Abstract
This paper presnts a controller for the heat capacity of thermal storage systems using off-peak electricity which is composed of an identifier using neural networks and a storage time adjuster in order to store exactly the required thermal energy without loss. Since thermal storage systems have nonlinear characteristics and large time constant, even if we predict the heating load accurately, it is very difficult to store exactly the required thermal energy. Thus, in the neural network for the identifier, the adaptive learning rate for high learning speed and bit inputs based on state changes of thermal storage power source are used. Also a hardware for the controller using a microprocessor is developed. The performance of the proposed controller is shown by experiment.
