A price-controlled relay for Smart Grid Ready heat pumps

Sammanfattning

This thesis explores how an embedded system can be used to improve the functionality of already present systems, more specifically, how a heat pump can be controlled with respect to the current price of electricity. Some modern heat pumps have this functionality present, but older models do not have it. Therefore, having sustainability in mind, improving heat pump installations without replacing them outright is of interest. The approach used to solve this problem was to use smart grid ready functionality that is present in heat pumps starting from 2013. This functionality is in use in Germany, Switzerland, and Austria for load balancing purposes in their electrical grids. This is accomplished by altering how hard heat pumps in the grid work by sending control signals. Therefore, instead of the electrical grid sending control signals, it should be possible to connect a device that sends the same kinds of signals, but the logic behind what signals to send will be based on the electricity price. The outcome of this thesis project is a device that can control a smart grid ready heat pump by sending control signals based on the current hourly rate for electricity.