LAUSR

Abstract This paper presents a distributed predictive control framework coordinating battery energy storage systems and Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) systems in the distribution network for the provision of ancillary services to the power grid, whilst keeping both the indoor thermal comfort and the network voltage within acceptable limits. The HVAC systems are modeled as virtual storage devices and aggregated with battery energy storage systems to form virtual storage plants (VSPs). An optimization problem over a given prediction horizon is formulated for coordinating an arbitrary number of such VSPs so as to deliver the required regulation reserve whilst maintaining an acceptable voltage profile of the distribution network. The formulated optimization problem is incorporated into a Model Predictive Control (MPC) scheme. The nonlinear HVAC system model makes the resulted MPC problem nonlinear, which is then convexified and solved in a distributed manner by using the alternating direction method of multipliers (ADMM). Simulation results using realistic data demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach, which delivers the required services by satisfying the system constraints.