This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been
fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
Model predictive control of distributed air-conditioning loads to
compensate fluctuations in solar power
Nariman Mahdavi, Member, IEEE, Julio H. Braslavsky, Senior Member, IEEE, Maria M. Seron
and Samuel R. West
AbstractFlexible loads such as residential air-conditioners
(ACs) can be directly controlled to provide demand-side regula-
tion and balance services in electricity grids. Large aggregations
of ACs offer a resource akin to that of a distributed energy
storage system, which may be used to compensate fluctuations
in the power output of local renewable energy generation. This
paper formulates distributed and centralised model predictive
control (MPC) strategies to balance fluctuations in solar power
generation by directly controlling the aggregate demand of
clusters of distributed residential ACs. The proposed receding-
horizon control strategies rely on a new second-order linear time-
varying model for the aggregate demand response of a population
of heterogeneous ACs to changes in thermostat setpoints under
varying ambient temperature. The performance of the proposed
MPC strategies is analysed in a numerical simulation study
implementing AC demand tracking of 1-minute fluctuations in
actual PV capacity based on persistence and sky imager short-
term solar forecasts. The results show that distributed and
centralised MPC strategies achieve comparable performance,
with better performance of persistence forecasts in a shorter
prediction horizon, and better performance with sky imager
forecasts on a longer prediction horizon.
Index TermsModel predictive control, distributed control,
centralised control, demand response, air conditioner loads, solar
PV, solar forecast, sky imager.
I. I NTRODUCTION
Wind and solar energy are set to lead the transition of
electricity grids to lower dependence on fossil fuels and
meet national renewable energy targets [1]. However, this
transition is not without technical challenges. The expansion of
residential rooftop photovoltaic (PV) generation, for example,
may be hindered by difficulties in their integration into legacy
grid systems. It has been argued that rapid fluctuations in PV
output, such as those caused by passing clouds, can potentially
impact power balance and quality, motivating some utilities to
restrict PV installations in low-voltage networks [2].
Rapid fluctuations in wind and PV power output may be
smoothed through the use of energy storage [3]. However,
energy storage systems can substantially increase the costs
of deploying renewable energy. A cost-effective demand-
side alternative is the direct load control (DLC) of flexible
loads, such as air conditioners (ACs), water heaters, and pool
pumps to provide regulation reserve [4][6]. The aggregate
demand of a distributed population of such loads may be
N. Mahdavi and J. H. Braslavsky are with CSIRO Energy, PO Box
330, Newcastle NSW 2300, Australia, and also with the School of EECS,
University of Newcastle, Australia (e-mail: nariman.mahdavimazdeh and
julio.braslavsky @csiro.au)
M. M. Seron is with the School of EECS, University of Newcastle, Australia
(e-mail: maria.seron@newcastle.edu.au)
S. R. West is with CSIRO Energy, PO Box 330, Newcastle NSW 2300,
Australia (e-mail: sam.west@csiro.au)
1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
modulated by DLC to follow the fluctuations in power output
of local renewable energy generation, which, depending on
communication lags, may need to be forecast with sufficient
anticipation and accuracy [7]. One-minute ahead forecasts are
used in [8] to achieve smoothing of wind generated electricity
in a minimum-variance load control strategy. Five minute-
ahead wind and solar generation forecasts are used in [9] to
implement an optimal distributed load control strategy.
Numerous recent studies have shown that the aggregate de-
mand of populations of thermostatically controlled loads may
be effectively controlled by broadcasting small offsets to the
thermostat setpoints. Utilities commonly use this approach in
open-loop DLC of hot-water systems to reduce peak demand.
In contrast, the use of DLC to provide fast power regulation
services, such as smoothing rapid fluctuations in the power
output of a wind or PV generator can substantially benefit
from feedback control to maintain the controlled demand in
synchronism with the power source and systematically reduce
regulation errors [7], [8], [10][12].
Model predictive control (MPC) is an optimisation-based
control strategy that has been widely applied in the process
control industry since the 1970s due to its ability to cope with
constrained inputs and states [13], [14]. The application of
MPC has since been extended to many other areas, and in
recent years has attracted increasing interest in the control of
electrical networks [10], [15][17]. MPC has great potential to
handle complex problems involving large numbers of control-
lable resources, while explicitly accounting for system con-
straints and disturbances to compute optimal control actions
in real time [15], [17].
This paper develops an MPC strategy for the DLC of a
distributed population of ACs to compensate rapid fluctua-
tions in PV power at a substation or distribution transformer
aggregation level. The core of the proposed MPC design is a
new temperature-dependent model for the aggregate demand
response of a distributed population of ACs to small thermo-
stat setpoint changes. These changes can be computed using
feedback from aggregate demand measurements. The proposed
model integrates recent results from [7], [18]. Distributed
and centralised MPC strategies based on this model are then
proposed for the aggregate AC demand to track fluctuations
in local PV power generation over sustained periods of time
based on short-term solar forecasts.
The closest related prior work to the present paper is a
centralised MPC design recently published in [10], where
an aggregate state-bin demand model is used to directly
control the demand of loads in each bin. While [10] clearly
demonstrates the potential of MPC to control these loads
to track a rapidly fluctuating power signal, it presents two
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

