Jason Macdonald | Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (original) (raw)

Papers by Jason Macdonald

arXiv (Cornell University), May 18, 2016

OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information), Jun 5, 2020

Interest in using demand response (DR) resources to supply low cost reliability products to the b... more Interest in using demand response (DR) resources to supply low cost reliability products to the bulk electricity system is on the rise due to the uncertain impacts of increasing penetrations of intermittent generation and recent rulings supporting demand side participation in wholesale markets from the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. However, organized electricity and ancillary services markets are just beginning to support DR resources for ancillary services, and the set of rules and requirements for participation are unique to each market. This paper discusses the opportunities that exist in the ancillary service markets in each US Independent System Operator territory and identifies challenges to market participation for demand response resources. It compares resource requirements, limits to aggregation, measurement and verification, bidding requirements, market timelines, and the types of organizations that can play in the markets. Additionally, it uses market clearing prices and market size to compare what value may be extracted from these markets, and identifies how these prices are currently determined. Using these criteria, PJM and ERCOT have the most favorable conditions for demand response participation in ancillary service markets, and changes to rules that effect aggregation and minimum resource size could promote more participation in other AS markets across the US.

Author(s): Piette, Mary Ann; Kiliccote, Sila; Ghatikar, Girish; McKane, Aimee; Matson, Nance; Pag... more Author(s): Piette, Mary Ann; Kiliccote, Sila; Ghatikar, Girish; McKane, Aimee; Matson, Nance; Page, Janie; MacDonald, Jason; Aghajanzadeh, Arian; Black, Doug; Yin, Rongxin | Abstract: In response to electric supply problems stemming from the failure of the restructured California electricity market in the late 1990s, the California Energy Commission sponsored the founding of the Demand Response Research Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Its purpose was to develop ways to reduce electricity demand in response to price, monetary incentives, or utility directives so as to maintain reliable electric service or avoid high electricity prices. From its inception in 2003, until 2015, the period covered by this report, researchers at the Center developed ways to automate demand response. They developed a communication protocol known as OpenADR to enable transmission of demand response signals between suppliers and users of electricity. OpenADR has since become a US national st...

(ISO) technical standards are followed by a standard number in this report and should not be conf... more (ISO) technical standards are followed by a standard number in this report and should not be confused with an independent system operator (ISO), which is an organization formed at the direction or recommendation of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission.

Proceedings of the IEEE, 2020

Increasing quantities of renewable energy generation has yielded a need for greater energy storag... more Increasing quantities of renewable energy generation has yielded a need for greater energy storage capacity in power systems. Thermal storage in variable air volume (VAV) heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) in commercial buildings has been identified as an inexpensive source of grid storage, but the true costs are not known. Recent literature explores the inefficiency associated with providing grid services from these HVAC-based demand response (DR) resources by employing a battery analogy to calculate round-trip efficiency (RTE). Results vary significantly across studies and in some cases reported efficiencies are strikingly low. This article has three objectives to address these prior results. First, we synthesize and expand on insights into existing literature by systematically exploring the potential causes for the discrepancies in results. We reinforce previous work indicating baseline modeling may drive differences across studies and deduce that control accuracy plays a role in the major differences between experiments and simulation. Second, we discuss why the RTE metric is problematic for DR applications, discuss another proposed metric, additional energy consumption (AEC), and propose an extension, which we call uninstructed energy consumption (UEC), to evaluate DR performance. Finally, we explore the merits of different metrics using experimental data and highlight UEC’s reduced sensitivity to the characteristics of the DR signal than previously proposed metrics.

2021 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM), 2021

The influx of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) throughout the distribution system presents a ch... more The influx of Distributed Energy Resources (DER) throughout the distribution system presents a challenge and an opportunity for maintaining power quality standards throughout the system. As such, DER Management systems have become a burgeoning field in both industry and academia. This work presents results from a field test of a model-free, distributed control approach, Extremum Seeking, applied to voltage management on a live feeder in Riverside, CA. The paper presents selected results to highlight the successes and challenges the control approach faced. The work shows that despite slow inverter response, extremum seeking control is able to drive voltage toward a target without knowledge of the system it is operating on.

Proceedings of the 51st Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2018

New sources for ancillary services are needed, yet the requirements for service provision in most... more New sources for ancillary services are needed, yet the requirements for service provision in most countries are explicitly formulated for traditional generators. This leads to waste of the potential for new technologies to deliver ancillary services. In order to harness this potential, we propose to parameterize the requirements of ancillary services so that reserves can be built by combining the advantageous properties of different technologies. The proposal is exemplified through a laboratory test where it shown that the system needs can be covered through cheaper and smaller reserves.

