Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Energy and Buildings

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/enbuild

Sizing of residential

CHP systems

O.A. Shaneb , G. Coates, P.C. Taylor

School of Engineering and Computing Sciences, Science Laboratories, Durham University South Road, Durham, DH1 3LE, UK

a r t i c l e

i n f o

a b s t r a c t
Combined heat and power (CHP) is a well-known technique for producing heat and power simultaneously onsite. However, the micro level of this technology has just been recently introduced around the world, and expected to widely spread. Therefore, identifying the optimal size of such systems would give them the potential for being more benecial. In this paper, a generic deterministic linear programming model, which aims to minimize expected annual cost of the system, has been developed. This model is capable of optimally determining the optimal size (electrical rating) of a micro CHP ( CHP) unit and the optimal size (thermal rating) of a back-up heater for any given residential demand regardless of the type of CHP technology. An investigation has been conducted to identify economically the optimal CHP investment for three typical residential dwellings in England. The four candidate CHP technologies that have been considered in this paper are: internal combustion engine (ICE), Stirling engine (SE), solid oxide fuel cell (SOFC), and proton exchange membrane fuel cell (PEMFC). Sensitivity analyses have been conducted to understand the inuence of some important key parameters on decision making regarding the deployment of residential CHP systems. 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

Article history: Received 3 November 2010 Received in revised form 10 March 2011 Accepted 10 April 2011 Keywords: Micro CHP Residential energy system Linear programming Fuel cell Stirling engine Internal combustion engine

1. Introduction Developing efcient energy generation technologies has become a necessity due to increasing concern about the depletion of fossil fuel resources and environmental issues, especially global warming and climate change. CHP technology is an attractive and highly efcient technology for generating both electricity and heat from a single fuel source. Since the residential sector represents a high percentage of energy consumption, it has recently become an attractive target for the application of CHP systems. Many companies are developing this technology for residential applications based on ICE, SE, SOFC, or PEMFC [1]. For instance, a 0.71.0 kW class PEMFC-based CHP system has already been developed in Japan [2]. Some governments are actively supporting the proliferation of residential CHP systems. For instance, in 2005, the Japanese Government, through the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI), funded the commercialization process through a D 16.8 million project, which involves subsidies for approximately

Corresponding author. Tel.: +44 7747407215. E-mail addresses: o.a.shaneb@durham.ac.uk, omar shaneb@yahoo.com (O.A. Shaneb), graham.coates@durham.ac.uk (G. Coates), p.c.taylor@durham.ac.uk (P.C. Taylor). 0378-7788/$ see front matter 2011 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.enbuild.2011.04.005

400 CHP systems-projecting a future market of 46 million systems [2]. Manufacturers as well as householders have an interest in identifying the optimal size of CHP systems, and they are also interested in the most appropriate operation strategy to adopt in order to maximize the benets of using this technology. Consequently, a tool for decision making regarding the design and operation of the residential CHP system is required for the penetration of such systems. This is because overestimating the size of a CHP unit decreases its feasibility while underestimating its size reduces its benets. It is well known that both residential electricity and heat demands uctuate daily and seasonally. As a result, taking the operation strategies into account, during the design stage, should prove benecial for the candidate CHP system. Consequently, a robust technique for sizing and identifying optimum operation strategies for such a system is needed. There are several techniques that can be used for sizing energy systems and optimizing their operation strategies such as: the maximum rectangle method (MR) [3], linear programming (LP) [4,5], non-linear programming (NLP) [6], mixed-integer nonlinear programming (MINLP) [7], fuzzy logic (FL) [8], and genetic algorithms [9]. The aim of sizing is to design a system where the main parameters such as the size (electrical rating) of the CHP unit and the

1992

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

rating of the back-up heater are optimally dened. In addition, the optimum operation strategy can also be considered at this stage resulting in more realistic results because this gives an indication of what size CHP unit is the most appropriate for certain electricity and heat demand proles and energy tariff combinations, rather than estimating the size independently [10]. LP techniques are widely used in decision making, especially in economic studies. This technique is principally concerned with the determination of the best allocation of limited resources either by maximizing the prots or minimizing the total costs. LP optimization has the advantage of rapid calculation even with large problems. In contrast, NLP optimization tends to restrict the size of the optimization problem. In NLP, as the number of variables becomes large, solving the problem becomes burdensome [11,12]. LP has been used in optimization of energy systems with different purposes and applications. It has been recently used for high level system design and unit commitment of a micro grid ( G) [10]. It was also used in the scheduling of district energy systems including CHP for determining optimal operating costs [13]. Sundberg and Henning [14] have applied this technique for studying the effect of fuel price on cost minimized operation of CHP plants. Ehmke [4] and Kong et al. [5] used LP to optimize the CHP system for industrial sites. Gamou et al. [15] have used this method for evaluating the inuence of uncertainties in energy demand on the optimal size of a fuel cell (FC) based CHP system. In CHP technology, a decision is needed to optimally size the equipment for a certain application. LP techniques are capable of solving such a problem and guide the user to select the most benecial CHP size. The NLP technique has also been used in the optimization of energy systems. It has been used for nding the optimal size of CHP plants in consideration of operational strategy [6]. A MINLP technique has also been used for minimizing the annual cost of a given CHP system. However, the model focussed on an ICE based CHP system only [2]. A generic LP model of the residential CHP system, which considers simultaneously the operation of a back-up heater and its operation strategy, has not been developed previously. In addition, the inuence of some emerging energy policies, such as the feedin tariff, has not been considered to date. In this paper, a generic deterministic LP model for sizing a CHP system has been developed, using the Matlab optimization toolbox. This model is based on a similar concept as used in [10], however it imposes modied constraints and objectives on the problem to reect the chosen denition of a CHP system. Furthermore, a more accurate and detailed representation of heat and electricity demands has been considered in this study. That is, a representative week for each month has been used instead of using a representative day per season as is common in the literature. This results in a higher resolution representation of demand data, since it takes into consideration the variation between the days of the week, especially the difference between working days and the weekend. Given the dwellings energy demands, utility tariff structure, as well as both technical and nancial specications of a residential CHP system, the new model minimizes the overall cost of such a system for a test year by selecting the appropriate size of the CHP unit, the appropriate size of the back-up heater, and determining the hourly operating schedule of the system. The remainder of this paper is organised as follows. Section 2 describes an illustrative application of a MR method for sizing CHP systems for three different types of single dwellings. In Section 3, a LP model is developed for sizing CHP systems, which is then applied to the same types of dwellings as in Section 2. Further, sensitivity analyses have been conducted to understand the inuence of key parameters on decision making regarding the deployment of residential CHP systems. Section 4 presents a discussion of the results obtained through the application of the MR method and LP

