Prevention of output suppression through heat pump water heaters for high-penetration residential PV systems for long-term operation

There is a danger of output suppression of high-penetration residential PV systems due to voltage increase. It is necessary to install new technology to prevent the occurrence of such phenomenon. Therefore, we focused our attention on heat pump water heaters (HPWHs). HPWHs are usually used to heat water during night time because electricity prices are cheaper than during the daytime for the load leveling in Japan. So they can be used as a countermeasure without additional cost if they are operated during the daytime. However, HPWHs do not have sufficient capacity to absorb inverse energy at each residence. Thus HPWH operation must be optimized to minimize output suppression loss. In this research, we selected four typical sunny days in spring, summer, autumn and winter. The optimal HPWH operation was calculated by numerical simulation. The optimal monthly HPWH operation was investigated using the weather forecast assuming actual operation in each season.