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The utilization of aggregated demand-side flexibility via demand response (DR) has become a promising pathway for the integration of renewable energy resources in power systems. Nowadays, there are several management strategies for DR such as the price-based transactive control strategies. However, many of such existing price-based control strategies neglect the physics and operational constraints of the underlying distribution networks when computing the price, raising concerns regarding their theoretical and practical values. This paper studies this issue and investigates optimal DR (ODR) by incorporating the distribution locational marginal price (DLMP). In particular, we discuss DR in connection with DLMPs and propose a multi-period bilevel optimization problem to find the ODR strategy. The objective is to minimize the peak load, load fluctuation, and payments of load aggregators. In addition, a robust bilevel ODR model is formulated to provide a robust ODR strategy while minimizing operating costs under the worst-case realization of uncertainties; this mitigates the impact of forecasting errors on renewable energy resources. Then, we propose an efficient solution approach by employing the Karush-Kuhn-Tucker conditions and strong duality. Simulation results are presented to illustrate the mutual impacts of the interaction between DR and DLMP and the benefits of the robust ODR strategy. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Electric water heaters represent 14% of the electricity consumption in residential buildings. An average household in the United States (U.S.) spends about USD 400–600 (0.45 ¢/L–0.68 ¢/L) on water heating every year. In this context, water heaters are often considered as a valuable asset for Demand Response (DR) and building energy management system (BEMS) applications. To this end, this study proposes a model-free deep reinforcement learning (RL) approach that aims to minimize the electricity cost of a water heater under a time-of-use (TOU) electricity pricing policy by only using standard DR commands. In this approach, a set of RL agents, with different look ahead periods, were trained using the deep Q-networks (DQN) algorithm and their performance was tested on an unseen pair of price and hot water usage profiles. The testing results showed that the RL agents can help save electricity cost in the range of 19% to 35% compared to the baseline operation without causing any discomfort to end users. Additionally, the RL agents outperformed rule-based and model predictive control (MPC)-based controllers and achieved comparable performance to optimization-based control. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Intelligent Heating, Ventilation, and Air Conditioning (HVAC) control using deep reinforcement learning (DRL) has recently gained a lot of attention due to its ability to optimally control the complex behavior of the HVAC system. However, more exploration is needed on understanding the adaptability challenges that the DRL agent could face during the deployment phase. Using online learning for such applications is not realistic due to the long learning period and likely poor comfort control during the learning process. Alternatively, DRL can be pre-trained using a building model prior to deployment. However, developing an accurate building model for every house and deploying a pre-trained DRL model for HVAC control would not be cost-effective. In this study, we focus on evaluating the ability of DRL-based HVAC control to provide cost savings when pre-trained on one building model and deployed on different house models with varying user comforts. We observed around 30% of cost reduction by pre-trained model over baseline when validated in a simulation environment and achieved up to 21% cost reduction when deployed in the real house. This finding provides experimental evidence that the pre-trained DRL has the potential to adapt to different house environments and comfort settings. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To effectively engage demand-side and distributed energy resources (DERs) for dynamically maintaining the electric power balance, the challenges of controlling and coordinating building equipment and DERs on a large scale must be overcome. Although several control techniques have been proposed in the literature, a significant obstacle to applying these techniques in practice is having access to an effective testing platform. Performing tests at scale using real equipment is impractical, so simulation offers the only viable route to developmental testing at scales of practical interest. Existing power-grid testbeds are unable to model individual residential end-use devices for developing detailed control formulations for responsive loads and DERs. Furthermore, they cannot simulate the control and communications at subminute timescales. To address these issues, this paper presents a novel power-grid simulation testbed for transactive energy management systems. Detailed models of primary home appliances (e.g., heating and cooling systems, water heaters, photovoltaic panels, energy storage systems) are provided to simulate realistic load behaviors in response to environmental parameters and control commands. The proposed testbed incorporates software as it will be deployed, and enables deployable software to interact with various building equipment models for end-to-end performance evaluation at scale. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Buildings consume 73% of electricity produced in the United States and, currently, they are largely passive participants in the electric grid. However, the flexibility in building loads can be exploited to provide ancillary services to enhance the grid reliability. In this paper, we investigate two control strategies that allow Heating, Ventilation and Air-Conditioning (HVAC) systems in commercial and residential buildings to provide frequency regulation services to the grid while maintaining occupants comfort. The first optimal control strategy is based on model predictive control acting on a variable air volume HVAC system (continuously variable HVAC load), which is available in large commercial buildings. The second strategy is rule-based control acting on an aggregate of on/off HVAC systems, which are available in residential buildings in addition to many small to medium size commercial buildings. Hardware constraints that include limiting the switching between the different states for on/off HVAC units to maintain their lifetimes are considered. Simulations illustrate that the proposed control strategies provide frequency regulation to the grid, without affecting the indoor climate significantly. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Residential buildings are currently equipped with energy production facilities, e.g., solar rooftops and batteries, which in conjunction with smart meters, can function as smart energy hubs coordinating the loads and the resources in an optimal manner. This paper presents a mathematical model for the optimal energy management of a residential building and proposes a centralized energy management system (CEMS) framework for off-grid operation. The model of each component of the hub is integrated within the CEMS. The optimal decisions are determined in real-time by considering these models with realistic parameter settings and customer preferences. Model predictive control (MPC) is used to adapt the optimal decisions on a receding horizon to account for the deviations in the system inputs. Simulation results are presented to demonstrate the feasibility and effectiveness of the proposed CEMS framework. Results show that the proposed CEMS can reduce the energy cost and energy consumption of the customers by approximately 17% and 8%, respectively, over a day. Using the proposed CEMS, the total charging cycles of the ESS were reduced by more than 50% in a day. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]