Analysis of different demand response strategies for a Finnish apartment building utilizing waste heat from hydrogen production

The increasing demand for sustainable energy solutions encourages the incorporation of more renewable energies in energy systems. Among these, district heating systems, widely implemented across northern and central Europe, offer great potential in integrating renewable energies. As hydrogen production expands, the excess heat generated during this process presents a promising opportunity for recovery and utilization in district heating. Since demand response has proven valuable in the share of renewables, this study analyzed the building-level benefits of demand response control strategies based on dynamic district heat prices integrated with waste heat from hydrogen production. Three demand response control strategies were developed, which controlled the inlet water temperatures of water radiators, indoor air temperatures, and charging actions of a DHW storage tank, separately. The results illustrate their economic potential on a Finnish district-heated apartment building. The advantage of centralized demand response control is that it does not increase peak heating demand. The results demonstrate that the decentralized demand response control has the highest annual district heat energy cost saving, up to 4.9 %. The dynamic storage tank charging control cuts the peak heat power significantly, with a great reduction of the power fee by a maximum of 22.6% power fee reduction with a 5.2 m3 tank. In addition, the results in the pay-back period analysis provide recommended maximum investment under different control strategies and target pay-back years.