RWE wind heating systems

The "RWE Windheizung" research project is a market test with 50 customers of RWE Vertrieb AG for determining the technical and economic maturity of an innovative charging model for electric storage heaters and in the long term also for heat pumps. In this model, fluctuating green electricity peaks mainly generated from wind and solar energy, for instance, are integrated into the charging process of electric storage heaters in case of certain price signals.

Today's predetermined charging times of electric storage heaters are done away with in this way and the integration of renewables-based electricity into the power grid is improved. The participating customers benefit from increased comfort in heat supply and lower carbon emissions. RWE Effizienz GmbH acts as aggregator. We pool and market the free capacity of the heaters on the electricity market. In conjunction with Siemens AG and tekmar GmbH we test the operational readiness of this concept for the mass market.

Broad market penetration requires that the necessary additional investments pay off for everyone involved and that an appropriate legal framework be established. The R&D project is to provide significant results in this respect as well. Our aim is to obtain concrete results on load management in the end-use customer segment by the end of the 2011/12 heating period.