Fig. 1. The maximum rectangle (MR) method [3].

method. Finally, Section 5 draws conclusions regarding the methods and the implications of the results obtained. 2. Sizing of method CHP systems using maximum rectangular

2.1. The principle of the maximum rectangle method The idea of this method is based on sizing the CHP unit to cover an average heat or electricity demand instead of covering the maximal heat or electricity demand while the back-up heater can meet the peak demand and the very low thermal demand levels when it is uneconomically to operate the CHP unit. It can be simply based on nding the maximum rectangle, where the 8760 hourly heat-demand values are sorted in descending order and placed in a load-duration diagram, as in Fig. 1. Afterwards, the maximum rectangle that can be drawn inside the demand-duration curve is determined (dashed line shown in Fig. 1). The intersection of this rectangle with the Y-axis represents the suggested optimal value for the rated thermal power of the CHP unit to be used to full this specic heat demand. As a result, the size (electrical rating) of the CHP unit can be calculated by dividing the thermal rating by the value of heat to power ratio (Q) [3]. The same procedure of sizing can be carried out by using the electricity demand curve instead of the heat demand curve. However, using the heat demand curve is preferred since the system is grid connected and the excess electricity can be sold back to the grid. 2.2. Illustrative examples of residential demand Three types of residential demand have been considered in this study, as summarized in Table 1. This demand data, which is the hourly energy consumption for a whole year, was collected for low energy dwellings in an area northwest of London. It was accessed through the UK Energy Research Centre Energy Data Centre [16]. Both electricity and heat demands vary signicantly during the day and they also vary signicantly from one season to another. Figs. 2 and 3 show these variations for the demand coded semidetached house (SDH), which has been described in Table 1. According to the MR method, the 8760 heat-demand values have been sorted in descending order and placed in a load-duration diagram, as previously shown in Fig. 1, for the three types of demand considered in this study. Then, the maximum rectangle that can be drawn inside the demand-duration curve has been specied for all the demand types described in Tables 1 and 2. Results show the maximum rectangle based on heat demand for the demand of an SDH, where the suggested size (thermal rating) of the PEMFC is the one that corresponds to the maximum annual utilized heat. So, it

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001 Table 1 Specication of the houses, occupancy and demand. Item Demand code SDH House type U-value of oor Construction Type Floor area Depth of oor insulation U-value of roof Number of bedrooms Maximum occupancy Min. electricity demand (kW) Max. electricity demand (kW) Average electricity demand (kW) Annual electricity demand (kWh) Min. heat demand (kW) Max. heat demand (kW) Average heat demand (kW) Annual heat demand (kWh) Average heat to power ratio Semi-detached house (SDH) 0.45 W/m2 K Timber frame (TF) 64.8 m2 50 mm 0.26 W/m2 K 2 4 Zero 2.96 0.2126 1862.4 Zero 9.156 1.1241 9848.5 5.3 ETH End-terrace house (ETH) Not known Not known 64.8 m2 50 mm Not known 2 4 0.029 3.069 0.229 2010.3 Zero 10.682 1.560 13660.1 6.8 DH

1993

Detached house (DH) 0.28 W/m2 K Timber frame (TF) 139.1 m2 100 mm 0.2 W/m2 K 4 6 0.176 2.818 0.495 4335.2 Zero 15.566 1.931 16919.9 3.9

Fig. 2. Heat demand of a representative day from each season.

Fig. 3. Electricity demand of a representative day from each season.

