Design of Demand Response based Load Management Solutions for a University Campus

Demand Response (DR) is drawing the attention of the power system operators due to the increasing electricity demand and limited generation capacity to meet the growing demand. Traditionally, DR involved large industrial and commercial consumers only; but now due to the advancement in technology, it's deployment in small residential, commercial and educational sectors is also being considered. Moreover, the rural population would also get connected under 'Power to All' program by government of India. Energy released due to DR action could be used to meet this mission to great extent. In this paper, DR program is designed and studied for a University Campus. A MATLAB/Simulink model of large loads like air conditioners, geysers, etc. has been considered to provide DR action. A new sub-model incorporating a thermostat that uses Real-time Pricing (RTP) of electricity to control the temperature setting of the air conditioner has been proposed in this paper. Results show that DR is useful in reducing the peak demand as well as the overall energy consumption.