Development of Realtime Co-Simulation Platform Harnessing Consumer Energy Flexibility Through an Aggregator to Provide Grid Support

The integration of renewable energy resources and nearly zero energy buildings (nZEBs) into the grid requires a balance between demand and supply, which makes energy flexibility (EF) very important. There is a lack of tools to fully characterize EF and evaluate its performance in power systems in real-time. This paper fills research gaps related to EF implementation and evaluation in a real-time scenario and proposes a co-simulation tool for characterizing EF. In this study, a co-simulation tool to evaluate the impact of consumers EF managed by an aggregator in real-time is developed. The aggregator utilizes a non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) method and the XgBoost algorithm, extracting information about consumer device usage patterns in nZEBs and non-nZEBs to establish EF. The co-simulation tool connects the aggregator in MATLAB with the IEEE 13-bus distribution system implemented in RTDS for real-time analysis. The aggregator provides grid support by regulating the adjustment of the shiftable loads and maintaining the operating frequency and voltage of the network. The real-time simulation results demonstrate the aggregator’s ability to reduce frequency deviations and provide grid support.