Operating reserve capacity evaluation of aggregated heterogeneous TCLs with price signals

Thermostatically controlled loads (TCLs) have been studied to provide operating reserve for maintaining power balance between supply and demand. However, operating reserve capacity (ORC) supplied by aggregated TCLs is difficult to evaluate, due to the insufficient information of heterogeneous TCLs and consumer behaviors. This paper proposes a quantitative ORC evaluation method for large-scale aggregated heterogeneous TCLs without sufficient measurement data. Firstly, an individual TCL model on account of consumer behaviors is developed to characterize the impact of fluctuated electricity prices and different thermal comfort requirements. Secondly, a novel optimization model of heterogeneous TCLs, which can guarantee consumer satisfaction, is proposed to provide operating reserve for power systems. Thirdly, the probability density estimation (PDE) method is developed to evaluate the ORC provided by large-scale heterogeneous TCLs with insufficient data. Numerical studies illustrate the effectiveness of the proposed models and methods.