Controlling distributed energy constrained resources for power system ancillary services

Demand response, load control and control of distributed energy storage devices are gaining attention as mechanisms to support power system operation in “smart grids”, for example by providing ancillary services such as spinning reserves and regulation. This paper addresses some of the key open questions in developing algorithms to communicate with and control large populations of distributed resources, and borrows techniques from probability theory to develop methods which assure an accurate response with minimal latency. The scenarios we address focus on the challenges that arise when (1) the communications infrastructure is limited with respect to the frequency at which information can be retrieved from and/or delivered to resources (as in the case of advanced metering infrastructure) and (2) the controlled resources are energy-limited, meaning they cannot be operated indefinitely without losing critical functionality. The applications in the paper focus on using plug-in electric vehicles to provide spinning reserve.