I-Corps: Fast Timescale Residential Demand Response

这个I-Corps项目的更广泛影响/商业潜力是开发软件技术，使住宅电力负荷能够为电力系统提供快速服务。这些服务提高了电力的可靠性，也可能帮助电网吸收更多的可再生能源，减少发电和输电对环境的影响。近期应用包括快速的时间尺度负荷削减，公用事业公司根据特定时期总需求的公用事业部分支付传输成本。长期应用包括电力分配网络的容量升级延迟，批发市场的频率调节资源，减少可再生能源弃电，提供斜坡能力等等。使用电力负荷来提供这些服务可能比建造/使用其他资源（如传统的发电、输电、配电设备或能源储存）更具成本效益。这个I-Corps项目是探索控制算法的转换，使基于压缩机的住宅电力负荷（例如，空调）能够快速循环。在快速时间尺度上的快速循环允许这些负载的聚合，通过改变其总功耗为电力系统提供服务，但目前这是困难的，因为快速开/关循环可能会损坏设备。现有的公司只是避免控制这些设备来提供需要这种切换信号速度的服务。提出的新型控制算法避免了损坏设备，同时实现了对这些快速时间尺度（例如每秒）的控制。此外，估计和推理策略可以在不需要普及的高分辨率传感和通信网络的情况下实现控制，从而降低控制成本。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The broader impact/commercial potential of this I-Corps project is the development of software technology enabling residential electric loads to provide fast services to the power systems. These services improve electricity reliability and also may help the grid incorporate more renewable energy, reducing the environmental impact of electricity generation and delivery. Near-term applications include fast timescale load reductions utilities paying for transmission costs based on a utility’s portion of the total demand during specific periods. Longer-term applications include capacity upgrade deferments in electricity distribution networks, frequency regulation resources in wholesale markets, reduction of renewable energy curtailment, providing ramping capability, and so on. Using electric loads to provide these services may be more cost-effective than building/using other resources such as traditional generation, transmission, or distribution equipment, or energy storage. This I-Corps project is to explore translation of control algorithms that enable rapid cycling of residential compressor-based electric loads (e.g., air conditioners). Rapid cycling on fast timescales allows aggregations of these loads to provide services to power systems through changes in their total power consumption, but currently this is difficult as rapid on/off cycling can damage the equipment. Existing companies simply avoid controlling these devices for services that require this speed of switching signals. The proposed novel control algorithms avoid damaging the equipment while enabling control on these fast timescales (e.g., every second). In addition, estimation and inference strategies can enable control without the need for pervasive high-resolution sensing and communication networks, reducing the cost of control.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.