Heat pump demand characteristics: A study of the impacts of single-family residential heat-pump technologies on electric-utility-system loads

The hourly power demand and heating- and cooling-mode energy use of electric air source heat pumps in single-family residences was analyzed and correlated. Field data from 50 houses in five different geographical locations, representing a range of 1434 to 8310 heating degree days and 2889 to 527 cooling degree days, were selected from a previous field study. A subset of the data was used to test a residential building-heat pump simulation model. Calculated daily heating energy consumption agreed to within 10 to 27% of the measured values; daily cooling energy consumption agreed to within 12 to 23% of the measured values. A Monte Carlo simulation procedure was developed for the prediction of heat pump diversified demand based on a probability sample of residential customers selected on the basis of certain customer-class, equipment, and weather-related characteristics. Due to lack of valid field data, only a crude test of this procedure was possible, but it indicated that this method holds promise in simulations where test metering data are unavailable.