Demand: SDH

emissions costs

can be concluded that, according to this estimation technique, the near-optimum size of PEMFC for this demand is just 3 kWth, which corresponds to size (electrical rating) of approximately 2.7 kWe. Alternately, a similar procedure was repeated by using electricity demand for the same demand. The results show that the suggested size (electrical rating) according to this method is now approximately 0.25 kWe. In order to evaluate the results above, simulations were run for different sizes of PEMFC: 0.5 kWe, 1 kWe, 2 kWe, 3 kWe and 4 kWe with two different operation strategies: heat-led and electricityled. The results for the demand SDH are shown in Fig. 4. When these results are compared with the results of the MR method, it can be concluded that each method (based on heat demand or electricity demand) has an advantage and a disadvantage. For example, the sizing estimation based on the MR of heat demand reduces emissions but pays for this with operation costs. The high operation costs
Table 2 Results of sizing using MR method for different Demand type

596.2

4000

Emissions (kg)

3750
3803

553.6 521.3

575 550

3500 3250 3000 2750 2500

2722 2630 2813 2900 2943 480.8 474.4 468.1 465.7 475.1 511.8 509.2 3020 2979

525
2939 2901 2911

500 475 450

Size of PEMFC and operation strategy

Fig. 4. Operation costs and CO2 emissions for different strategies and sizes of PEMFC system for the demand SDH.

CHP units and for three types of demand. CHP technology SE ICE 2.400 0.25 3.200 0.7 3.680 0.3 PEMFC 2.700 0.25 3.600 0.7 4.140 0.3 SOFC 3.333 0.25 4.444 0.7 5.111 0.3

SDH ETH DH

CHP size using heat demand (kWe) CHP size using electricity demand (kWe) CHP size using heat demand (kWe) CHP size using electricity demand (kWe) CHP size using heat demand (kWe) CHP size using electricity demand (kWe)

1.071 0.25 1.429 0.7 1.643 0.3

Operation costs ()

579.7

600

1994

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

Cost inputs: Specific capital costs of CHP unit and back-up heater, cC, CHP, cC, B, respectively, /kW Salvage value of the CHP unit, CHP , () Operation and maintenance costs of both CHP unit and back-up heater, mCHP and mB respectively, /kWh Prices of natural gas, imported and exported electricity, cNG, and , respectively, /kWh

Technical inputs: Electrical efficiency of the CHP unit, e, Thermal efficiency of the CHP unit, th, Efficiency of the back-up heater, B

LP minimisation model

Demand inputs: Hourly end-use electricity and heat demands, Lj and Hj, respectively, kWh

Outputs: Optimal design size of CHP unit, x1, kWe Optimal design rating of back-up heater, x2, kWth Minimum CEA, Operation variables: ooverview iof k, oim,i ,j, k, oex, i ,j, k, kWh Fig. 7 An el,i ,j, k , oth, ,j, the sizing model
Fig. 5. An overview of the sizing model.

are because of the low price for electricity sold to the G since when the system is operated according to a heat-led strategy a signicant amount of electricity is sold back to the G. This means that this type of sizing can be used once a considerable value of feed-in tariff is introduced. On the other hand, the MR with electricity demand has recommended a small size of PEMFC, as appears in Fig. 4, which has the advantage of low operation cost but CO2 emissions have not been signicantly reduced. The same procedure of MR method has been carried out for endterrace house (ETH) and detached house (DH) demands, where the optimum sizes based on heat demand are estimated to be 3.6 kWe and 4.1 kWe, respectively. On the other hand, the optimum sizes based on the electricity demand are 0.7 kWe and 0.3 kWe for ETH and DH demands, respectively. Furthermore, the MR method has been applied to the three types of demand by considering three other types of technology: SE, ICE and SOFC; the results are shown in Table 2. It can be noticed that using electricity demand in MR sizing has given the same results since it does not consider the value of Q. However, using heat demand curves has given different sizes depending on the value of Q. Table 2 shows the results of sizing using the MR method for different CHP units and for three types of demand. 3. Sizing of 3.1. Overview The residential CHP system which has been investigated in this paper consists of a CHP unit and a back-up heater. The CHP unit, which is driven by natural gas, is used to meet the electrical and heat demands. However, if the thermal output does not satisfy the demand, a back-up heater is used. Similarly, when the amount of electrical output from the CHP unit is greater than the demand, the surplus electricity can be exported to the G. Conversely, the G can supply the dwelling with any decit in electricity. In this study, the sizing of a residential CHP system is formulated as a deterministic LP model. CHP systems using linear programming

3.2. Model assumptions The main purpose of the model is to optimally size a residential CHP system, where the size (electrical rating) of a CHP unit and the size (thermal rating) of a back-up heater are determined. As such, the model involves determining optimum values for two decision variables: the size (electrical rating) of the CHP unit (kWe) and the thermal rating of the back-up heater (kWth). However, the thermal rating of the CHP unit will be estimated indirectly since its value depends on the electrical rating and heat to power ratio (Q) of the CHP unit. The two decision variables will be determined according to an objective function to minimize the equivalent annual cost (cEA ). It is assumed that the CHP unit can operate anywhere between 0% and 100% of its rating and that it can ramp up and down at any rate to follow changes in demands. In addition, the CHP system, i.e. the CHP unit and a back-up heater, is assumed to be reliable in that shutdowns are not considered in the model.The required constant values for the model are: specic capital cost of the CHP unit, cC, CHP , (D /kWe ), specic capital cost of the back-up heater, cC, B , (D /kWh ), salvage value of the CHP unit, CHP , (D ), operation and maintenance costs of both CHP unit and back-up heater, m CHP and mB respectively, (D /kWh), prices of natural gas, imported and exported electricity (feed-in tariff), cNG , and , respectively, (D /kWh), hourly end-use electricity and heat demands, Lj and Hj , respectively, (kWh), electrical and thermal efciencies of the CHP unit, e and th , respectively, efciency of the back-up heater, B ,