Topology Reconfiguation is a simple algorithm to choose a network configuration with the least lo... more Topology Reconfiguation is a simple algorithm to choose a network configuration with the least losses in a system with high penetration of renewable energy. It uses a linearized optimal power flow algorithm to identify the optimal setpoints of PV in a system, then performs an exhaustive search of switch configurations to find the loss minimizing solution, it repeats this process until convergence. At the end, the operator has a switch schedule for a 24 hour period that should minimize losses. VVC is a distributed algorithm in which PV units drive voltage at points within the network to 1 per unit through reactive power control. The VVC algorithm relies on extremum seeking control to provide the control. The software package is a simulation of VVC on a standard IEEE 34 bus three phase network.

2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM), 2020

The transition to renewable energy sources induces new challenges in operating the power system. ... more The transition to renewable energy sources induces new challenges in operating the power system. In previous work, we explored an extremum seeking-based control scheme to aggregate and manage distributed energy resources and operate them similarly to more conventional dispatchable resources. In this paper, we focused on implementing this control scheme in a realistic environment including readily available commercial equipment. Here, we explore the limitations of existing hardware and relate the choices that were made to achieve a functioning proof of concept implementation.

2020 IEEE Power & Energy Society Innovative Smart Grid Technologies Conference (ISGT), 2020

Paradigm shifts in electricity generation are leading to more renewable and distributed energy re... more Paradigm shifts in electricity generation are leading to more renewable and distributed energy resources (DER) on the grid. There is a strong interest to utilize these resources for various grid services, but the practicality of commanding multiple DER is often an obstacle to such approaches. In this article, we seek to validate through Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation an extremum seeking (ES) based control scheme proposed in previous work. The method aggregates and coordinates multiple distributed controllers to offer transmission grid level services. The HIL validation uses a prototype real-time implementation of the controller's logic on distributed devices and photovoltaic (PV) inverters operating on a simulated utility distribution feeder. Several grid services, including load following and voltage regulation, were validated to demonstrate the deployment feasibility of the ES control approach on equipment already installed on the grid.

This paper is the first part of a two-part series in which we present results from one of the fir... more This paper is the first part of a two-part series in which we present results from one of the first worldwide experimental demonstrations of frequency regulation in a commercial building test facility. We demonstrate that commercial buildings can track a frequency regulation signal with high accuracy and minimal occupant discomfort in a realistic environment. In addition, we show that buildings can determine the reserve capacity and baseline power a priori, and identify the optimal tradeoff between frequency regulation and energy efficiency. In Part I, we introduce the test facility and develop relevant building models. Furthermore, we design a hierarchical controller for the Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) system that consists of three levels: a reserve scheduler, a building climate controller, and a fan speed controller for frequency regulation. We formulate the reserve scheduler as a robust optimization problem and introduce several approximations to reduce its c...

This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. While... more This document was prepared as an account of work sponsored by the United States Government. While this document is believed to contain correct information, neither the United States Government nor any agency thereof, nor The Regents of the University of California, nor any of their employees, make any warranty, express or implied, or assume any legal responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, or usefulness of any information, apparatus, product, or process disclosed, or represent that its use would not infringe privately owned rights. References herein to any specific commercial product, process, or service by its trade name, trademark, manufacturer, or otherwise, does not necessarily constitute or imply its endorsement, recommendation, or favoring by the United States Government or any agency thereof, or The Regents of the University of California. The views and opinions of authors expressed herein do not necessarily state or reflect those of the United States Government or any agency thereof of The Regents of the University of California. Energy Commission's ARFVTP Investment Plan, updated annually. The Energy Commission issued agreement 500-11-025 to demonstrate vehicle-to-grid ancillary services and demand response at Los Angeles Air Force Base. The recipient submitted an application and the agreement was executed as Contract 500-11-025 on September 7, 2012.

Author(s): Piette, Mary; Kiliccote, Sila; Ghatikar, Girish; Matson, Nance; Page, Janie; MacDonald... more Author(s): Piette, Mary; Kiliccote, Sila; Ghatikar, Girish; Matson, Nance; Page, Janie; MacDonald, Jason; Aghajanzadeh, Arian; Black, Douglas; Yin, Rongxin | Abstract: In response to electric supply problems stemming from the failure of the restructured California electricity market in the late 1990s, the California Energy Commission sponsored the founding of the Demand Response Research Center at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Its purpose was to develop ways to reduce electricity demand in response to price, monetary incentives, or utility directives so as to maintain reliable electric service or avoid high electricity prices. From its inception in 2003, until 2015, the period covered by this report, researchers at the Center developed ways to automate demand response. They developed a communication protocol known as OpenADR to enable transmission of demand response signals between suppliers and users of electricity. OpenADR has since become a US national standard, in use i...

