort, and thus can help the user to rationally save energy for water heating.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.

Buying options

Chapter
USD   29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD   39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as EPUB and PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD   54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Learn about institutional subscriptions

References

  1. Ewz-studie smart metering project (2015). https://www.ewz.ch/smartmetering

  2. United States Environmental Protection Agency (2015). http://www3.epa.gov/watersense/products/bathroom_sink_faucets.html

  3. Belov, A., Vasenev, A., Meratnia, N., Havinga, P.J.: User interface for manual balancing of comfort and energy consumption of domestic water heaters. In: Proceedings of European Nearly Zero Energy Buildings Conference 2016. Energiesparverband, February 2016

    Google Scholar 

  4. Belov, A., Vasenev, A., Meratnia, N., van der Zwaag, B.J., Havinga, P.J.: Reducing user discomfort in direct load control of domestic water heaters. In: Proceedings of the 2015 IEEE Innovative Smart Grid Technologies - Asia (ISGT Asia), pp. 1–6. IEEE, November 2015. Online ISSN IEEE Xplore = 2378–8542

    Google Scholar 

  5. Belov, A., Meratnia, N., van der Zwaag, B.J., Havinga, P.J.: An efficient water flow control approach for water heaters in direct load control. J. Eng. Appl. Sci. 9(11), 2106–2120 (2014)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Caramia, M., Dell’Olmo, P.: Multi-objective Management in Freight Logistics: Increasing Capacity Service Level and Safety with Optimization Algorithms. Springer, London (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  7. European Commission: Energy efficiency plan 2011, March 2011

    Google Scholar 

  8. European Commission: Smart grids: From innovation to deployment’, communication from the commission to the european parliament (2011). http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0202:FIN:EN:PDF

  9. Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, et al.: Assessment of demand response and advanced metering (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Crosswater Digital (2015). http://www.crosswater.co.uk

  11. E.E. Directive: Directive 2009/72/ec of the European parliament and of the council of 13 July 2009 concerning common rules for the internal market in electricity. Offic. J. Eur. Comm. 211, 55–93 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  12. E.E. Directive: Directive 2010/31/eu of the European parliament and of the council of 19 May 2010 on on the energy performance of buildings. Offic. J. L, 1–35 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  13. E.E. Directive: Directive 2012/27/eu of the European parliament and of the council of 25 October 2012 on energy efficiency, amending directives 2009/125/ec and 2010/30/eu and repealing directives 2004/8/ec and 2006/32. Offic. J. L 315, 1–56 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  14. Dlamini, N.G., Cromieres, F.: Implementing peak load reduction algorithms for household electrical appliances. Energy Policy 44, 280–290 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. US DOE: Energyplus engineering reference. The Reference to EnergyPlus Calculations (2013)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Dolan, P., Nehrir, M., Gerez, V.: Development of a monte carlo based aggregate model for residential electric water heater loads. Electric Power Syst. Res. 36(1), 29–35 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Du, P., Lu, N.: Appliance commitment for household load scheduling. IEEE Trans. Smart Grid 2(2), 411–419 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. EngineeringToolbox: Average water usage per activity. http://www.engineeringtoolbox.com/water-use-activity-d_1900.html

  19. EC Smart Grids Task Force: Task force for smart grids, vision and work programme. European commission (2010). https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/markets-and-consumers/smart-grids-and-meters/smart-grids-task-force

  20. Giordano, V., Gangale, F., Fulli, G., Sanchez Jimenez, M.: Smart grid projects in Europe: lessons learned and current developments. European Commission, Joint Research Center. Institute for Energy, The Netherlands (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Giorgio, A., Pimpinella, L.: An event driven smart home controller enabling consumer economic saving and automated demand side management. Appl. Energy 96, 92–103 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. C2G to Grid Project (2012). http://energyit.ict.tuwien.ac.at/projekte/abgeschlossene-projekte/53

