- Title
- Dynamic modelling and control of heterogeneous populations of thermostatically controlled loads
- Creator
- Perfumo, Cristian Norberto
- Relation
- University of Newcastle Research Higher Degree Thesis
- Resource Type
- thesis
- Date
- 2013
- Description
- Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)
- Description
- The biggest problem faced by many electricity networks is the ever-increasing peak demand. Instead of the traditional (and expensive) approach of building more supply infrastructure, there is growing interest in solving this problem from the demand side, making better use of already existing resources. Air conditioners (ACs) and other thermostatically-controlled loads have great potential for demand-side services because of their rapid response and thermal inertia. In fact, many trials throughout the world demonstrate the benefits of externally controlling these types of loads. Feedback control of the aggregate power demand of a population of ACs can achieve higher performance than the open-loop approaches normally trialled. Unfortunately, few existing models satisfy the adequate trade-off between simplicity and descriptiveness required by many control design tools. This thesis focuses on dynamic modelling and feedback control of the aggregate power demand of heterogeneous populations of ACs. We derive analytical models of the aggregate behaviour directly from the physical properties of the population. One such model (that is both low-complexity and descriptive) is combined with model-based control design techniques to develop two methodologies to parametrise a feedback controller directly from the parameters of the population. The resulting controllers from both methodologies display high performance manipulating the aggregate power demand of the devices to follow an array of desirable reference power signals. We then present a case study which emulates a population of ACs in a small residential area in Australia and uses actual power and temperature measurements. We demonstrate the feasibility and applications of feedback control of the aggregate demand of the ACs without the need for two-way communications at each device. Manipulating populations of ACs with the techniques presented in this thesis can help delay expensive infrastructure upgrades, reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase the share of renewable energy in the electricity market.
- Subject
- energy management; demand response; modelling and control; thermostatically controlled loads; direct load control
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/1959.13/939115
- Identifier
- uon:12739
- Rights
- Copyright 2013 Cristian Norberto Perfumo
- Language
- eng
- Full Text
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