Emulating batteries with deferrable energy demand

Abstract

We investigate the ability of a collection of deferrable energy loads to behave as a battery; that is, to absorb and release energy in a controllable fashion up to fixed and predetermined limits on volume, charge rate and discharge rate. In a previous paper, we derived upper bounds on the parameters of the batteries that can be emulated, and showed that there is a fundamental trade-off between the abilities of collective load to absorb and release energy at high rates. Here, we introduce a novel class of dynamic priority-driven feedback policies that balance these abilities, and characterize the batteries that they can emulate.