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Since many residential locations are unsuitable for solar deployments due to space constraints, community-owned solar arrays with energy storage that are collectively shared by a group of homes have emerged as a solution. However, such a group-owned system does not allow individual control over how the electricity generation from the solar array and energy stored in the battery is used for optimizing a home's electricity bill. To overcome this limitation, we propose vSolar, a technique that virtualizes community solar and battery arrays such that each virtual system can be independently controlled, regardless of others. Further, we present mechanisms and algorithms that allow homes with surplus energy to lend to homes with deficit energy.
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Real-world, Full-scale Validation of Power Balancing Services from Packetized Virtual Batteries
There is increasing consensus that flexible demand is critical to solve challenges associated with the rapid growth of variable renewable generation and aging transmission, distri- bution and generation infrastructure. Conventional direct load control programs are largely insufficient to address these issues. This paper presents results from validation tests of a new approach to demand side management, in which an aggregated fleet of devices is managed as a virtual battery, using principles that are found in communication networks: packetization and randomization. Validation results from a cyber-physical testbed with 5000 devices and a field-trial with 82 customer-owned water heaters show that the packetized virtual battery system can effectively solve a number of different problems. Customer satisfaction survey results illustrate that the system is able to maintain a high level of service quality.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1254549
- PAR ID:
- 10084167
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Proceedings of the 10th Conference on Innovative Smart Grid Technologies (ISGT 2019)
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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