significant drawbacks for practical implementations: (1) each of DLC of population of thermostatically controlled loads [7],
of the controlled loads is assumed to have in place fast [8], [12], [20]. Namely, the dynamics of the room temperature
bidirectional communications with the centralised controller, for the ith AC in the population (i = 1, 2, . . . , n) is given by
which may introduce non-trivial capital costs, as pointed out dTi (t) 1
by the authors; and (2) the end-use load temperatures are = [Ti (t) Ta (t) + mi (t)Ri Pi i ], (1)
dt Ci Ri
not directly controlled and may exceed specified boundaries
note that the results shown in [10] assume end-of-use 0
if Ti (t) T + u(t)
temperature regulation bands four times wider than those mi (t + ) = 1 if Ti (t) T+ + u(t) (2)
typically used in commercial ACs.

mi (t) otherwise,

The present paper improves on the work of [10] by for-
mulating MPC schemes both in distributed and centralised where the continuous state Ti (t) is the regulated temperature,
variants, for a population of ACs that may be segmented into and the discrete state mi (t) is the state of the relay, which
clusters representing aggregate load per zone-substation or switches the AC compressor on and off according to the
distribution-transformer. Clustering adds substantial flexibility hysteretic control rule (2). The setpoint offset u(t) is a control
in a practical implementation, and allows accommodating signal that broadcasts in a one-way communication scheme
different parameter distributions, different solar variability to all of the ACs in the population. The continuous-state
forecasts, or customised end-of-use temperature requirements dynamics (1) is a simplified model that combines air and solid
per cluster, while keeping a common tracking goal for the mass thermal dynamics; see for example [10], [21], which use
aggregate demand of the total population. In contrast with a second-order model of the form
[10], only unidirectional communications (broadcasts) to the dTi (t) 1
= [Ti (t) Ta (t) + mi (t)Ri Pi i ]
ACs are required to implement the proposed MPC schemes. dt Ci Ri
Furthermore, since the proposed controllers directly manipu- 1
late AC thermostat setpoints, the ensuing strategies can offer + [TM,i (t) Ti (t)], (3)
Ci RM,i
guaranteed end-of-use temperature margins by imposing a dTM,i (t) 1
constraint on control actions, easily implemented in MPC. = [Ti (t) TM,i (t)],
dt CM,i RM,i
The model formulated in the present paper for the aggregate
demand of ACs in a cluster is strongly aimed at enabling prac- where TM ,CM , and RM represent the mass temperature, thermal
tical implementation: it has a simple linear second-order model capacitance and thermal resistance.
structure, and is directly parametrised by ambient temperature Using either (1) or (3), the relay control law (2) main-
and the distributions of physical parameters (thermal power, tains the temperature Ti (t) oscillating around the temperature
resistance and capacitance) defining the dynamics of ACs in setpoint Tr (t) = u(t) + Tr0 within the hysteresis deadband
the population considered. As argued in [18], such parameters |Ti (t) Tr (t)| (T+ T )/2, where Tr0 = (T+ + T )/2. The
may be identified from readily available grid and weather data period of the oscillations depends on the difference between
following a Bayesian inference approach. Ti and the ambient temperature Ta , and is also a function of
In the rest of the paper, Section II discuses AC dynamics the thermal capacitance Ci (kWh/ C) and thermal resistance
and develops an ambient-temperature dependent model for the Ri ( C/kW) of the room, the electrical power Pi (kW) and the
aggregate demand response of a heterogeneous population of cooling coefficient of performance i of the ith AC.
ACs. Section III formulates the proposed MPC schemes in In general, the coefficient of performance i is a function
distributed and centralised variants for clustered population of of the difference between ambient and regulated room temper-
ACs. Section IV analyses the achievable performance of the atures, Ta (t) Ti (t). However, it may be reasonably approxi-
proposed schemes through numerical simulations in a case mated as a linear function of just the ambient temperature. We
study built upon real solar PV generation data. The numerical adopt the linear model in [18], which is based on experimental
results compare 1-minute PV power tracking performance results for a ZB45KCE compressor,
achievable using solar forecasts based on persistence and sky
(Ta ) = 0.14(Ta 35) + 0 , (4)
imager observations using a methodology developed in [19]
for prediction horizons of 2 and 5 minutes. Conclusions and where 0 is a nominal value at 35 C/27 C
ambient/regulated
future work are discussed in Section V. room temperature, and the ambient temperature is in the range
20 C Ta 35 C.
II. A TEMPERATURE - DEPENDENT SECOND - ORDER MODEL The normalised aggregate demand z(t) of a population of n
FOR THE AGGREGATE DEMAND OF A POPULATION OF AC S such ACs independently operating with the dynamics (1)-(2)
is given by the ratio
A. Single AC regulation dynamics
ni=1 mi (t)Pi
We consider a population of n ACs that independently z(t) = . (5)
regulate room temperatures using thermostats and on-off relay ni=1 Pi
controllers. The dominant dynamics of the regulated tempera- Equation (5) provides a convenient way to numerically study
ture for each of these ACs may be approximated by a simple aggregate demand dynamics, assuming the distributions of
model consisting of a differential equation driven by the state thermal parameters C, R and P are known. By simulating
of a relay with hysteresis, which is widely used in studies an artificial array of n independent sets of Equations (1)-(2)

