Decentralized control of industrial heating loads for providing multiple levels and types of primary frequency control service

To keep the real-time balance between electricity supply and demand, i.e. to guarantee the grid frequency within the allowable range, is becoming even challenging because the increasing penetration of renewable energy and decreasing capacity of conventional frequency-sensitive generators. Industrial heating loads are important demand-side resources that can contribute, but the control paradigm needs to be updated to be accommodated with the recent development of electricity markets especially frequency response markets. Accordingly, a decentralized control was proposed for industrial heating loads to provide multiple levels and types of primary frequency control service. Specifically, bitumen tanks and the Firm Frequency Response market in the Great Britain were studied as representatives. Simulation results verified the validity of the proposed control, with the normalized Root Mean Square Errors below 0.08 in all cases