Decentralized random control of refrigerator appliances

Abstract

AbstractThis paper considers the problem of dynamic demand management of domestic refrigerators. Dynamic demand management is a promising research direction, which aims to improve power system resilience, by dynamically controlling the energy consumption of devices that exhibit thermal energy storage. In this approach, the operating temperature of appliances, and thus their energy consumption, is modified dynamically, within a safe range, in response to mains frequency fluctuations. Such an operating scheme aims at reducing the strain that the demand side introduces in a power network, when the corresponding supply is temporarily disrupted. Previous research has highlighted the potential of this idea for responding to sudden power plant outages. However, deterministic control schemes have proved inadequate as individual appliances tend to “synchronize” with each other, leading to unacceptable levels of overshoot in energy demand, when they “recover” their steady-state operating cycles. In this paper we describe random controllers that are able to respond to sudden plant outages and which avoid the instability phenomena associated with other feedback strategies. Stochasticity is used to achieve desynchronization of individual refrigerators while keeping overall power consumption tightly regulated.