The model determines the following outputs: optimal design size (electrical rating) of the CHP unit (kWe ),

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

1995

optimal design rating of the back-up heater (kWth ), minimum equivalent annual cost of meeting electricity and heat demands, cEA , (D ), The model uses the following operation variables, which inform the operation strategy of the CHP system: electrical output of CHP unit during the kth hour of the week j and the month i, oel, i, j, k , (kWh), thermal output of back-up heater during the kth hour of the week j and the month i, oth, i, j,k (kWh), imported electricity from the G during the kth hour of the week j and the month i, oim, i,j, k (kWh), exported electricity to the grid during the kth hour of the week j and the month i, oex, i, j, k (kWh). The value of oel, k can vary from zero kWh to the maximum possible electrical output of the CHP unit while the value of oth, k can vary from zero to the maximum possible output of the back-up heater. The value of oex, k can vary from zero when no exporting occurs to the maximum possible electrical output of the CHP unit when there is no demand at all. The value of oim, k can vary from zero when its more desirable to cover all the demand from the CHP unit to the highest possible value of demand, which vary from one dwelling to another. 3.3. Mathematical formulation Sizing of a residential CHP system has been formulated as a generic deterministic LP minimization model. Fig. 5 shows an overview of this model. In order to follow the notations used hereafter, the reader is directed to the nomenclature in Appendix A. 3.3.1. Decision variables To formulate the mathematical model, the decision variables are dened as: x1 = size (electrical rating) of the CHP unit (kWe), x2 = size (thermal rating) of the back-up heater (kWth). 3.3.2. Objective function The objective of the model is to minimize the equivalent annual cost of meeting electricity and heat demands cEA , while meeting given electricity and heat demand proles: min CEA The equivalent annual cost is the sum of the annualized capital cost (cAC ) of the CHP system and the operation cost (cO ). Thus, cEA can be expressed as follows: cEA = cAC + cO where cAC can be calculated using: cAC =
cC LT

In Eq. (3), the coefcients , , = CAC,

CHP

and can be calculated as follows: (4) (5) (6) (7)

CC, CHP CHP LT CHP

= CAC,B = = =

CC,B LTB CHP

CNG +m ne CNG + mB B

Also, the coefcient is the cost of imported electricity (D /kWh), and is the cost of exported electricity (D /kWh). When considering a representative day from each month in a year, nm is 12, nh is the number of hours per day and nd is the number of representative days considered per month, i.e. 1. Thus, the number of hours modelled is the product of nm , nh and nd , i.e. the number of hours using a representative day from each month, which is 288 (12 24 1). Since there are four types of operation variables each hour, the number of operation variables used in the model is 1152 (288 4). When a representative day is used, a weighting factor (wi ) is applied in order to account for the number of days in each month under consideration. Similarly, when considering a representative week, the number of the representative days per month becomes 7. As such, the number of hours modelled is 2016 (12 24 7) and the number of operation variables used in the model is 8066 (2016 4). Furthermore, when a representative week is used, the weighting factor accounts for the number of weeks in each month under consideration. 3.3.3. Constraints The constraints imposed on the LP problem are as follows: The inability of a CHP unit and a back-up boiler to exceed their maximum ratings, Oel,i,j,k x1 0 Oth,i,j,k x2 0 for all values of i, j and k for all values of i, j and k (8) (9)

where i, j and k represent the month, day and hour, respectively. Electricity demand of the house must be met exactly. However, importing and exporting electricity from/to the G is possible. Oel,i,j,k + Oim,i,j,k Oex,i,j,k = Li,j,k for all values of i, j and k (10)

Heat demand must be met exactly and no heat dumping is allowed. Oel,i,j,k Q + Oth,i,j,k = Hi,j,k for all values of i, j and k (11)

(1)

(2)

The number of inequality constraints generated from the four expressions (8)(11) when considering a daily representation of demand, is the product of the number of expressions, the number of hours per day and the number of months per year, i.e. 1152 (4 24 12). Similarly, the number of inequality constraints when considering a weekly representation of demand is 8064 (4 168 12). 3.4. Illustrative examples In order to test the developed LP model, this model has been applied to the same demands described in Section 2.2 in order to investigate the sizing of a CHP system for specic demands in the UK. This analysis represents a nal and complete picture of the CHP systems economics, design and operation for certain residential applications. Physically, the CHP system considered in this study consists of the following components: one CHP unit;

The operation cost includes the annual cost of exported and imported electricity, fuel and maintenance cost. In general notation, the objective function can be expressed as follows:
nm nd nh

min cEA = x1 + x2 +
i=1 j=1 k=1

wi ( oel,i,j,k + oth,i,j,k (3)

+ oim,i,j,k oex,i,j,k )

1996 Table 3 Specications of equipments used in the model. Equipment SE PEM SOFC ICE Back-up heater Capital cost (D /kWe) 1980 2981 5520 866 120

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

e (%) 25 45 50 40 80

Q 2.8 1.11 0.9 1.25

O&M cost (D /kWh) 0.0048 0.018 0.018 0.00888 0.0048

Life time (Years) 15 25 years and 5 years for stack 25 years and 5 years for stack 15 10

Table 4 Results of sizing for different Technology

CHP units and three different types of demand. Demand SDH ETH 0.995 5.835 674.9 0.353 8.230 764.3 0.135 8.500 795.1 2.198 5.875 653.5 DH 1.226 7.172 962.9 0.656 9.978 1085.2 0.358 10.283 1157.2 2.869 7.020 932.2 Fig. 7. Sensitivity analysis of feed-in tariff.

