Decision support for offering load-side Regulation Service reserves in competitive power markets

This paper, (i) quantifies the ability of Smart Buildings to provide electric power Regulation Service (RS) given the characteristics of the building´s flexible loads and the expected costs from occupant utility loss and imperfect tracking of System Operator RS requests, and (ii) develops an optimization-based decision support model to assist Smart Building Operators (SBO) willing to offer RS reserves in the Hour Ahead Power Market. The model incorporates minimal Regulation Service tracking performance constraints required by current market rule contractual requirements. To quantify these probabilistic constraints, we develop a Normal Distribution Approximation to the dynamic mean of the discrete time M/M/∞ queue of active appliance loads conditional upon the SBO´s price directed control aimed at activating appliance loads. Finally, analytic estimates of performance statistics and properties of the dynamic optimal control used in tracking real time System Operator RS requests are developed and used in the decision support model. Numerical results are provided for elaboration purposes.