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

coupled with (5), one can analyse the effects that parameter troduce ambient temperature as a slowly varying exogeneous
distribution and external signals such as setpoint offset have parameter, Ta = Ta (t) by using from [18] the approximation
on the aggregate power demand of the population. This is
Dss (Ta ) = (Ta Tr )/RP(Ta ), (6)
the approach used in the present paper to simulate the actual
natural and controlled demand of a population of ACs. for the steady state demand Dss (Ta ). This yields the proposed
second-order LPV model for the aggregate demand z(t) (5)
defined by
B. Aggregate demand modelling
x(t) = A(Ta )x(t) + Bu(t), (7)
The exact aggregate dynamics of such a population is rather 0
y(t) = D (Ta ) C(Ta )x(t) D (Ta )u(t), 0
(8)
complex and has motivated numerous modelling approaches,
starting with [22], [23], and in more recent years [8], [11], with
   
[12], [24], [25]. These models, however, have in general had 2 f1 (Ta ) f2 (Ta ) 1
limited translation into practically implementable DLC designs A(t) = , B= , (9)
1 0 0
due, for example, to high dimensionality required for model  
C(Ta ) = g1 (Ta ) g2 (Ta ) , (10)
fidelity, and the complexity of estimating model parameters
and states necessary to control real-world populations. where
To circumvent these practical limitations, the work in [7] f1 (Ta ) = d (Ta )| log(r(Ta ))|/,
developed a heuristic mean-field modelling approach that
f2 (Ta ) = 1 + log2 (r(Ta ))/ 2 d2 (Ta ),
 
retains, within a low-complexity linear time invariant (LTI)
model structure, an analytical dependence on the distributed 1
g1 (Ta ) = f1 (Ta ) + d (Ta ) cot(t 1 d (Ta )) D0
  
physical parameters that define the thermal dynamics of ACs RP(Ta )
in the population. While the LTI model developed in [7] 2d (Ta )(D f D1 ) exp(t 1 f1 (Ta ))
performs well under almost constant ambient temperature, its + , (11)
sin(t 1 d (Ta ))
fidelity can degrade significantly over sustained periods of time 1
D0 ,
 
where ambient temperature can vary by several degrees. This g2 (Ta ) = f2 (Ta )
RP(Ta )
observation motivated in [18] the extension of the modelling
2 (T+ T )C
approach from [7] to analyse the effect of changes in ambient d (Ta ) = , T = 2 )P(T )D f (1 D f )
, (12)
temperature on the aggregate demand response under the T (1 + rel a
1D f
(1 D f )|


