TECHNIQUE FOR AGGREGATING AN ENERGY SERVICE

• US 20100241549A1
• Filed: 03/17/2009
• Published: 09/23/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 03/17/2009
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Xerox Corporation (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Original Assignee: Palo Alto Research Center, Inc. (Xerox Holdings Corp.)
• Inventors: Papavasiliou, Anthony, Greene, Daniel H., Hindi, Haitham Ali Salem
• Granted Patent: US 8,818,889 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/37
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 40/04 Trading; Exchange, e.g. stocks, commodities, derivatives or currency exchange
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/00 Information and communication technology [ICT] specially adapted for implementation of business processes of specific business sectors, e.g. utilities or tourism healthcare informatics G16H
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 50/06 Energy or water supply
• CPC Class Codes: Y04S 50/16 Energy services, e.g. dispersed generation or demand or load or energy savings aggregation

Abstract

Embodiments of a system, a method, and a computer-program product (e.g., software) for aggregating an energy service from a number of participants for use by a power-system operator is described. This aggregation may be performed by an aggregator, which is between the participants and the power-system operator. In particular, the aggregator may use an embedded economic mechanism to calculate a price that matches supply (or cutback) of power and/or load from the participants with a desired supply of the power-system operator. Because the aggregator typically does not know the participants'"'"' exact propensity to respond as a function of price (supply function), the aggregator calculates the purchase price using one or more iterations in which an initial probe price is provided to the participants, and the participants respond with supply-function approximations that are valid in proximity to the current probe price.

Claims

1. A method for aggregating an energy service from a number of participants for use by a power-system operator, comprising:

providing an initial probe price for the energy service to a participant;

receiving a supply-function approximation from the participant, wherein the supply-function approximation corresponds to a supply function in proximity to the initial probe price, wherein the supply function indicates a relation between the supply and price of the energy service, and wherein the given supply-function approximation is other than a single-point approximation; and

calculating a purchase price with respect to the participant for the energy service the participant can provide based at least in part on the received supply-function approximation, wherein the aggregated amount of energy service purchased from the participants at their respective purchase prices approximately equals a desired amount of the energy service.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising providing a bid to the power-system operator to provide the desired amount of energy service at a contracted time in the future.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the operations of providing the initial probe price, receiving the supply-function approximations, and calculating the subsequent price occur after the bid and before the contracted time.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising iteratively repeating the operations of providing the probe price, receiving the supply-function approximations, and calculating the purchase price until a current probe price is consistent.

5. The method of claim 4 where determining that a purchase price during an iteration is consistent with the current probe price includes determining that it meets the restrictions in a subset of the supply-function approximations.

6. The method of claim 4 where determining that a purchase price during an iteration is consistent with the current probe price includes determining that the purchase price is approximately equal to the probe price.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the purchase price is a minimum price in a range of prices.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein the energy service includes at least one of:

a demand response in which the participants agree to reduce energy demand, a commitment by the participants to provide power, and a commitment by the participants to provide ancillary power services.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating the energy service facilitates regulation of a power system by the power-system operator.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the regulation occurs over a time interval that is less than 15 seconds.

11. The method of claim 1, wherein aggregating the energy service facilitates load following in a power system by the power-system operator.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the load following occurs over a time interval that is less than one minute.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein calculating the purchase price involves performing Newton'"'"'s method based at least in part on the supply-function approximation.

14. The method of claim 1, wherein, after the calculation, the purchase price is fixed for the participant, who is obliged to provide a corresponding portion of the desired amount of the energy service.

15. The method of claim 1, wherein the supply-function approximation includes a restriction on a binding responsibility of the participant.

16. The method of claim 1, wherein the supply-function approximation includes a tangent to the supply function at the probe price.

17. The method of claim 1, wherein the supply-function approximation is a vector that includes a series of supply-function approximations and associated prices that facilitate calculation of purchase prices in a sequence of time intervals.

18. The method of claim 17, wherein a dynamical model is used to compute future effects of demand responses on the participant over time.

19. The method of claim 17, where the supply function approximations are used in a model predictive control implementation.

20. The method of claim 1, wherein the supply-function approximation includes at least one of:

a difference equation, a differential equation and a finite state machine.

21. The method of claim 1, wherein the supply-function approximation is selected from a set of predetermined functions.

22. The method of claim 1, further comprising coupling the energy service with other power sources or other power loads.

23. A computer-program product for use in conjunction with a computer system, the computer-program product comprising a computer-readable storage medium and a computer-program mechanism embedded therein to aggregate an energy service from a number of participants for use by a power-system operator, the computer-program mechanism including:

instructions for providing an initial probe price for the energy service to a participant;

instructions for receiving a supply-function approximation from the participant, wherein the supply-function approximation corresponds to a supply function in proximity to the initial probe price, wherein the supply function indicates a relation between the supply and price of the energy service, and wherein the given supply-function approximation is other than a single-point approximation; and

instructions for calculating a purchase price with respect to the participant for the energy service the participant can provide based at least in part on the received supply-function approximation, wherein the aggregated amount of energy service purchased from the participants at their respective purchase prices approximately equals a desired amount of the energy service.

24. A computer system, comprising:

a processor;

memory;

a program module, wherein the program module is stored in the memory and configured to be executed by the processor, the program module to aggregate an energy service from a number of participants for use by a power-system operator, the program module including;

instructions for providing an initial probe price for the energy service to a participant;

instructions for receiving a supply-function approximation from the participant, wherein the supply-function approximation corresponds to a supply function in proximity to the initial probe price, wherein the supply function indicates a relation between the supply and price of the energy service, and wherein the given supply-function approximation is other than a single-point approximation; and

instructions for calculating a purchase price with respect to the participant for the energy service the participant can provide based at least in part on the received supply-function approximation, wherein the aggregated amount of energy service purchased from the participants at their respective purchase prices approximately equals a desired amount of the energy service.