SE

X1 (kWe) X2 (kWth) cEA (D ) X1 (kWe) X2 (kWth) cEA (D ) X1 (kWe) X2 (kWth) cEA (D ) X1 (kWe) X2 (kWth) cEA (D )

0.869 5.351 567.7 0.259 7.495 628.1 0.00 7.783 639.7 1.709 5.646 555.5

PEM

SOFC

ICE

one back-up heater, and a G connection to allow importing and exporting of electricity. Load shifting or load reduction has not been considered in this study because xed tariffs are used but once variable tariffs are available this issue must be considered since it is a valuable tool for reducing costs [10]. Four different CHP technologies have been considered, namely: SE, ICE, SOFC and PEMFC. The basic technical characteristics, specic capital, maintenance and operation costs of each of these candidate technologies are described in Table 3. These values are extracted as the best gures available in the literature [15,1726] (the use of CHP is expected to be in the near future when all prices are going to drop). The central prices of gas and electricity used in this model are based on Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) quarterly energy prices in March 2007. The prices of electricity met by the G, natural gas and exported electricity are considered at a xed rate of 0.0984 D /kWh, 0.0274 D /kWh (based on higher heating value (HHV) of natural gas) and 0.0492 D /kWh, respectively [27]. In reality, the energy tariff assigned to the G would differ from these estimates, and would almost certainly be in a half-hourly time-of-use format

rather than single average values [2]. However, for the purposes of simplicity and to provide a non-supplier-specic picture of G economics, an average single rate tariff is considered to be acceptable. Maintenance is also an operating cost, and is presented in Table 3.

3.5. Results obtained by LP model According to the specications in Table 3, sizing has been carried out for the three different types of demand described in Section 2.2. Each demand has been considered for SE, PEMFC, SOFC and ICE based CHP. Table 4 shows the results of sizing for the three types of demand: SDH, ETH and DH, by considering the four CHP technologies. From Table 4, it can be seen that the size of ICE is the largest among the others since it has the lowest capital cost while the size of SOFC is the lowest one because its capital cost is the highest. It can also be noticed from the table that the demand DH requires a larger size of CHP unit compared to the other two types of demand since it is the highest demand.

Fig. 6. Sensitivity analysis of capital cost.

Fig. 8. Sensitivity analysis of gas price.

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

1997

Fig. 9. Sensitivity analysis of electricity price.

Fig. 10. Sensitivity analysis of electricity demand.

3.6. Sensitivity analysis of the LP models results Sensitivity analysis is a means to understand how variation of the main key parameters would affect the decision of CHP adoption. In this study, sensitivity analysis has been performed on: capital cost of CHP unit, electrical efciency, natural gas price, imported electricity price, and feed-in tariff. The analysis has been performed for PEMFC based on the results obtained from the most optimistic technical and economic projections since it is an emerging technology for residential applications and thus its capital cost is expected to decrease in the near future [1]. Figs. 612 show the impact of change in the main parameters on the size of CHP unit and the value of cEA . All the results below are for the demand DH. However, the other two demands show similar trends when sensitivity analysis has been applied.

Fig. 12. Change in sizing results when a representative day is used instead of a representative week per month.

Fig. 11. Sensitivity analysis of electrical efciency.

3.6.1. Sensitivity analysis of capital cost First of all, sensitivity analysis to capital cost has been considered since this technology is still under development and its capital cost is expected to drop once it is widely adopted [1]. For instance, Lipman et al. [28] expects that the capital cost of the whole PEMFC system, including reformer, will dramatically drop during the timeframe 20102015 to reach 374 D /kWe by the end of this period. Therefore, sensitivity analysis based on capital cost will enable evaluation of a parameter that is likely to change rapidly in the near future. Graphs show that the drop in capital cost has a signicant

