Market-based Control of Air-Conditioning Loads with Switching Constraints for Providing Ancillary Services
For grid operators and aggregators, this enables distributed ACLs to participate in ancillary services while protecting device longevity and user privacy.
This paper proposes market-based control strategies for air-conditioning loads to provide ancillary services, achieving strict lockout time constraints and reduced switching frequency without increasing communication or computational costs.
Air-conditioning loads (ACLs) are among the most promising demand side resources for their thermal storage capacity and fast response potential. This paper adopts the principle of market-based control (MBC) for the ACLs to participate in the ancillary services. The MBC method is suitable for the control of distributed ACLs because it can satisfy diversified requirements, reduce the communication bandwidth and protect users' privacy. The modified bidding and clearing strategies proposed in this paper makes it possible to adjust the switching frequency and strictly satisfy the lockout time constraint for mechanical wear reduction and device protection, without increasing the communication traffic and computational cost of the control center. The performance of the ACL cluster in two typical ancillary services is studied to demonstrate the effect of the proposed method. The case studies also investigate how the control parameters affect the response performance, comfort level and switching frequency.