Frequency Regulation With Connected Lighting Systems

Abstract

The management of end-use energy loads, including commercial buildings, has been increasingly investigated as a promising source of services for the electric power grid. Lighting consumes about 17% of the total electricity use of U.S. commercial buildings; however, it may contribute significantly to services that improve the reliability and resilience of the grid due to its rapid speed of response. Connected lighting systems (CLS), which build upon solid-state light-emitting diode (LED) technology, can change their power demand more quickly than most other building electricity end-uses. But the potential of CLS to provide grid services has not been fully investigated. In this paper, we describe initial research to evaluate the potential of CLS for providing frequency regulation grid service. Frequency regulation is a reliability service that corrects in a matter of seconds for short-term changes in the balance between supply and demand that might affect the stability of the power system in a specific balancing area. Frequency regulation signals for a medium office building are generated from the normalized test signals for the PJM Regional Transmission Organization Reg-A and Reg-D regulations services. CLS are controlled in simulations to follow the Reg-A or Reg-D signal and thereby provide frequency regulation service. The performance of CLS providing frequency regulation is evaluated using the PJM 40-Minute Performance Score Template. The performance scores obtained for five different CLS categories responding to both Reg-A and Reg-D signals far exceed the minimum qualification score, a very promising result for CLS aiming to provide frequency regulation service.