Duck Curve Aware Dynamic Pricing and Battery Scheduling Strategy Using Reinforcement Learning

The duck curve is becoming a global problem in energy technology due to the rapid increase in solar power adoption and the rise of prosumers. To address this issue, a resource aggregator (RA) has emerged to provide flexible solutions through aggregating the prosumers and demand response such as dynamic pricing. This paper proposes an optimal strategy for the RA that dispatches dynamic pricing to the prosumers and leverages the battery system at both RA and prosumer levels. The proposed method is based on a model-free deep reinforcement learning (DRL) algorithm to optimize each prosumer’s retail prices and schedule usage of the RA’s battery power station. An objective reward function is used to maximize the RA’s profit, minimize the prosumer’s cost, and maximize the improvement of the duck curve. The performance of the proposed DRL-based strategy was demonstrated by simulation experiments using actual wholesale price, demand, and PV generation data. The results show that the proposed strategy can improve the standard deviation and peak-to-average ratio of net load by up to 57.1% and 23%, respectively.Watari D., Taniguchi I., Onoye T.. Duck Curve Aware Dynamic Pricing and Battery Scheduling Strategy Using Reinforcement Learning. IEEE Transactions on Smart Grid , (2023); https://doi.org/10.1109/TSG.2023.3288355

Notes on The Colloquial Stories of The Ming Dynasty : The Short Stories : The "Three Yen\u27s " (1)

In this paper the author attempts to illustrate the various modes of woman life in the “Three Yen\u27s”, which are the collections of colloquial short stories in the Ming Dynasty, classifying the stories into five groups, especially with set phrases or proverbs as a clue.Under the old regime of China as the Confucian ethics ruled over, the most superlative virtue that woman had to maintain was “chastity”.Also woman was compelled to obey “the virtue of three dependences”-dependent upon her father before marriage, her husband after marriage, and finally her son after the death of her husband, and it was regulated that woman could not have her own house and prosperity as a rule.Therefore, woman should have to observe those virtues to provide for banishment from the house.1) The first group shows, it is the highest virtue for woman that “the woman once had her husband, although her father holds the right of choice, should be little interested in other men throughout her life.” However, as those women in this group are created just as incarnations of virtue, we find in them unreality to intend explicitly to educate people through stories.2) It is noticeable in the second group that “woman desires to live a peaceful home life.” The prostitute was eager for marriage, for she did not have a home for peaceful living. She, therefore, exerted herself to be a wife in marriage, devoting her pure affection on the man, and consequently her chastity which was originally not the attribute of the prostitute is emphasized.Here, the author examines general forms of marriage in the stories, in accordance with the classification of marriage of the prostitute in one story.3) In this groupe, a side of womanhood as “woman is unfaithful in love” is taken up in opposition to the first group. Particularly the illicit intercourses of wives of common families are descrived and that gives, though unconciously, an account of the inhumane side of the virtue. Nevertheless, the story-tellers thought that those immoral conducts were caused by predistination. They did not have nerves to descrive openly the sex of the womanhood, in particular such the restrained sex as the wife of merchant had when her husband was gone from home for a long time.4) In the next group, the proverb,“the conjugal ties only lasts for one life,” shows the resignation of man from the other side of the conjugal relationship. This depends upon the idea which as “husband and wife have been enemies to each other since five hundred years ago”, they can do nothing but accepting this fate.5) Finally, this group has the proverb,“the woman of ability surpasses man.” Here, we notice the woman who exceled man with poetical genius, the prostitute who confuted a procuress and ran to her lover, the girl who at last avenged for the murder of her whole families despite of being sold from one brothel to another, the wife who assisted her husband to success, and so forth.On these accounts the story-tellers seem to have arranged contrary proverbs as such with intent to grasp the extensive woman life, but we can evidently observe the process that the Confucian ethics as a premise, particularly the superiority of parental authority, declined gradually, and on the other hand the woman with economic power became independent and the girl who persisted in her own opinion against her parents appeared

Note on the Colloquial Stories of the Ming Dynasty : The Short Stories :The "Three Yen\u27s" (2-1)

"In this paper the author attempts to illustrate the various modes of people\u27s life in the “Three Yen\u27s”(三言) and classify the stories into four groups, especially with set phrases or proverbs as a clue.1) The first group is concerned with the governing class, which is mainly based on literati and officialdom. They actually made their best endeavors to pass the imperial examination as the biggest object in life. The officials observed in the stories, however, lack the sense of responsibility for good government, while they take intense interests only in honor and privilege for exemption from statute labor.2) The second group is the governed class, which comprises peasants, merchants and craftsmen.3) The third group includes Buddhist monks and nuns who should have stood aloof from the mundane life.4) The fourth group is the outlaws, namely, robbers and errants.The present paper examines the relation between the senior officials in the first group and the imperial examination on the basis of analysis of the stories.As regarding the petty officials and other groups, it is expected to be mentioned in other papers.

Multi-time scale energy management framework for smart PV systems mixing fast and slow dynamics

We propose a multi-time scale energy management framework for a smart photovoltaic (PV) system that can calculate optimized schedules for battery operation, power purchases, and appliance usage. A smart PV system is a local energy community that includes several buildings and households equipped with PV panels and batteries. However, due to the unpredictability and fast variation of PV generation, maintaining energy balance and reducing electricity costs in the system is challenging. Our proposed framework employs a model predictive control approach with a physics-based PV forecasting model and an accurately parameterized battery model. We also introduce a multi-time scale structure composed of two-time scales: a longer coarse-grained time scale for daily horizon with 15-minutes resolution and a shorter fine-grained time scale for 15-minutes horizon with 1-second resolution. In contrast to the current single-time scale approaches, this alternative structure enables the management of a necessary mix of fast and slow system dynamics with reasonable computational times while maintaining high accuracy. Simulation results show that the proposed framework reduces electricity costs up 48.1% compared with baseline methods. The necessity of a multi-time scale and the impact on accurate system modeling in terms of PV forecasting and batteries are also demonstrated.Watari D., Taniguchi I., Goverde H., et al. Multi-time scale energy management framework for smart PV systems mixing fast and slow dynamics. Applied Energy 289, 116671 (2021); https://doi.org/10.1016/j.apenergy.2021.116671