Load curve smoothing strategy based on unified state model of different demand side resources

Renewable energy based distributed generation (DG) has the potential to reach high penetration levels in the residential region. However, its integration at the demand side will cause rapid power fluctuations of the tie-line in the residential region. The traditional generators are generally difficult to manage rapid power fluctuations due to their insufficient efficiency requirements and low responding speed. With an effective control strategy, the demand side resources (DSRs) including DGs, electric vehicles and thermostatically-controlled loads at the demand side, are able to serve as the energy storage system to smooth the load fluctuations. However, it is a challenge to properly model different types of DSRs. To solve this problem, a unified state model is first developed to describe the characteristics of different DSRs. Then a load curve smoothing strategy is proposed to offset the load fluctuations of the tie-line of the residential region, where a control matrix deduced from the unified state model is introduced to manage the power outputs of different DSRs, considering the response order and the comfort levels. Finally, a residential region with households is used to validate the load curve smoothing strategy based on the unified state model, and the results show that the power fluctuation rate of the tie-line is significantly decreased. Meanwhile, comparative study results are shown to demonstrate the advantages of the unified state model based load curve smoothing strategy.