Management and Control of Load Clusters for Ancillary Services Using Internet of Electric Loads Based on Cloud–Edge–End Distributed Computing

Abstract

The Internet of Things (IoT) connects electric devices to a network in order to realize virtual control. Demand-side loads can provide ancillary services that optimize energy structures and promote supply–demand balance. For load management, this article proposes Internet of Electric Loads (IoEL) as a service-centric network, and the edge subcloud is introduced in the distributed computing system. The intelligent thermostatically controlled loads constitute the physical perceptual layer of the IoEL. Each subcloud controls a type of loads under the same regional distribution grid to form a stable and controllable aggregation system. The subclouds interact with the load cloud to form a platform layer. Through the interaction between the platform and physical perceptual layers, loads are controlled to realize the load transfer and provide ancillary services for the application layer. IoEL utilizes computing resources from different layers to form a distributed computing system made up of cloud, edge, and end devices. The load management is divided into four steps, namely, load aggregation in the edge–end interface, evaluation of load capacity in the edge, task allocation in the cloud–edge interface, and load control in the edge–end interface. The loads upload the physical properties to the subclouds and are then aggregated according to similarities of properties. The subclouds then evaluate schedulable capacity and upload these evaluations to the cloud, which then allocates tasks to each subcloud accordingly. The edge is responsible for receiving tasks from the cloud and controlling loads. The effectiveness of the method was verified by providing clean energy output tracking.