Potentials and applications of coordinated groups of thermal household appliances for power system control purposes

In this paper, a novel load management approach using thermal household appliances is presented, which provides extensive possibilities to support power system control tasks. A recently developed coordination algorithm for a high number of small thermostat-controlled appliances requires the connection of individual appliances to a central control entity through a two-way communication channel. The control method, which does not cause significant comfort losses for users, enables the group of appliances to act like a virtual distributed energy storage. While the coordination algorithm has been presented in detail before, the contribution of this paper lies in the analysis of the aggregated behavior of coordinated appliance groups. Apart from that, a methodology for estimating the coordinated load control potential in larger areas (e.g. countries) is presented. This is illustrated by exemplary considerations on the Swiss power system, which can also be adapted to other countries. Furthermore, different applications for the gained demand-side flexibility in a liberalized electricity market are discussed.