Queueing analysis of service deferrals for load management in power systems

With the advent of renewable sources and Smart-Grid deployments, it is increasingly common to control demands in order to reduce power consumption variability and thus the need for regulation, with load aggregators now exploiting the deferability of some power loads to smooth the consumption profile. In this paper, we analyze the impact of service deferrals and scheduling on power consumption variability using tools from queueing theory. We consider a generic model for a load aggregator that receive job requests, involving a certain amount of energy to be provided and a deadline. We analyze different scheduling policies and examine the impact of service deferrals, quantifying the tradeoff between variance reduction and attained deadlines.