Coordinating regulation and demand response in electric power grids: direct and price-based tracking using multirate economic model predictive control

We propose a framework for reducing demand-supply imbalances in the grid, by jointly controlling both the supply-side electric power regulation together with the demand-side energy consumption by residential and commercial consumers demand response. We focus on performance improvements that arise from the complementary dynamics: regulation allows for frequent control updates but suffers from slower dynamics; demand response has faster dynamics but does not allow as frequent control updates. We propose a multi-rate model predictive control (MPC) approach for coordinating the two services, and we refer to this coordinator as an aggregator. Multi-rate MPC captures the varying dynamics and update rates, and nonlinearities due to saturation and ramp rate limits, and a total variation constraint limits the switching of the demand response signal. Our approach can operate with both direct reference or indirect market price based imbalance signal. Numerical examples are presented to show the efficacy of this joint control approach.

Citation

Hindi, H.; Greene, D. H.; Laventall, C. Coordinating regulation and demand response in electric power grids: direct and price-based tracking using multirate economic model predictive control. Control and Optimization Theory for Electric Smart Grids, edited by A. Chakrabortty and M. D. Ili. To be published by Springer in December 2011.