Real-time emergency demand response strategy for optimal load dispatch of heat and power micro-grids

Abstract Heat and power micro-grids are of great significance in improving the flexibility, efficiency, and reliability of the energy system. Load dispatch of micro-grids considering the emergency demand response (EDR) program is an important optimization problem, which requires the consumers to respond to the emergency load reduction signals in real-time. In this regard, an optimal load dispatch strategy of heat and power micro-grids is proposed to respond to the EDR signals without compromising customers’ production process. The strategy encompasses two stages, the rolling optimization stage (ROS) and the real-time emergency demand response stage (REDRS). The tow-stage optimization model is proposed to address the coordination problems brought by the EDR events. The ROS integrated with the model predictive control (MPC) framework is to alleviate the negative effects due to the deviation between the forecasting and real-time data. REDRS is to generate a real-time load reduction plan in response to the EDR events. The proposed strategy makes the efforts to achieve the economic and environmental dispatch of micro-grids with both heat and power demand satisfied. In this study, four cases are discussed to verify the performance of the two-stage strategy. The simulation results show that the total cost and purchased electricity can be effectively reduced through participating EDR programs. It can also be seen from the numerical simulations that the large consumer could gain 23.51–41.83% of the electricity reduction which is purchased from the grid and decrease 11.04–13.28% of total cost in each EDR interval. Besides, the short and long term simulations reveal that the utility company could also achieve the reduction of peak load which could be seen as a “win-win” strategy.