Distributed demand curtailment via water-filling

Power demands are rising continuously and accommodating these in a sustainable and economical manner without any loss of service is a daunting challenge. We propose a novel demand response (DR) scheme which taps onto the inherent consumer flexibility to curtail peak aggregate power demands in order to minimize dependence on expensive high carbon-footprint peak generators. Our strategy capitalizes on the ubiquitous communication capability present in the smart grid to foster cooperation amongst a large number of consumers with a heterogeneous mix of loads and comfort requirements. Simplistic communication signals are broadcast periodically by the grid operator which are used by consumers to make local decisions on power reduction. Comprehensive analyses using simulations and theoretical tools such as water-filling in convex optimization show that this distributed DR strategy is highly scalable and enables the system to rapidly converge to optimality.