Demand side control for power system frequency regulation

The increasing penetration of renewable energy resources brings a number of uncertainties to modern power system operation. In particular, the frequent variation of wind or solar power output causes a short-term mismatch between generation and demand and system frequency fluctuation. The traditional approach to dealing with this problem is to increase the amount of system spinning reserve, which increases costs. In recent years, researchers have been actively exploring the utilization of residential and commercial loads in frequency regulation without affecting customers’ comfort level. This is called dynamic demand control (DDC). This dissertation describes an in-depth study of DDC for bulk power system frequency regulation, from both a technical and economic perspective.