A two level feedback system design to provide regulation reserve

Demand side management has gained increasing importance as the penetration of renewable energy grows. Based on a Markov jump process modelling of a group of thermostatic loads, this paper proposes a two level feedback system design be- tween the independent system operator (ISO) and the regulation service provider such that two objectives are achieved: (1) the ISO can optimally dispatch regulation signals to multiple providers in real time in order to reduce the requirement for expensive spinning reserves, and (2) each regulation provider can control its thermostatic loads to respond the ISO signal. It is also shown that the amount of regulation service that can be provided is implicitly restricted by a few fundamental parameters of the provider itself, such as the allowable set point choice and its thermal constant. An interesting finding is that the regulation provider’s ability to provide a large amount of long term accumulated regulation and short term signal tracking restrict each other. Simulation results are presented to verify and illustrate the performance of the proposed framework

A Packetized Direct Load Control Mechanism for Demand Side Management

Electricity peaks can be harmful to grid stability and result in additional generation costs to balance supply with demand. By developing a network of smart appliances together with a quasi-decentralized control protocol, direct load control (DLC) provides an opportunity to reduce peak consumption by directly controlling the on/off switch of the networked appliances. This paper proposes a packetized DLC (PDLC) solution that is illustrated by an application to air conditioning temperature control. Here the term packetized refers to a fixed time energy usage authorization. The consumers in each room choose their preferred set point, and then an operator of the local appliance pool will determine the comfort band around the set point. We use a thermal dynamic model to investigate the duty cycle of thermostatic appliances. Three theorems are proposed in this paper. The first two theorems evaluate the performance of the PDLC in both transient and steady state operation. The first theorem proves that the average room temperature would converge to the average room set point with fixed number of packets applied in each discrete interval. The second theorem proves that the PDLC solution guarantees to control the temperature of all the rooms within their individual comfort bands. The third theorem proposes an allocation method to link the results in theorem 1 and assumptions in theorem 2 such that the overall PDLC solution works. The direct result of the theorems is that we can reduce the consumption oscillation that occurs when no control is applied. Simulation is provided to verify theoretical results.Comment: the 51st IEEE Conference on Decision and Control,December 10-13, Maui, 201

Control and Communication Protocols that Enable Smart Building Microgrids

Recent communication, computation, and technology advances coupled with climate change concerns have transformed the near future prospects of electricity transmission, and, more notably, distribution systems and microgrids. Distributed resources (wind and solar generation, combined heat and power) and flexible loads (storage, computing, EV, HVAC) make it imperative to increase investment and improve operational efficiency. Commercial and residential buildings, being the largest energy consumption group among flexible loads in microgrids, have the largest potential and flexibility to provide demand side management. Recent advances in networked systems and the anticipated breakthroughs of the Internet of Things will enable significant advances in demand response capabilities of intelligent load network of power-consuming devices such as HVAC components, water heaters, and buildings. In this paper, a new operating framework, called packetized direct load control (PDLC), is proposed based on the notion of quantization of energy demand. This control protocol is built on top of two communication protocols that carry either complete or binary information regarding the operation status of the appliances. We discuss the optimal demand side operation for both protocols and analytically derive the performance differences between the protocols. We propose an optimal reservation strategy for traditional and renewable energy for the PDLC in both day-ahead and real time markets. In the end we discuss the fundamental trade-off between achieving controllability and endowing flexibility

VCU CCTR Mobile App: Android & iOS

In today’s day and age, data should be accessible at all times. The biggest break-through for data accessibility is mobile technologies such as phones and tablets. The CCTR provides a continuum of informatics research and services to support translational and clinical research. Clinical Trials represent one of the central themes for the Center for Clinical and Translational Research, but they do not have a mobile app for the VCU community to access CCTR’s informatics resources. This project aims to promote the expanded informatics research and services available to VCU students, faculty and staff as well as patients interested in discovering more about clinical research at VCU. The CCTR wants to extend current research data management systems and traditional webpages to mobile technologies. This will enable the CCTR to provide the CCTR user community with seamless access to its current and developing infomratics resources. The project followed the agile development methodology. Each week, we created new features for the mobile app, slowly adding onto the initial app we created. The major goal of the project was to be able to pull data from the Forte API. Extra features were added on later on for the overall user-friendliness. The app primarily focused on function over form. In the end, we tried to stick with VCU colors. Over the course of the project, we encountered a few issues along the way. None of us have had experience programming for the android OS. We were familiar with java, but the android library had many more requirements to get everything working. We needed to learn to program for the android OS and also learn new technology associated with mobile app programming. Another issue we came across was scalability, getting the app to comply with VCU branding seemed simple at first, but when we started adding in logos, we encountered a lot of errors. The logos had to be refactored to fit 100% with the application. The CCTR now has a fully functional Clinical Trials Android Application. Over the course of the final semester, additional features will be prioritized based on complexity, and importance to the CCTR and included in the mobile apps. Features that impact the access of information and benefits the CCTR will be added as the project progresses. The final goal will be to create both an Android and an iOS app. Before the apps can be officially finished, a live instance of data will be needed that utilizes VCU resources for accessing data about VCU’s clinical trials.https://scholarscompass.vcu.edu/capstone/1020/thumbnail.jp