assumption of constant AC temperature setpoints. | erf 0.5+
2rel
This section integrates results from [18] and [7] to formulate r(Ta ) = , (13)
| erf(2D f ) D f |
a linear parameter-varying (LPV) model structure [26] that  
1 C (a 7/8)(T+ T ) 1 1 1 log(a)
can more accurately describe the aggregate demand response t = 2 )P(T )D f
; D = + erf ,
of a population of ACs to changes in temperature setpoints (1 + rel a 6 6 2rel
 2 log(3)

over periods of time with significant variations in ambient a = exp log( 2) rel log(2)
temperature. Using expressions developed in [18], ambient
temperature is introduced in the LTI model structure developed and D0 , D f are functions of ambient temperature given by
in [7] as a persistently slowly varying exogeneous parameter. D0 (Ta ) = (Ta Tr0 )/RP(Ta ), (14)
Frozen at a given value, the proposed LPV model represents a
stable LTI system as in [7]. If the parameter varies sufficiently
f
D (Ta ) = (Ta Tr0 0.5)/RP(Ta ). (15)
slowly, properties of the trajectories of the slowly time-varying
parameter system may be shown to follow, using LPV system C. LPV model performance
theory (e.g., [26, Chapter 1]), from the properties of the The proposed LPV model (7)-(15) (as those in [7] and
frozen parameter system. As we will illustrate in simulated [18]) is derived based on the analysis of the aggregate demand
responses in the next section, changes in ambient temperature response of the AC population to a step change in temperature
are typically much slower than the natural dynamics of the ag- setpoint offsets, and under the simplifying assumption that
gregate demand response of ACs, which numerically justifies only the thermal capacitance C is distributed in the pop-
the proposed LPV model structure. ulation. However, we argue that this LPV model can still
Following [7], [18], the LPV model introduced next assumes capture the dominant dynamics of the demand response of
that the AC population is heterogeneous solely in thermal a heterogeneous population even when all of the parameters
capacitance C, which is log-normally distributed with mean are distributed, not only C, and under significant variations
C and standard deviation C = rel C . Thermal resistance R, in ambient temperature and general changes to setpoint (not
rated electrical power P, temperature setpoint Tr0 , and (Ta ) necessarily a step).
are all assumed identical for all the ACs. The performance of the proposed LPV model (7)-(15) is
Consider the LTI model proposed in [7] for the normalised illustrated below by comparing its simulated output against
aggregate demand response z(t) of a population of ACs to the demand response of a heterogeneous population of 10,000
a common simultaneous change in their temperature setpoint ACs aggregated using (5), where the individual AC dynamics
offset u(t) under constant ambient temperature Ta . We in- are simulated using both first and second-order models (1)

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

Normalised aggregate demand

and (3), and where all parameters are distributed with realistic 1
Simulated population by (1)-(2)
values for means and variances as given in Table I. 0.8 Simulated population by (2)-(3)
LPV model
0.6 LTI model
TABLE I
S IMULATION PARAMETERS . 0.4

0.2
Parameter Mean Description
value 0
R 2 C/kW Thermal resistance (log-normally distributed). -0.2
C 3.6 Thermal capacitance (log-normally distributed). 2am 4am 6am 8am 10am noon 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12pm
kWh/ C 31
Ambient temperature ( o C)
20.6

29
RM 1 C/kW Mass thermal resistance (log-normally dis- Setpoint temperature ( C)o 20.4
tributed). 26
20.2
CM 4.3 Mass thermal capacitance (log-normally dis- 23
kWh/ C tributed). 20 20
P 2 kW Electrical power (log-normally distributed). 2am 4am 6am 8am 10am noon 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12pm
3 Coefficient of performance (uniformly distributed
[2.5, 3.5]).
T 19.5 C Lower end of hysteresis band. Fig. 1. The response of the LPV model (8) and LTI model developed in [7]
T+ 20.5 C Higher end of hysteresis band. versus the normalised power demand response of 10,000 simulated ACs by
rel 0.2 Standard deviation of log-normal distributions as (1)-(2) and (2)-(3) (top) to 0.5 C step change in setpoint temperature at 8am
a fraction of the mean value for R,C and P. till 7pm and real ambient temperature during a day (bottom)

Normalised aggregate demand

1
Simulated population by (1)-(2)
Figures 1 and 2 show the responses to step and sinusoid Simulated population by (2)-(3)
0.8
changes in temperature setpoint offset with real ambient tem- LPV model
LTI model
perature during an entire day. Notice how the output of the 0.6
LTI model from [7] (with fixed Ta = 26 C) can reasonably
approximate the response of the 10,000 simulated ACs only 0.4

when the ambient temperature is around 26 C, but it drifts 0.2

apart significantly elsewhere. In contrast, the proposed LPV
model response provides a consistently better approximation 0
2am 4am 6am 8am 10am noon 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12pm
over the entire range of ambient temperatures. 31
Ambient temperature ( o C)
20.2

