Developing winter residential demand response strategies for electric space heating

The objective of this paper is to present space heating strategies leading to a load reduction during critical periods on the grid but also taking into account the occupant thermal comfort in order to make them acceptable. Using TRNSYS, three types of strategies were investigated: lowering the thermostat setpoint, storing heat in the building thermal mass during off-peak hours and lowering the setpoint during critical periods, and limiting the available power to baseboards. Results show that the strategies can save up to 7 kW per residence which corresponds to 90% of the reference heating load of the average residence.