A Closed-Loop Control Strategy for Air Conditioning Loads to Participate in Demand Response

Xiaoqing Hu, Beibei Wang, Shengchun Yang, Taylor Short and Lei Zhou
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Xiaoqing Hu: Department of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Beibei Wang: Department of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China
Shengchun Yang: China Electric Power Research Institute, Nanjing 210003, China
Taylor Short: Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, University of Tennessee, Knoxville, TN 37996, USA
Lei Zhou: Department of Electrical Engineering, Southeast University, Nanjing 210096, China

Energies, 2015, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-32

Abstract: Thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs), such as air conditioners (ACs), are important demand response resources—they have a certain heat storage capacity. A change in the operating status of an air conditioner in a small range will not noticeably affect the users’ comfort level. Load control of TCLs is considered to be equivalent to a power plant of the same capacity in effect, and it can significantly reduce the system pressure to peak load shift. The thermodynamic model of air conditioning can be used to study the aggregate power of a number of ACs that respond to the step signal of a temperature set point. This paper analyzes the influence of the parameters of each AC in the group to the indoor temperature and the total load, and derives a simplified control model based on the two order linear time invariant transfer function. Then, the stability of the model and designs its Proportional-Integral-Differential (PID) controller based on the particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm is also studied. The case study presented in this paper simulates both scenarios of constant ambient temperature and changing ambient temperature to verify the proposed transfer function model and control strategy can closely track the reference peak load shifting curves. The study also demonstrates minimal changes in the indoor temperature and the users’ comfort level.

Keywords: demand response; thermostatically controlled loads; air conditioning; closed-loop control; peak load shifting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2015
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (3)

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