Leveraging Time-Causal State Variable Aggregation for Real-Time Schedule of Massive Air Conditioners

Air conditioner (AC) loads offer promising flexibility for active distribution networks to manage uncertainties, such as those in renewable energy generation, electricity prices, and load demand. However, real-time scheduling of ACs is challenging due to their massive temporal coupling constraints and time-causal uncertainties. To address this, a novel time-causal aggregation-based approximate dynamic programming (TCA-ADP) algorithm is proposed for efficient scheduling. The time-causality requirements for aggregating state variables are first analyzed to align with the real-time sequential decision-making process. Subsequently, an enhanced aggregation model is developed to ensure both high accuracy and adherence to time causality. The aggregation process is further reformulated as a linear program to optimize aggregation parameters and enable tractable computation. Accordingly, the TCA-ADP leverages aggregated state variables to approximate the value function as a new way, balancing computational efficiency and economy against the large value function space of massive ACs. By training the value function offline using historical data, the TCA-ADP efficiently achieves near-optimal real-time scheduling of massive ACs through parallel and closed-form disaggregation. Case studies demonstrate the effectiveness and scalability of the TCA-ADP, highlighting its aggregation accuracy, uncertainty handling, and the trade-off between economy and tractability.