Note in Figure 1 how both LTI and LPV model responses
yield large errors in the transients immediately following the
step time. This may be attributed to the fact that the means
and variances of the nominal parameters used in the model
structure (7)-(15) are both computed using the nominal means
and variances of the parameters in Table I, which may not the
best choice to minimise model error. This particular choice is
taken for comparison with the heuristic proposed in [7]. The
response of the proposed LPV model structure can produce a
substantially closer approximation to the population response
by tuning these parameters through a system identification
process using results from [18], as shown in Section IV-B.
We observe also from Figures 1 and 2 that the use the
second-order thermal dynamics model (3) to construct the
simulated population demand response does not make a sub-
stantial difference with respect to that obtained using the
simpler first-order thermal dynamics model (1), which agrees
with the common adoption of the latter observed in the
literature.
To support the consideration of ambient temperature as
a persistently slowly varying parameter in the LPV model
(7)-(15), observe in the typical daily evolution of ambient
temperature shown at the bottom of Figure 1 that it takes more
than eight hours for ambient temperature to traverse the entire
range of daily temperatures (about 20 degrees at this location).
In contrast, the typical transient step response of the population
of ACs with realistic distributed parameters shown at the top of
the same figure takes about one hour to traverse its maximum
range (see also [7], [18]). Furthermore, as will be seen in the
case study of Section IV, the prediction horizons considered
29
o
Setpoint temperature ( C)
26 20
23
20 19.8
2am 4am 6am 8am 10am noon 2pm 4pm 6pm 8pm 10pm 12pm
Fig. 2. Same as Figure 1, but with a sinusoid change with amplitude of 0.1 C
in setpoint temperature at noon till 7pm.
for control, with effective tracking performance, are 2 and 5
minutes. Hence, the rate of change in ambient temperature is
in this case around eight times slower than that of the natural
system response under fixed ambient temperature conditions
(LTI model), and no less than 100 times slower than the target
controlled response (see also Figure 4).
III. M ODEL PREDICTIVE CONTROL DESIGN
In this section we introduce the proposed distributed and
centralised MPC schemes to regulate the aggregate power of
a population of ACs. We adopt a simple one-way commu-
nication approach that simultaneously broadcasts temperature
setpoint offsets to all ACs in a population. However, to be able
to engage end-users in a DLC programme that offers different
levels of potential disruption to comfort during DLC events,
we consider a cluster-based control. In the proposed cluster-
based control approach, one signal is broadcast per cluster,
rather than a one signal broadcast all ACs in a population.
Each cluster will contribute to compensate intermittency in
a common PV output signal. The number of clusters and their
needs can vary for different retailers and populations. Thus,