2018 IEEE Power & Energy Society General Meeting (PESGM), 2018

The increased penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) on the distribution network crea... more The increased penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) on the distribution network creates local challenges in balancing consumption and generation. To coordinate the roll-out and the operation of DERs, distribution-level energy markets have been proposed, but there are currently few tools for simulating the operation of DERs in these proposed markets. We present a framework which utilizes a grid cosimulation platform (Mosaik) to simulation DER operation, while simulating market clearing operations with a blockchain network (Ethereum). The use of blockchains, an emerging technology for decentralized computing and data storage, allows us to model secure decentralized execution of market clearing functions and payment processes. By unifying simulation of market clearing rules and the physical grid, we are able to ensure that economic incentives are aligned with physical constraints, helping facilitate the development of more effective distributed energy markets. We demonstrate the use of this new simulation platform on a small feeder, for which a market mechanism to incentivize DER integration is explored.

Applied Energy, 2017

The Los Angeles Air Force Base Electric Vehicle Demonstration is a currently ongoing vehicle-to-g... more The Los Angeles Air Force Base Electric Vehicle Demonstration is a currently ongoing vehicle-to-grid demonstration project with the objective of minimizing the cost of operation of a fleet of approximately 30 electric vehicles (EVs) through participation in the California Independent System Operator (CAISO) frequency regulation market. To accomplish this, a hierarchical control system has been developed to optimize, plan, and control the charging, market bidding, and response to grid system operator control of the EVs. This paper presents an overview of the day-ahead optimization model component of the hierarchy. The model is a mixed integer linear program that optimizes daily EV charging and regulation capacity bids strategies in order to minimize operation costs and maximize ancillary service revenue. A deterministic approach is used due to several practical concerns of the demonstration project, including model complexity and the availability and uncertainty of input data in day-ahead decision making, and the limited size of the fleet. The model includes additional user-defined parameters to tune model behavior to better match real-world conditions and minimize the risks of uncertainty. The paper conducts scenario analysis to explore the impact of these parameters on high level model behavior and resulting bid strategy. The parameters explored include hourly regulation prices, local load conditions leading to retail demand charges, forced symmetry constraints for regulation bids, SOC penalty values to reserve higher states-of-charge in vehicles, and expected regulation resource utilization while providing reserves. These analyses show significant sensitivity in the frequency regulation bidding strategy to the regulation utilization, as well as large differences in the regulation prices between regulation up (discharging capacity) and regulation down (charging capacity). Results also suggest enforcing symmetry in regulation appears to have significant impacts in regulation revenue when there is large relative disparities between prices in the up and down direction. Finally, imposing a small cost on low SOC values significantly impacts the fleet-wide average SOC, making the system more resilient to uncertainty in the mobility demands gathered at the time of making day ahead decisions.

The adoption of low carbon energy technologies such as variable renewable energy and electric veh... more The adoption of low carbon energy technologies such as variable renewable energy and electric vehicles, coupled with the efficacy of energy efficiency to reduce traditional base load has increased the uncertainty inherent in the net load shape. Handling this variability with slower, traditional resources leads to inefficient system dispatch, and in some cases may compromise reliability. Grid operators are looking to future energy technologies, such as automated demand response (DR), to provide capacity-based reliability services as the need for these services increase. While DR resources are expected to have the flexibility characteristics operators are looking for, demonstrations are necessary to build confidence in their capabilities. Additionally, building owners are uncertain of the monetary value and operational burden of providing these services. To address this, the present study demonstrates the ability of demand response resources providing two ancillary services in the PJM territory, synchronous reserve and regulation, using an OpenADR 2.0b signaling architecture. The loads under control include HVAC and lighting at a big box retail store and variable frequency fan loads. The study examines performance characteristics of the resource: the speed of response, communications latencies in the architecture, and accuracy of response. It also examines the frequency and duration of events and the value in the marketplace which can be used to examine if the opportunity is sufficient to entice building owners to participate.

Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences, 2020

ASME Journal of Engineering for Sustainable Buildings and Cities

The integration of variable and intermittent renewable energy generation into the power system is... more The integration of variable and intermittent renewable energy generation into the power system is a grand challenge to our efforts to achieve a sustainable future. Flexible demand is one solution to this challenge, where the demand can be controlled to follow energy supply, rather than the conventional way of controlling energy supply to follow demand. Recent research has shown that electric building climate control systems like heat pumps can provide this demand flexibility by effectively storing energy as heat in the thermal mass of the building. While some forms of heat pump demand flexibility have been implemented in the form of peak pricing and utility demand response programs, controlling heat pumps to provide ancillary services like frequency regulation, load following, and reserve have yet to be widely implemented. In this paper, we review the recent advances and remaining challenges in controlling heat pumps to provide these grid services. This analysis includes heat pump a...