Optimal air-conditioning load control in distribution network with intermittent renewables

The coordinated operation of controllable loads, such as air-conditioning load, and distributed generation sources in a smart grid environment has drawn significant attention in recent years. To improve the wind power utilization level in the distribution network and minimize the total system operation costs, this paper proposes a MILP (mixed integer linear programming) based approach to schedule the interruptible air-conditioning loads. In order to mitigate the uncertainties of the stochastic variables including wind power generation, ambient temperature change, and electricity retail price, the rolling horizon optimization (RHO) strategy is employed to continuously update the real-time information and proceed the control window. Moreover, to ensure the thermal comfort of customers, a novel two-parameter thermal model is introduced to calculate the indoor temperature variation more precisely. Simulations on a five node radial distribution network validate the efficiency of the proposed method.