Optimal charging schedules for thermal electric storage in the absence of communication

Thermal Electric Storage (TES) has emerged as a promising power-to-heat technology with the potential of enabling active Demand Side Management (DSM). Optimal exploitation of the DSM capability of TES devices requires twoway communication with the grid. However, several contingencies and/or limitations on communication capabilities would render these storage devices incapable of being of any service to the system. This study presents the development of optimal charging schedules for the distributed TES devices which would determine the operation of these devices in the absence of communication. Different strategies are proposed which determine optimal TES charging dependence on local parameters including time of the day, household power consumption and outside temperature. Performance of the proposed charging schedules is then compared to the optimal communication-enabled and the conventional night-time charging scenarios for the All-Island Power System (AIPS). The results demonstrate the superiority of the proposed strategies as compared to the conventional night-time charging in terms of significant reduction in annual generation costs and energy consumption. Additionally, charging based on the proposed strategies can achieve up to 43% of the total cost savings potential of the communication-enabled scenario.