Simulation based evaluation of control of residential air conditioners

Abstract

Control of residential air conditioners is an important demand-side management activity. The most common approach for controlling appliances is by direct remote control in which a signal is sent using a communication medium to turn off major appliances for a prescribed period of time. In the last few years, local and distributed techniques of load control have emerged. In this paper, a simulation based method is presented for evaluation of two strategies for control of residential air conditioners. Remote control is regarded as a relatively mature technology and several field experiments have been conducted using remote control. Therefore, remote control is used as a test case to validate the simulation methodology. Then, local control, which is actuated by the outside temperature, is simulated. The device used for this type of control is commonly called a ‘load leveler’. The results (dependence of demand reduction on duty cycle, effects of load control on 5-minute and 1-hour average demands, and 5-minute and 1-hour average temperatures inside the house) obtained with local control are compared with the results obtained with remote control to study similarities and differences in the two strategies.