A novel packet switching framework with binary information in demand side management

Inspired by the success of packet switched data transfer that improves the fairness and efficiency in communication networks, this paper proposes a novel concept of packetized energy that is capable of improving the performance of the smart grid in providing demand response. Here the term packetized refers to a temporal quantization into fixed length intervals of energy authorization based on binary information - energy is either requested by an appliance if it wishes to consume or withdrawn if the desired consumption level is reached. We model the energy request and withdrawal process as a queuing system with multiple servers and probabilistic returns. We derive an analytical expression for the mean waiting time (MWT) per authorization as a function of the packet length. We show that with short packet duration the MWT of the packet switching framework is smaller than the system without packet switching, and that the total waiting time (TWT) to complete the service remains the same. Consequently, the packet switched framework guarantees fairness in energy delivery when limited resources are available. We also provide a sensitivity analysis of the MWT and the TWT in terms of the packet length. Results show that the TWT is more robust to the change of packet length than the MWT. Simulations are provided to verify theoretical results.