A Distributed Coordinated Framework With Fair Comfort Level Sharing for Inverter Air Conditioner in Auxiliary Services

As a flexible resource, inverter air conditioners (IACs) have significant potential for demand response. However, due to the diverse characteristics of users, it is challenging to consider users' internal temperature requirements fairly while controlling IACs power. This paper aims to find a feasible solution to this problem. First, the concept of "comfort state" is utilized to describe the operating state of IACs with different reference temperatures and allowable internal temperature deviations. Then, a distributed leaderless coordinated framework is designed for IACs to ensure the tracking of reference aggregated power and the achieving of fair comfort level sharing. The proposed framework does not require the aggregator to manage all IACs in a centralized manner and also avoids the need of periodic re-issuance of aggregated power deviation. The feasibility of the proposed framework and the impact of time-delay is rigorously analyzed. Besides, a specific implementation method for the proposed framework in the primary frequency support is developed. Numerical studies show that the proposed coordinated framework can effectively mitigate the drastic variations in system frequency when loads fluctuate.