Dynamic modelling and optimal control of virtual power plant driven by commercial HVACs

Heating, ventilation, and air conditionings (HVACs) of commercial buildings bear a large amount of weight in total load and have emerged as a major flexible resource participating in power systems. HVACs can be aggregated in an entity to participate in power system dispatching. First, refrigeration and air systems modelling of HVACs is conducted. Second, commercial buildings with HVACs are encapsulated into a power‐smoothed and independent virtual generation unit (VGU) by using an internal integrated coordination control method, which characterizes the virtual generation capability of commercial buildings. Third, the dynamic modelling method of virtual power plant (VPP) is presented, and a local‐autonomous optimal control strategy of HVACs is proposed via centralized‐distributed architectures. The results of the analysis indicate that HVACs can be adequately regulated to participate in power system peak‐shaving.