Demand Response using Control of Flexible Load to Overcome Overloading in Power Networks

Abstract

Many areas of Pakistan face several hours of load shedding on daily basis. While the generation capacity is greater than the current demand, the transmission networks lack the capability of transmitting the required power. Since upgradation of the networks is a costly and time-taking process, demand response techniques must be incorporated into the system to create a demand-supply equilibrium. Demand Response (DR) uses information ex change in addition to the power flow between the consumer and electricity providers. In this work we exploit some flexible appliances such as UPSbattery setups and Air Conditioning (AC) to implement a new DR technique. The idea is to remotely control charging/discharging schedule of UPS-battery setups in every house. Also the operation of AC units would be controlled remotely in such a way that at any time only that amount of ACs is turned on which can be handled by the grid while also keeping the consumers comfort in view. Although the target of this work is the residential sector of Pakistan but it would also be applicable to commercial buildings. The aggregated effect of the proposed technique results in a much smaller load on the grid and hence load shedding can be avoided. The aim of the project is to demonstrate that with careful controlling strategy for above mentioned flexible appliances, the consumption of a particular population can be reduced without compromising the normal consumption pattern. We have used Model Predictive Control to help optimize the operation of the selected appliances under some operational constraints. We first try to reduce the peaks by optimizing just the battery setups operation. Afterwards, peaks are reduced by optimizing ACs’ operation alone. Finally we try to reduce the system overloading by considering both UPS-battery setups as well as ACs. Simulation results show that the final technique yields the best results.