1998

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

impact in reducing the cEA and a remarkable impact in increasing the size of CHP unit, where the cEA has dropped by an amount of approximately D 240 while the size of CHP unit has noticeably increased to exceed 6 kWe. Fig. 6 shows the impact of capital cost on cEA value and the rating of the CHP unit. 3.6.2. Sensitivity analysis of feed-in tariff Feed-in tariff has also been considered, since governments have recently increased this value in order to encourage the proliferation of renewable energy and efcient technologies such as wind turbines and CHP. It has been assumed that feed-in tariff could be equivalent to the retail price of electricity. So the sensitivity analysis has been executed on this base. Figures show that using a high feed-in tariff has the potential to signicantly decrease the value of cEA and to increase the size of CHP unit because using a higher feed-in tariff makes using the CHP unit for producing heat more protable. As a result, the size of CHP unit can be increased and the value of cEA can be reduced. Fig. 7 shows the impact of feed-in tariff on cEA value and the size of CHP unit. 3.6.3. Sensitivity analysis of gas price Gas price has also been considered in the sensitivity analysis since the international demand for energy is increasing while the sources of energy are limited and not secure, which can lead to uctuation in the price of gas. The prices have been investigated in both regions: increasing and decreasing, where an increase and a decrease of up to 20% have been investigated. However, the impact of variations in gas price on the calculated size of CHP unit was almost negligible. On the other hand, theses variations have a signicant impact on the value of cEA since natural gas is one of the main operation costs. Fig. 8 shows the impact of gas price on cEA value and the size of CHP unit. 3.6.4. Sensitivity analysis of electricity price Due to an increase in electricity demand, the electricity price can increase. As a result, the effect of increase in electricity price has been investigated as well. However, a very small change in the size of CHP unit can be seen. Fig. 9 shows the impact of electricity price on cEA value and the size of CHP unit. 3.6.5. Sensitivity analysis of electricity demand Electricity demand can increase due to the demand for heat pumps and electric vehicles. Moreover, using measured data from certain houses does not guarantee that these values are a perfect representative of such a demand. As a result, the effect of change in electricity demand on the size of the CHP unit has been investigated. The analysis has shown that an increase in electricity demand of 10% can increase the optimal size of CHP unit by just 50 W and the same for decreasing the demand by 10% where a decrease in size of CHP unit by just 59 W has been noticed. Fig. 10 shows the impact of electricity demand on cEA value and the size of CHP unit. 3.6.6. Sensitivity analysis of electrical efciency Since electrical efciency is the main technical specication of a CHP unit which can affect the impact of the system, a variation in this value has been considered since there is uncertainty regarding this value in the literature. However, it has been concluded that an increase or decrease up to 6% of electrical efciency has a negligible effect on both cEA and the size of CHP unit. Fig. 11 shows the impact of electrical efciency on cEA value and the rating of CHP unit. 3.6.7. Sensitivity analysis of demand representation The representation of heat and electricity demand has been investigated by comparing the results when a representative week
Fig. 13. Ordered values of DH heat demand for different representation of demand.

is used with the results when a representative day is used. This comparison has been carried out for the three different types of demand and over a range of capital costs. The comparison has been made for sizing of PEMFC and back-up heater for the three different demands previously described. Fig. 12 illustrates this comparison while Appendix A shows the results of this comparison. Results show that the cEA value is not very sensitive to the representation of demand as it appears in Fig. 12-c because the total demand for both of the representations was the same. However, it can be seen that the optimum size of back-up heater can be underestimated by approximately 2 kW in some cases, as shown in Fig. 12b. This is because averaging the weekly data to a daily data set reduces the peak value of heat demand. Although the size of CHP unit is less sensitive to the representation of demand in general, it can be sensitive in some cases where an underestimation of the optimum size by approximately 0.75 kWe has been seen in Fig. 12a. The reason for this variation is due to the random nature of averaging data as appears in Fig. 13, which shows the ordering of heat demand for both types of representation against the hours of the year as a percentage. At each capital cost value the optimal size of CHP unit is that size which can cover a certain percentage of heat demand which makes using a CHP unit instead of a back-up heater more cost effective, so the value corresponding to this percentage can be different as appears in Fig. 12. For instance, when the CHP unit can cover a percentage of heat demand of 30%35% of the annual heat demand the corresponding sizes of the CHP unit are almost the same whether either a representative day or a representative week is used, as shown in Fig. 13. On the other hand, when the CHP unit can cover a percentage of heat demand lower than 30% of the annual heat demand, using a representative day leads to a larger size of the CHP being recommended compared to using a representative week. However, when the CHP unit can cover a percentage of heat demand greater than 35% of the annual heat demand, using a representative day results in a smaller size of the CHP being recommended compared to using a representative week, as shown in Fig. 13. As a result, the difference in calculated sizes between a daily or weekly representation can be positive or negative depending on the randomness of heat demand data. Finally, it should be noticed that sensitivity analysis has been carried out based on a certain value of capital cost and specications of CHP unit, which can inform us that some of the key parameters

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

1999

have no signicant impact on the sizing when this value of capital cost is used in combination with this value of feed-in tariff. However, using different combination of lower values of capital cost and higher feed-in tariff could result in a different optimal size of the CHP unit. 4. Discussion Sizing of SE based CHP using the MR method was in the range of 1.001.650 kWe depending on the type of demand. However, when the LP model is applied to the same demands the size of SE based CHP was 0.8501.250 kWe. Similarly, sizing of ICE based CHP using the MR method was 2.4003.700 kWe depending on the type of demand but when the LP model is applied to the same demands the size of ICE based CHP was 1.72.9 kWe. Sizing of PEMFC and SOFC based CHP using the MR method were 2.7004.150 kWe and 3.3005.100 kWe, respectively, depending on the type of demand. Conversely, when the LP model is applied to the same demand the size of PEMFC and SOFC based CHP were 0.6000.700 kWe and 00.400 kWe. These differences between the methods are because LP model considers the capital and operation cost while the MR method does not consider them. Furthermore, the MR method suggests the size that leads to the maximum possible energy that can be covered by the CHP regardless of its protability. On the other hand, the LP model does not suggest a larger size unless it is more protable. Since fuel cells are still under development and are expected to see a drop in their capital cost in future, PEMFC has been investigated under a range of expected capital costs to nd the optimal size at that cost. This analysis has been excuted by the LP model only because the MR method does not have the ability to nd such results. This analysis, as shown in Fig. 6, shows that a drop in capital cost from D 3461 to D 374 can lead to a recommended size of 6.250 kWe instead of 0.656 kWe for the PEMFC. However, it seems that the D 374 capital cost is very optimistic while a D 1200 capital cost is more realistic and is widely expected in the literature. The value of D 1200 capital cost has shown that the recommended size of PEMFC is in the range of 0.9001.800 kWe depending on the type of demand. Similar results would be expected for SOFC when similar values of capital cost is used since it has similar charactristics to PEMFC. The results of sizing PEMFC based on a D 1200 capital cost have been compared to the optimistic current SE and ICE. It has been noticed that PEMFC has the highest value of cEA among the investigated technologies. This is because the analysis has been carried out by considering a feed-in tariff at 50% of retail price. As a result, exporting electricity at a low rate will result in a low value of cEA for PEMFC. This is attributed to PEMFC having the potential to export more electricity than SE and ICE due to the fact that this technology has the highest electrical efeciency and the lowest heat to power ratio. Sensitivity analysis has also shown that introducing an encouraging value of feed-in tariff has a signicant impact on the calculated size of PEMFC. For instance, increasing the feed-in tariff from 50% to 100% of the electricity price has changed the optimal size of PEMFC from 0.656 kWe to 2.884 kWe. Further, this has reduced the value of cEA from D 1085.2 to D 867.8 as illustrated in Section 3.6. On the other hand, sensitivity analysis has shown that

