We explore methods to use thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs), such aswater heaters and air conditioners, to provide ancillary services by assistingin balancing generation and load. We show that by adding simple imbeddedinstructions and a small amount of memory to temperature controllers of TCLs,it is possible to design open-loop control algorithms capable of creatingshort-term pulses of demand response without unwanted power oscillationsassociated with temporary synchronization of the TCL dynamics. By moving asmall amount of intelligence to each of the end point TCL devices, we are ableto leverage our knowledge of the time dynamics of TCLs to shape the demandresponse pulses for different power system applications. A significant benefitof our open-loop method is the reduction from two-way to one-way broadcastcommunication which also eliminates many basic consumer privacy issues. In thiswork, we focus on developing the algorithms to generate a set of fundamentalpulse shapes that can subsequently be used to create demand response witharbitrary profiles. Demand response control methods, such as the one developedhere, open the door to fast, nonperturbative control of large aggregations ofTCLs.
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