Consensus-Based Coordination of Time-Shiftable Flexible Demand

Distributed, consensus-based algorithms constitute a promising approach for the coordination of distributed energy resources (DER) due to their practical advantages over centralized approaches. However, state-of-the-art consensus-based algorithms address the coordination problem in independent time periods and therefore are inherently unable to capture the time-shifting flexibility of the demand side. This paper demonstrates that state-of-the-art algorithms fail to converge when time-shiftable flexible demands (TSFD) are present. In order to address this fundamental limitation, a relative maximum power restriction is introduced, which effectively mitigates the concentration of the TSFD responses at the same time periods and steers the consensus-based algorithm towards a feasible and near-optimal solution.