9,042 research outputs found
Emission-aware Energy Storage Scheduling for a Greener Grid
Reducing our reliance on carbon-intensive energy sources is vital for
reducing the carbon footprint of the electric grid. Although the grid is seeing
increasing deployments of clean, renewable sources of energy, a significant
portion of the grid demand is still met using traditional carbon-intensive
energy sources. In this paper, we study the problem of using energy storage
deployed in the grid to reduce the grid's carbon emissions. While energy
storage has previously been used for grid optimizations such as peak shaving
and smoothing intermittent sources, our insight is to use distributed storage
to enable utilities to reduce their reliance on their less efficient and most
carbon-intensive power plants and thereby reduce their overall emission
footprint. We formulate the problem of emission-aware scheduling of distributed
energy storage as an optimization problem, and use a robust optimization
approach that is well-suited for handling the uncertainty in load predictions,
especially in the presence of intermittent renewables such as solar and wind.
We evaluate our approach using a state of the art neural network load
forecasting technique and real load traces from a distribution grid with 1,341
homes. Our results show a reduction of >0.5 million kg in annual carbon
emissions -- equivalent to a drop of 23.3% in our electric grid emissions.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figure, This paper will appear in the Proceedings of the
ACM International Conference on Future Energy Systems (e-Energy 20) June
2020, Australi
Short-term Self-Scheduling of Virtual Energy Hub Plant within Thermal Energy Market
Multicarrier energy systems create new challenges as well as opportunities in future energy systems. One of these challenges is the interaction among multiple energy systems and energy hubs in different energy markets. By the advent of the local thermal energy market in many countries, energy hubs' scheduling becomes more prominent. In this article, a new approach to energy hubs' scheduling is offered, called virtual energy hub (VEH). The proposed concept of the energy hub, which is named as the VEH in this article, is referred to as an architecture based on the energy hub concept beside the proposed self-scheduling approach. The VEH is operated based on the different energy carriers and facilities as well as maximizes its revenue by participating in the various local energy markets. The proposed VEH optimizes its revenue from participating in the electrical and thermal energy markets and by examining both local markets. Participation of a player in the energy markets by using the integrated point of view can be reached to a higher benefit and optimal operation of the facilities in comparison with independent energy systems. In a competitive energy market, a VEH optimizes its self-scheduling problem in order to maximize its benefit considering uncertainties related to renewable resources. To handle the problem under uncertainty, a nonprobabilistic information gap method is implemented in this study. The proposed model enables the VEH to pursue two different strategies concerning uncertainties, namely risk-averse strategy and risk-seeker strategy. For effective participation of the renewable-based VEH plant in the local energy market, a compressed air energy storage unit is used as a solution for the volatility of the wind power generation. Finally, the proposed model is applied to a test case, and the numerical results validate the proposed approach
Customer Engagement Plans for Peak Load Reduction in Residential Smart Grids
In this paper, we propose and study the effectiveness of customer engagement
plans that clearly specify the amount of intervention in customer's load
settings by the grid operator for peak load reduction. We suggest two different
types of plans, including Constant Deviation Plans (CDPs) and Proportional
Deviation Plans (PDPs). We define an adjustable reference temperature for both
CDPs and PDPs to limit the output temperature of each thermostat load and to
control the number of devices eligible to participate in Demand Response
Program (DRP). We model thermostat loads as power throttling devices and design
algorithms to evaluate the impact of power throttling states and plan
parameters on peak load reduction. Based on the simulation results, we
recommend PDPs to the customers of a residential community with variable
thermostat set point preferences, while CDPs are suitable for customers with
similar thermostat set point preferences. If thermostat loads have multiple
power throttling states, customer engagement plans with less temperature
deviations from thermostat set points are recommended. Contrary to classical
ON/OFF control, higher temperature deviations are required to achieve similar
amount of peak load reduction. Several other interesting tradeoffs and useful
guidelines for designing mutually beneficial incentives for both the grid
operator and customers can also be identified
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