Extracting expedient short term services from Homogeneous Group of Thermostatically Controlled Loads

摘要

Using a Homogeneous Control Group (Hom-CG) of Thermostatically Controlled Loads (TCLs) to extract short-term system-level services involves a serious challenging problem. Similar device characteristics forces a large number of devices to operate in synchronized patterns when subjected to common dispatch signals. Therefore, power system operators have to deal with subsequent large aggregated dynamic responses that may result in serious stability issues. This paper thus proposes a new load control mechanism for suppressing power oscillations that may result after manipulating the temperature set-point. The control methodology requires adopting advanced thermostat, which is able to adjust device's temperature set-point and deadband bounds in response to receiving the dispatching signals. The control signals could either be centralized or based on local measurements from a frequency-sensing devices. Adopting such a new control architecture will guarantee converting any group of TCLs to an eligible control group able to provide an optimal system-level ancillary services while preserving service quality within acceptable limits. The control scheme efficiency has been verified by performing several Monte-Carlo simulations for a set of 100,000 Hom-CG of TCLs representing a residential air conditioners. The simulations were performed using the MATLAB (R2015a) platform.