Technique for aggregating an energy service

• US 8,818,889 B2
• Filed: 03/17/2009
• Issued: 08/26/2014
• 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, Hindi, Haitham Ali Salem, Greene, Daniel H.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ebersman, Bruce I
• Application Number:
  US12/406,003
• Publication Number:
  US 20100241549A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,988 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:

estimating, by a computer, a probe price to elicit energy service from one or more participants;

providing the probe price to a respective participant in a group of participants;

receiving, from the respective participant, a supply-function approximation that includes a slope, α

, and an intercept, β

, to map a price of the energy service to a supply amount that the respective participant can provide;

calculating, by the computer, a purchase price, λ

, for the group of participants of the energy service using the function;

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 probe price, receiving the supply-function approximations, and generating the purchase price occur after the bid and before the contracted time.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein determining whether the purchase price approximately equals the probe price includes determining whether the purchase price meets restrictions included in the supply-function approximation.

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

6. 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.

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

8. The method of claim 7, wherein the regulation occurs over a time interval that is less than 15 seconds.

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

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the load following occurs over a time interval that is less than one minute.

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

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

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

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

15. 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.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein a dynamical model is used to compute future effects of demand responses on the participant over time.

17. The method of claim 15, where the supply function approximations are used in a model predictive control implementation.

18. 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.

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

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

21. The method of claim 1, wherein generating the purchase price further involves minimizing a cost or disutility function of the participant.

22. A computer-program product for use in conjunction with a computer system, the computer-program product comprising a non-transitory 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 estimating a probe price to elicit energy service from one or more participants;

instructions for providing the probe price to a respective participant in a group of participants;

instructions for receiving, from the respective participant, a supply-function approximation that includes a slope, α

, and an intercept, β

, to map a price of the energy service to a supply amount that the respective participant can provide;

instructions for calculating a purchase price, λ

, the group of participants of the energy service using the function;

23. A computer system, comprising:

a processor;

memory; and

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 estimating a probe price to elicit energy service from one or more participants;

instructions for providing the probe price to a respective participant in a group of participants;

instructions for receiving, from the respective participant, a supply-function approximation that includes a slope, α

, and an intercept, β

, to map a price of the energy service to a supply amount that the respective participant can provide;

instructions for calculating a purchase price, λ

, for the group of participants of the energy service using the function;