Optimal Power Consumption for Demand Response of Thermostatically Controlled Loads

TL;DR

This paper develops an optimal control framework for demand response in thermostatically controlled loads, enabling load serving entities to minimize energy costs while respecting individual comfort constraints.

Contribution

It introduces a novel optimal control approach for aggregate power management of thermostatic loads considering forecast data and comfort constraints.

Findings

Optimal control can effectively minimize energy procurement costs.

The approach respects individual load comfort ranges.

Numerical simulations demonstrate practical demand response strategies.

Abstract

We consider the problem of determining the optimal aggregate power consumption of a population of thermostatically controlled loads. This is motivated by the problem of synthesizing the demand response for a load serving entity (LSE) serving a population of such customers. We show how the LSE can opportunistically design the aggregate reference consumption to minimize its energy procurement cost, given day-ahead price, load and ambient temperature forecasts, while respecting each individual load's comfort range constraints. The resulting synthesis problem is shown to be amenable to optimal control techniques, but computationally difficult otherwise. Numerical simulations elucidate how the LSE can use the optimal aggregate power consumption trajectory thus computed, for the purpose of demand response.