Enhancing N -1 Security via Building Thermostatic Load Control Strategy

With the increase of distributed energy resources (DER), energy network's uncertainty is growing continuously, and grid operations is encountering severe challenges. Conventionally, the N-1 security criteria is satisfied mainly via adjusting generators' output. But in some cases, it is not effective because of the complex network constraints and the generators' limited dispatch range. With the development of smart buildings, there are lots of thermostatic controlled loads inside the buildings. The flexibility of building energy consumption is underutilized in the past. Therefore, a new method is proposed in this paper to enhance N-1 security via building thermostatic load control. A three-stage model is formulated. An energy-consumption simulation software termed EnergyPlus is utilized to calculate the relationship between indoor temperature settings and thermostatic loads of buildings. Case studies based on the modified IEEE-30 bus system with building thermostatic load validate the effectiveness of the proposed control method.