Novel Residential Energy Demand Management Framework Based on Clustering Approach in Energy and Performance-based Regulation Service Markets

Flexible electric loads are key elements in the path to a sustainable electric grid with high penetration of green resources. With the increasing level of intermittent wind and solar generation replacing the conventional power plants, there is a growing trend to involve electricity consumers in the balancing activity between the generation and consumption. In this paper, a bi-level demand response scheduling framework is proposed for residential load aggregators in which the planning scope spans a diverse set of loads and activities including inflexible loads, electric vehicles, air conditioning and water heating TCLs, energy storage system, and energy and regulation service scheduling on a residential distribution feeder with relevant constraints. Novel aggregation mechanism is proposed to capture the flexibility of heterogeneous loads based on clustering concept. In particular, the aggregation model of rapidly-growing inverter-based TCLs is derived using the proposed clustering techniques. Also, participation in regulation service market is based on the performance-based compensation scheme adopted by ISOs. The presented approach is applicable to day-ahead and real-time markets with a reliably fast calculation process. The results are indicative of the accuracy and sufficiency of the derived models.