Using Controllable Thermal Household Appliances for Wind Forecast Error Reduction

This paper deals with the utilization of a large cluster of thermal household appliances, which are enabled to participate in active power control through a two-way communication system, for reducing the infeed prediction error of a wind generator. A recently developed coordination algorithm for thermostat-controlled appliances provides the basis for shaping the consumption profile of a multitude of dispersed heating and cooling devices. In the present approach, a Model Predictive Control strategy is used to operate the controllable thermal appliances together with a controllable generation unit in such a way that the financial penalties for external balancing are reduced.