The authors demonstrate that an electric heating system using a mix of storage and direct acting heaters can operate with complex tariffs to provide improved thermal comfort at reduced cost to the user and the generation and distribution companies. The development of the novel control method for the mixed mode system was enabled by the development of detailed computer simulations of the household environment using a modular simulation language. The validated simulation model, coupled with an evaluation of the system in two test houses, has demonstrated that the heating system can respond to customers' heating requirements. Furthermore, the system can be set up without accurate knowledge of the thermal performance of the building.
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