Handover Prioritization-based Event-triggered Distributed Control for Aggregated TCLs in Virtual Power Plant

In virtual power plant (VPP), the integration of the intermittent renewable energy sources requires more reserve capacity in order to maintain system stability. In the meanwhile, to avoid overloading certain parts of the plant, it is important to balance the load across the network. To do so, load management is an essential part to ensure energy efficiency and reducing energy consumption. In this context, aggregate of thermostatically controlled load (TCL) can collectively respond to grid demands and contribute to load management goals. In this paper, an event-triggered distributed control (ETDC) with incorporating the function of handover prioritization scheduling is designed to deal with energy consumption for providing reserve capacity. Integration of handover prioritization scheduling can adjust the operational priorities of TCLs in response to the availability of renewable energy sources. Such an integrated event triggering control framework can reduce computational burden and deal with operational challenges in consensus control of TCL aggregators. Finally, simulation studies verify the effectiveness of the proposed distributed control strategy.