David P. Chassin

GridWiseTM: The Benefits of a Transformed Energy System

This report presents a preliminary scoping assessment conducted to envision the general magnitude of several selected benefits the GridWise™ concept could offer when applied nationally. These benefits accrue in the generation, transmission and distribution components of the power grid as well as in the customer sector. The total potential benefit of implementing these technologies over the next 20 years is conservatively estimated have a present value (PV) of about

GridLAB-D: An Agent-Based Simulation Framework for Smart Grids

75 billion. When estimated on the basis of a less conservative implementation scenario, the PV of these benefits is shown to essentially double.

AEP Ohio gridSMART Demonstration Project Real-Time Pricing Demonstration Analysis

Simulation of smart grid technologies requires a fundamentally new approach to integrated modeling of power systems, energy markets, building technologies, and the plethora of other resources and assets that are becoming part of modern electricity production, delivery, and consumption systems. As a result, the US Department of Energy’s Office of Electricity commissioned the development of a new type of power system simulation tool called GridLAB-D that uses an agent-based approach to simulating smart grids. This paper presents the numerical methods and approach to time-series simulation used by GridLAB-D and reviews applications in power system studies, market design, building control system design, and integration of wind power in a smart grid.

Modeling Power Systems as Complex Adaptive Systems

This report contributes initial findings from an analysis of significant aspects of the gridSMART® Real-Time Pricing (RTP) – Double Auction demonstration project. Over the course of four years, Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) worked with American Electric Power (AEP), Ohio and Battelle Memorial Institute to design, build, and operate an innovative system to engage residential consumers and their end-use resources in a participatory approach to electric system operations, an incentive-based approach that has the promise of providing greater efficiency under normal operating conditions and greater flexibility to react under situations of system stress. The material contained in this report supplements the findings documented by AEP Ohio in the main body of the gridSMART report. It delves into three main areas: impacts on system operations, impacts on households, and observations about the sensitivity of load to price changes.

The Abstract Machine Model for Transaction-based System Control

Physical analogs have shown considerable promise for understanding the behavior of complex adaptive systems, including macroeconomics, biological systems, social networks, and electric power markets. Many of todays most challenging technical and policy questions can be reduced to a distributed economic control problem. Indeed, economically based control of large-scale systems is founded on the conjecture that the price-based regulation (e.g., auctions, markets) results in an optimal allocation of resources and emergent optimal system control. This report explores the state-of-the-art physical analogs for understanding the behavior of some econophysical systems and deriving stable and robust control strategies for using them. We review and discuss applications of some analytic methods based on a thermodynamic metaphor, according to which the interplay between system entropy and conservation laws gives rise to intuitive and governing global properties of complex systems that cannot be otherwise understood. We apply these methods to the question of how power markets can be expected to behave under a variety of conditions.

Agent-Based Simulation for Interconnection-Scale Renewable Integration and Demand Response Studies

Recent work applying statistical mechanics to economic modeling has demonstrated the effectiveness of using thermodynamic theory to address the complexities of large scale economic systems. Transaction-based control systems depend on the conjecture that when control of thermodynamic systems is based on price-mediated strategies (e.g., auctions, markets), the optimal allocation of resources in a market-based control system results in an emergent optimal control of the thermodynamic system. This paper proposes an abstract machine model as the necessary precursor for demonstrating this conjecture and establishes the dynamic laws as the basis for a special theory of emergence applied to the global behavior and control of complex adaptive systems. The abstract machine in a large system amounts to the analog of a particle in thermodynamic theory. The permit the establishment of a theory dynamic control of complex system behavior based on statistical mechanics. Thus we may be better able to engineer a few simple control laws for a very small number of devices types, which when deployed in very large numbers and operated as a system of many interacting markets yields the stable and optimal control of the thermodynamic system.

Optimization of Customer Subscription Rates to Electric Utility Tariffs

ABSTRACT This paper collects and synthesizes the technical requirements, implementation, and validation methods for quasi-steady agent-based simulations of interconnection-scale models with particular attention to the integration of renewable generation and controllable loads. Approaches for modeling aggregated controllable loads are presented and placed in the same control and economic modeling framework as generation resources for interconnection planning studies. Model performance is examined with system parameters that are typical for an interconnection approximately the size of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council (WECC) and a control area about 1/100 the size of the system. These results are used to demonstrate and validate the methods presented.

Addressing key challenges in transportation mode electrification

In 2006 a test of residential electricity pricing using multiple tariffs was performed using a mixture of fixed-prices, time of-use prices and 5-minute real-time prices. Each tariff has advantages and disadvantages for both consumers and utilities. This paper examines a numerical optimization method to efficiently identify the optimal combination of customers to enroll under the available tariffs such that a utility can minimize the cost associated with both serving energy and the cost associated with the uncertainty of peak loads.

Renewable resources portfolio optimization in the presence of demand response

Vehicle electrification offers a tremendous potential for greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions in transportation in BC, which account for 24% of total provincial emissions. Battery and drivetrain developments have enabled personal electric vehicles (EVs) to start to penetrate the market, but there remain large opportunities in other parts of the transportation sector. The program of research described in this paper is directed toward exploring these additional opportunities. Bus fleets, and other commercial fleets, present unique challenges and opportunities compared to personal EVs and are being explored in concert with fleet operators. E-bikes enable personal mobility and may also afford health co-benefits that can offer overall financial benefits useful in shaping policy. Comparison between battery-electric and fuel-cell electrified drivetrains is also important to understand the overall round-trip and life-cycle relative efficiencies. These studies are all embedded in a number of modeling frameworks that enable studies of grid-interactions of the vehicles with the grid, in particular taking into account temporally and spatially varying GHG intensities, inter-jurisdictional trading, stochastic planning and operation, and demand response (DR) opportunities. The research is ongoing, so the current paper highlights expected impacts and contributions of the various lines of investigation.