Load Shedding: A New Proposal

During overloads in the mains, the load curtailment applied to interruptible loads is often the only solution to keep the network in operation. Normally, in contingencies, the difference between the power absorbed and the power produced is very low, often less than 1% of the latter. Therefore if all the loads participated in the load shedding program, the discomfort would be minimal, considering its usually short duration. According to this point of view, we present a new approach to the load shedding program to guarantee the correct electrical system operation by increasing the number of participants. This new load control strategy is named Distributed Interruptible Load Shedding (DILS). Indeed, it is possible to split every user's load into interruptible and uninterruptible parts, and to operate on the interruptible part only. The optimal load reduction request is found by minimizing the expected value of an appropriate cost function, thus taking the uncertainty about the power absorbed by each customer into account. Presently, several users such as hospitals, data centres, supermarkets, universities, industries, etc. might be very interested in typical shedding programs as a way to spare money in their electrical account. However, in the future, when the domotic power plants are likely to be used widely, the distributors could interest the end users in participating in DILS programs for either economic or social reasons. By adopting the DILS program, the distributors can resort to the interruptible loads not only in case of emergency conditions but also during normal and alert operations.