the other variables, electricity demand, electrical efciency, electricity price, and gas price, have only a slight impact on the optimal size of PEMFC. 5. Conclusions In this study, the introduction of CHP units combined with a back-up heater, for typical residential dwellings, has been evaluated. An LP model aiming to determine the most economical residential CHP system, for given electricity and thermal demands, has been developed. This model is capable of determining the optimal size (electrical rating) of the CHP unit and the optimal size (thermal rating) of the back-up heater required for any given residential demand regardless of the type of CHP technology. It can also indirectly determine the thermal rating of the CHP unit as it depends on the electrical rating and the heat to power ratio of the CHP technology type. According to the analysis in this study, the following conclusions can be drawn: - Different CHP technologies can lead to different sizes of CHP unit and back-up heater because each one has different specications from the others such as heat to power ratio and electrical efciency. - A different type of demand entails a different size of CHP unit and a different size of back-up heater. As a result, introducing different sizes of CHP unit is recommended as explained below. - The capital cost of the CHP unit is an essential parameter and can signicantly change the size of the optimal CHP unit. - Introducing an encouraging value of feed-in tariff has the potential to signicantly reduce the cEA value of using CHP systems and to increase the optimal size of CHP units since exporting electricity to the grid will reduce the net cost. - Electricity and heat demands are essential inputs for any sizing model, so using an averaged representative week each month is more reliable than using a representative day, especially for sizing of the back-up heater where an underestimation of approximately 2 kW can occur when a representative day is used instead of a representative week. Results have shown that both the SE and ICE CHP are feasible at optimistic current costs and specication. The recommended sizes according to the LP model for an SE based CHP are in the range of 0.8501.250 kWe while the recommended rating for ICE based CHP is in the range of 1.72.9 kWe depending on the type of demand. On the other hand, the current costs and specications of fuel cell have shown that a very small size is recommended, especially when SOFC is used for a low demand type. However, the expectation for the future of PEMFC is that capital costs will drop to 1200 D /kWe. If this were to happen, the recommended sizes would be in the range of 0.9001.800 kWe depending on the type of demand. Similar results are expected for SOFC but PEMFC is preferred for residential applications for many reasons such as the ability to follow variations in the electrical demand and the ability to start up rapidly [1]. In future studies, the optimization of the operation of residential CHP systems will be investigated, where an improved reduction in operation cost and CO2 emissions are expected.

2000

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001

Appendix A. Nomenclature
Type of variables Decision variables Operation variables Symbol x1 x2 oel, i, j, k oth, i, j, k oim, i, j, k oex, i, j, k cEA cNG cAC cC cC, CHP cC, B
CHP

Description Size (rating) of CHP unit Size (rating) of back-up heater Electrical output of CHP unit during the kth hour of the week j and the month i Thermal output of back-up heater during the kth hour of the week j and the month i Imported electricity from the G during the kth hour of the week j and the month i exported electricity to the grid during the kth hour of the week j and the month i Equivalent annual cost Annualized capital cost per kWe of installed CHP unit Annualized capital cost per kWth of installed back-up heater Cost of a kWh electricity produced by CHP unit Cost of a kWh heat produced by back-up heater Cost of an imported kWh of electricity Cost of an exported kWh of electricity Cost of a kWh of natural gas Annualised capital cost Capital cost Specic capital cost of CHP Specic capital cost of back-up heater Salvage value Salvage value of CHP Operation cost including maintenance Operation and maintenance cost per kWh of CHP electrical output Operation and maintenance cost per kWh of back-up heater thermal output Electricity demand in time period j Thermal demand in time period j Electrical efciency of CHP unit Thermal efciency of CHP unit Efciency of back-up heater Heat to power ratio of CHP unit Description Life time Expected life time of CHP Expected life time of back-up heater A weight factor for the number of weeks or days in the month m Number of months in a year Number of representative days per month or per week according to type of demand representation Number of hours in a day

Units kWe kWth kWh kWh kWh kWh D D /kWe D /kWth D /kWh D /kWh D /kWh D /kWh D /kWh D D D /kWe D /kWth D D /kWe D D /kWh D /kWh kWh kWh

