Communications requirements and performance of a distributed demand control system

With society increasingly focusing on sustainability and the environment, a number of technologies are now receiving significant interest. These include electric vehicles and renewable energy sources such as wind and solar. Here a problem arises due to the unpredictable nature of the wind and the increased and uncontrolled load presented by electric vehicles. Dynamic Demand Control (DDC) is a potential solution to this problem allowing loads such as electric vehicles to balance out fluctuations in supply and improve power quality. A modified version of DDC suitable for communities with some distributed generation, called Distributed Generation Demand Control (DGDC), is presented here with a focus on communication requirements. This behaves as a combination of a traditional smart grid and DDC. DGDC requires a high bandwidth signal representing the amount of power available at any point in time. Different methods and constraints for distributing this signal are presented. Simulation and experimental results show the performance of these demand control methods in the presence of volatile power sources.