The optimisation of intermittent heating for variable efficiency heating systems

The problem of minimising the heat input into an intermittently heated building can be transformed to a standard problem in mathematical programming. Previous limitations of this transformation to systems with constant efficiency are removed and the general formulation of the problem for a system with a monotonically varying efficiency is discussed. As an example of the technique, the optimal intermittent heating strategy for an electric heat pump with resistive heating booster is derived.