  23. Honeywell (2015). http://yourhome.honeywell.com

  24. InterNACHI: Inspecting water heater tanks in residential dwelling units. Course document. Technical report, International Association of Certified Home Inspectors (2015)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Jorgensen, J., Sorensen, S., Behnke, K., Eriksen, P.B.: Ecogrid eua prototype for European smart grids. In: 2011 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting, pp. 1–7. IEEE (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  26. Kaye, J.: Action a2a development of concept and offering renew: development of concept and offering. Technical report, Energy Saving Trust Limited, Waterwise Project (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Kondoh, J., Lu, N., Hammerstrom, D.J.: An evaluation of the water heater load potential for providing regulation service. In: 2011 IEEE Power and Energy Society General Meeting, pp. 1–8. IEEE (2011)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Koutitas, G.: Control of flexible smart devices in the smart grid. IEEE Trans. Smart Grid 3(3), 1333–1343 (2012)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Lane, I., Beute, N.: A model of the domestic hot water load. IEEE Trans. Power Syst. 11(4), 1850–1855 (1996)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Lu, N., Katipamula, S.: Control strategies of thermostatically controlled appliances in a competitive electricity market. In: IEEE Power Engineering Society General Meeting, pp. 202–207. IEEE (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  31. Lu, N., Zhang, Y.: Design considerations of a centralized load controller using thermostatically controlled appliances for continuous regulation reserves. IEEE Trans. Smart Grid 4(2), 914–921 (2013)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. SETIS Magazine: Demand response - empowering the European consumer, March 2014. https://setis.ec.europa.eu/publications/setis-magazine/smart-grids/demand-response-empowering-european-consumer

  33. Nest, P.A.: (2015). https://nest.com/uk/thermostat/meet-nest-thermostat/

  34. Bertoldi, P., Hirl, B., Labanca, N.: Energy efficiency status report. Offic. J. L, 1–141 (2012)

    Google Scholar 

  35. Pedrasa, M.A., Spooner, E., MacGill, I.: Improved energy services provision through the intelligent control of distributed energy resources. In: 2009 IEEE Bucharest PowerTech, pp. 1–8. IEEE (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  36. Pflugradt, N.: Load profile generator - user manual (2015). http://www.loadprofilegenerator.de

  37. E.S.M. Project (2011). http://www.esb.ie/main/sustainability/smart-meters.jsp

  38. Robertson, V.J., Ward, A., Low, J., Reed, A.: Electrotherapy Explained: Principles and Practice. Elsevier Health Sciences, London (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  39. Sæle, H., Grande, O.S.: Demand response from household customers: experiences from a pilot study in norway. IEEE Trans. Smart Grid 2(1), 102–109 (2011)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Sepulveda, A., Paull, L., Morsi, W.G., Li, H., Diduch, C., Chang, L.: A novel demand side management program using water heaters and particle swarm optimization. In: 2010 IEEE Electric Power and Energy Conference (EPEC), pp. 1–5. IEEE (2010)

    Google Scholar 

  41. Sharon Mecum, Q.C.: A wish list for residential direct load control customers. Panels of the 2002 ACEEE Summer Study on Energy Efficiency in Buildings (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  42. Stepon (2015). http://www.stepon.com.cn/en/ViewPro.aspx?PID=9

  43. Viola, D.W.: Water Temperature Control and Limitation. Plumbing Manufacturers Institute, Schaumberg (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  44. Widén, J., Lundh, M., Vassileva, I., Dahlquist, E., Ellegård, K., Wäckelgård, E.: Constructing load profiles for household electricity and hot water from time-use data–modelling approach and validation. Energy Build. 41(7), 753–768 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgment

We would like to express our gratitude to the Go-Green and JPI IRENE projects.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Alexander Belov .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2017 Springer International Publishing AG

About this paper

Cite this paper

Belov, A., Vasenev, A., Meratnia, N., Havinga, P.J.M. (2017). Enhancing User Comfort in Demand Response Solutions for Water Heaters: User-Centric Hot Water Management. In: Helfert, M., Klein, C., Donnellan, B., Gusikhin, O. (eds) Smart Cities, Green Technologies, and Intelligent Transport Systems. VEHITS SMARTGREENS 2016 2016. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 738. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63712-9_3

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-63712-9_3

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-63711-2

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-63712-9

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics