Effective Frequency Regulation via Electricity Rate: Comparison to Other Frequency Control Strategies

Abstract

Considering the significant share of the residential and commercial buildings in the overall electricity consumption and the peak electricity demand, increasing penetration of distributed energy resources (DERs) in buildings and having innovative building energy management strategies can solve some of the utility problems as well as contribute to overall carbon-free energy goals. Electricity tariff is considered as a powerful tool to provide economic incentives for buildings to modify their load profile and enable grid flexibility to improve grid reliability. However, a sudden deviation of the load profile due to unstudied electricity tariffs in a power system with multiple DER-equipped buddings can cause high-frequency deviations. This article studies the effect of the increased DER penetration in buildings on the power system frequency under existing and proposed modified tariffs. The frequency deviation results under the proposed modified tariff are compared to the existing frequency control approaches and utility-size battery integration into the system. Results show that the tariff modification and its effective integration into energy management systems can be considered as a promising frequency control method.