Optimal Strategy for Participation of Commercial HVAC Systems in Frequency Regulation

In this article, an optimal strategy is proposed for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems in commercial buildings to fairly ensure the occupants’ comfort, while participating in frequency regulation. With the nonlinear relationship between temperature setpoint and the fan power, the differences between indoor temperatures and temperature setpoints are considered as the objective to fairly ensure the occupants’ comfort. By the proposed strategy, the task for frequency regulation is optimally distributed according to the capacity of HVAC systems in a load aggregator. Therefore, performing frequency regulation and fairly ensuring occupants’ comfort are achieved simultaneously. Simulations on a two-area interconnected power system show that the proposed optimal strategy can improve the quality of frequency, reduce traditional generator regulation, and ensure the occupants’ comfort fairly.