Automated Demand Response Virtual Load Aggregation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current energy management systems face challenges in balancing supply and demand efficiently, leading to instability and inefficiencies in electricity and natural gas grids due to lack of flexible power control and optimization of energy demand in response to market needs.
Innovation Solution
An automated demand-response system that aggregates loads into a virtual load, allowing for optimized power flexibility through remote control and scheduling, using communication networks to adjust energy consumption in real-time to match supply and demand dynamics.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Adaptability or versatility
If automated demand-response system aggregates loads into virtual load with remote control, then power flexibility and adaptability improve, but device complexity increases
Solution Approach 1:
The patent aggregates multiple individual loads into a single virtual load entity that can be remotely controlled and optimized as one unified system. This merging approach enables centralized demand-response management, allowing the system to achieve power flexibility through aggregate load adjustment while simplifying the control interface despite the underlying complexity of managing multiple distributed loads.
Solution Approach 2:
The virtual load acts as an intermediary layer between the energy management system and individual physical loads. This abstraction layer enables remote control and optimization without directly managing each individual load's complexity, allowing demand-response actions to be implemented through the virtual load while maintaining simplicity in the control system's interface and operations.
2Speed
If real-time communication networks are used to adjust energy consumption, then responsiveness and speed improve, but loss of information and system complexity increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system implements feedback mechanisms where communication networks transmit energy consumption data and control signals in real-time between the energy management system and loads. This feedback loop enables continuous monitoring and adjustment of power consumption, ensuring responsiveness to demand changes while maintaining data integrity through established communication protocols that prevent information loss during transmission.
3Productivity
If automated control adjusts power consumption to match supply-demand dynamics, then productivity and energy efficiency improve, but device complexity and difficulty of operation increase
Solution Approach 1:
The automated demand-response system enables loads to self-adjust their power consumption based on pre-configured parameters and real-time supply-demand conditions. The virtual load automatically implements demand-response actions without requiring manual intervention, allowing the system to optimize energy management efficiency autonomously while maintaining operational simplicity for end users who do not need to understand the underlying complex control mechanisms.
Data Source
AI summary
The power flexibility of energy loads is maximized using a value function for each load and outputting optimal control parameters. Loads are aggregated into a virtual load by maximizing a global value function. The solution yields a dispatch function providing: a percentage of energy for each individual load, a time-varying power level for each load, and control parameters and values. An economic term represents the value of the power flexibility to different players. A user interface includes for each time interval upper and lower bounds representing respectively the maximum power that may be reduced to the virtual load and the maximum power that may be consumed. A trader modifies an energy level in a time interval relative to the reference curve for the virtual load. Automatically, energy compensation for other intervals and recalculation of upper and lower boundaries occurs. The energy schedule for the virtual load is distributed to the actual loads.