[OpenTRV-interest] Weather compensation (was: Boiler controller (Was: The shop is open!))

[Damon Hart-Davis]

Hi,

> On 22 Dec 2016, at 12:48, John <john at stumbles.org.uk> wrote:
> 
> Hi Niall
> 
> On 22/12/16 11:50, Niall Robinson wrote:
> 
>> Secondly, one idea is to use the forecast temperature to preemptively
>> adjust the house. You would need to parameterise the heat capacity of
>> the house but I think an algorithm might be able to learn that over
>> time. Just an idea - not sure if it would work.
> 
> I think (as Tim Small has remarked) that you're describing weather compensation, which is increasingly widely available on modern boilers and is possibly going to be required in a coming revision of Part L of the Building Regulations.

I have always assumed that weather compensation is simply the part that adjusts settings (eg flow temperature) based on current external temperature, ie reactively.

There are opportunities to do more than that with the forecast, getting heat into the house early/late/whatevs if the next little while is going to be especially hot/cold/windy depending on the thermal time constant of your house.  Potentially especially good for those with (say) UFH for example.

Note that the compulsory compensation suggestion is out for government consultation right now, and I voted against it given the long payback times and the other rather lower hanging fruit (ie better places to spend the money to save energy first), and even against compulsory timers since most people don’t use them:

https://beisgovuk.citizenspace.com/heat/heat-in-buildings-online-consultation/consultation/

Guess what I thought *would* be a good solution that policy should support?  B^>

Rgds

Damon