A Reward Allocation Mechanism for Thermostatically Controlled Loads Participating in Intra-Hour Ancillary Services

When properly controlled, thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs) can shift their electricity consumption by storing heat in the thermal masses. This capability makes them proper resources to provide variety of services in power grids, specifically intrahour ancillary services. Because TCLs have diverse thermal characteristics, their capabilities of service provision can be different. Therefore, their contribution in service provision and their monetary reward might be different as well. This paper presents a reward allocation mechanism for a load serving entity to determine the payment made to TCLs according to their contribution in the provided intrahour ancillary services. A service provision capability index is proposed to quantify the TCLs capability and prioritize them accordingly. Based on the prioritization results, a reward curve is constructed to determine the TCLs payment according to their contribution to the overall provided service. The proposed rewarding system is demonstrated and verified through numerical simulations using a group of 10 000 heterogeneous heat pumps.