Costs

CO m CHP mB Lj Hj Technical inputs e th B Q Symbol LT LT CHP LTB wm nm nd nd

Type of variables Others

Units Years Years Years

References
[1] O. Shaneb, P. Taylor, An evaluation of integrated fuel cell and energy storage systems for residential applications, in: Proceedings of the 44th International Universities Power Engineering Conference, Glasgow, UK, 2009. [2] H. Ren, W. Gao, Y. Ruan, Optimal sizing for residential CHP system, Applied Thermal Engineering 28 (56) (2008) 514523. [3] D. Haeseldonckx, L. Peeters, L. Helsen, W. Dhaeseleer, The impact of thermal storage on the operational behaviour of residential CHP facilities and the overall CO2 emissions, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews 11 (6) (2007) 12271243. [4] X.Q. Kong, R.Z. Wang, X.H. Huang, Energy optimization model for a CCHP system with available gas turbines, Applied Thermal Engineering 25 (2-3) (2005) 377391. [5] H.J. Ehmke, Size optimization for cogeneration plants, Energy 15 (1) (1990) 3544. [6] R. Yokoyama, K. Ito, Y. Matsumoto, Optimal sizing of a gas turbine cogeneration plant in consideration of its operational strategy, Transactions of the ASME 116 (1) (1994) 3238. [7] B. Zhang, W. Long, An optimal sizing method for cogeneration plants, Energy and Buildings 38 (3) (2006) 189195. [8] M. Kim, Y.J. Sohn, W.Y. Lee, C.S. Kim, Fuzzy control based engine sizing optimization for a fuel cell/battery hybrid mini-bus, Journal of Power Sources 178 (2008) 706710. [9] H. Yang, W. Zhou, L. Lu, Z. Fang, Optimal sizing method for stand-alone hybrid solar-wind system with LPSP technology by using genetic algorithm, Solar Energy 82 (2008) 354367. [10] A.D. Hawkes, M.A. Leach, Modelling high level system design and unit commitment for a micro grid, Applied Energy 86 (2009) 12531265. [11] L. Wenyuan, A successive linear programming model for real-time economic power dispatch with security, Electric Power Systems Research 13 (3) (1987) 225233. [12] E. Sandgren, Structural design optimization for latitude by nonlinear goal programming, Computers & Structures 33 (6) (1989) 13951402.

[13] N.A. Tibi, H. Arman, A linear programming model to optimize the decision-making to managing cogeneration system, Clean Technologies and Environmental Policy 9 (3) (2007) 16189558. [14] G. Sundberg, D. Henning, Investments in combined heat and power plants: inuence of fuel price on cost minimized operation, Energy Conversions and Management 43 (5) (2002) 639650. [15] S. Gamou, R.K. Yokoyama, Optimal unit sizing of cogeneration systems in consideration of uncertain energy demands as continuous random variables, Energy Conversion and Management 43 (912) (2002) 13491361. [16] UK Energy Research Centre, website, http://data.ukedc.rl.ac.uk/cgibin/dataset catalogue/view.cgi.py?id=9, last accessed 01/10/2009. [17] H. Ren, W. Gao, W. Zhou, K. Nakagami, Multi-criteria evaluation for the optimal adoption of distributed residential energy systems in Japan, Energy Policy 37 (12) (2009) 54845493. [18] R. Hashemi, A developed ofine model for optimal operation of combined heating and cooling and power systems, Energy conversion, IEEE transactions 24 (1) (2009) 222229. [19] A. Bernard (2008), Micro combined heat and power operating on renewable energy for residential building. Ph.D. thesis Energtique, CEP-Centre Energtique et Procds. [20] H.I. Onovwiona, V.I. Ugursal, Residential cogeneration systems: review of the current technology, Renewable & Sustainable Energy Reviews 10 (2006) 389431. [21] K. Alanne, A. Saari, A. Salo, Comparative analysis of the life-cycle costs of residential energy supply technologies, Nordic Journal of Surveying and Real Estate 4 (1) (2007) 2344. [22] E. Ben Maalla, P.L. Kunsch, Simulation of micro-CHP diffusion by means of system dynamics, Energy Policy 36 (7) (2008) 23082319. [23] M.E. Corria, V.M. Cobas, E.S. Lora, Perspectives of Stirling engines use for distributed generation in Brazil, Energy Policy 34 (18) (2006) 34023408. [24] V. Kuhn, J. Kleme , I. Bulatov, C.H.P. Micro, Overview of selected technologies, s products and eld test results, Applied Thermal Engineering 28 (16) (2008) 20392048.

O.A. Shaneb et al. / Energy and Buildings 43 (2011) 19912001 [25] C. Ghler, M. Gwerder, R. Lamon, J. Tdtli, Optimal control of cogeneration building energy systems, in: Proceedings of Clima 2007-WellBeing Indoors, Helsinki, 1014 June 2007, 2007. [26] A. Faber, M. Valente, P. Janssen, K. Frenken, Domestic micro-cogeneration in the Netherlands: an agentbased demand model for technology diffusion, in: DIME International Conference on Innovation, sustainability and policy, Bordeaux, 1113 September, 2008.

2001

[27] A.D. Hawkes, M.A. Leach, On policy instruments for support of micro combined heat and power, Energy Policy 36 (2008) 29732982. [28] T.E. Lipman, J.L. Edwards, D.M. Kammen, Fuel cell system economics: comparing the costs of generating power with stationary and motor vehicle PEM fuel cell systems, Energy Policy 32 (1) (2004) 101125.