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
a total population of n ACs is divided into c clusters, where
each cluster has its own setpoint offset ui , i = 1, 2, ..., c.
In either the distributed or the centralised MPC schemes,
short-term forecasts (2 to 5 minutes ahead) of fluctuations
in solar power at a given location will be used to provide
regulation of rapid fluctuations in solar capacity by modulating
aggregate AC demand. The proposed MPC schemes, compu-
tations and implementations are described in this section.
A. Distributed MPC scheme
The proposed distributed MPC scheme is illustrated in
Figure 3, where each control signal (temperature offset) ui ,
i = 1, . . . , c, is controlled by an MPC in each cluster. The
aggregate demand of each cluster can be measured at a
distribution transformer, and fed back to generate the state
estimates required for the MPC predictions. These predictions
are computed using the linear time-varying model proposed
in Section II-B and a linear observer, with very small model
orders (order 2 per cluster, in contrast with the state-bin model
in [10], which in their simulations is of order 200). The
aggregate demand of the population is computed as
c the prediction horizon [k, k + N 1].
z(t) = zi (t),
i=1
where zi (t) is the aggregate demand of each cluster as per (5).
In the distributed scheme, each cluster contributes to com-
pensate the variations of the common reference signal accord-
ing to its weight wi , which is the fraction of controllable
demand resource in the ith cluster with respect to the total
controllable demand resource of all clusters aggregated.
MPC is implemented as a sampled-data controller using the
LPV model (7)-(8) discretised with sampling period = 1
minute, t = k, (k + 1) . . . , which yields the discrete-time
LPV model
xk+1 = Ak xk + Bk uk ,
yk = D0k Ck xk D0k uk ,
where Ak = eA(Ta (k)) , Bk = (eA(Ta (k)) I)A1
k B, I is the
identity matrix, and Ck , D0k represent C and D0 as per (8)
evaluated at Ta (k).
To model the aggregate demand of the ith -cluster, the
matrices in the discrete-time state model (17) follow from
the common continuous-time LPV model structure (7)-(8), but
possibly with distinct parameters per cluster, which will be
denoted by adding the superindex i, e.g., Aik , Bik .
1) Aggregate demand model state observer: Since the only
assumed measurable variable is the aggregate AC demand at
distribution transformer level, represented by the output of the
proposed LPV model, the states of the system to implement the
MPC controller need to be estimated in real time. This is done
by means of a linear observer driven by aggregate demand
measurements assumed at distribution transformer level, zik ,
i
xk+1|k = Aik xk|k
i
+ Bik uik|k + Lki (zik yik|k ),
yik|k = D0,i i i 0,i i
k Ck xk|k Dk uk|k .
1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
For a given cluster, the observer gain Lki is computed at each
sampling time step as a standard steady-state optimal quadratic
filter gain
Lk = (Ak PkCk0 )(Ck (Pk + Q)Ck0 + R)1
obtained by solving the covariance matrix Pk from the discrete-
time algebraic Riccati equation
Ak Pk PkCk0 (Ck PkCk0 + R)1 )Ck Pk A0k + Q = Pk .


with weights Q = I, R = 0.1, where the transpose of a matrix
M is denoted by M 0 (see, e.g. [27, 22.10.3]). Here, the
superindex i is dropped to simplify the notations.
2) Aggregate demand prediction model: Let N be the
prediction horizon, then the prediction model for the ith cluster
can be written over the prediction horizon [k, (k + N 1)]
i
k++1|k = Aik+ k+|k
i
+ Bik+ uik+|k , (19)
with = 0, 1, . . . , N 1, initialised at each time sampling time k
i = xi using the aggregate demand model state estimate
by k|k k|k
obtained from (18). Observe in (19) that at each sampling
instant k the predictions require forecasts of the ambient
temperature Ta ((k + )) to compute Ak+ and Bk+ along
(16) 3) Model parametrisation: The actual system, a population
of ACs, has several distributed physical parameters as listed in
Table I. The prediction model parameters can be taken to be
the (nominal) mean values of the actual system, or identified,
as shown in Section IV-B.
4) Objective function: The main control objective for the
ith cluster is the partial mitigation of the fluctuations in the
common reference signal according to its own weight wi . Thus,
we propose the objective function
N1
Ji = (wi zref i 2
k+ yk+|k ) , i = 1, 2, ..., c, (20)
=0
where zref k+ is the desired value of z(t) in (16) at time k + ,
(17) yik+|k is the predicted output estimation at time k + , and wi
is the clusters weight.
5) Constraints: Since the control signal represents the ACs
setpoint offset, it should be within the desired range for end-
users of each cluster. For example, one group may have agreed
to setpoint changes of up to 0.5 C, while another can tolerate
setpoint changes of up to 2 C. In this case, we have
0.5 u1k 0.5 ; 2 u2k 2.
B. Centralised MPC scheme
In the centralised scheme, the control signals (temperature
offsets) ui , i = 1, . . . , c, are controlled by a single MPC at utility
or substation level. The aggregate demand of the population is
computed as the weighted summation of the aggregate demand
zi (t) of each cluster, i.e.,
c
z(t) = wi zi (t), (21)
i=1
(18)
where zi (t) is given by (5), and wi is the weight of each cluster.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

Reference
signal for
aggregate
u1 Thermostat offset broadcasts
demand Thermostat Thermostat Thermostat
control control control

m1 T1 m2 T2 ... mn1 Tn1

MPC1
AC AC AC
Cluster 1 + +
zref

z1 Feeder 1 measurements
.. .. ..
uc Thermostat offset broadcasts
Thermostat Thermostat Thermostat
control control control

mnnc +1 Tnnc +1 mnnc +2 Tnnc +2 ... mn Tn

MPCc
AC AC AC
Cluster c + +

zc Feeder c measurements

Fig. 3. Cluster-based distributed MPC scheme using thermostat setpoint offset broadcasts.

Here, the prediction model is the same as in the distributed output zik . Thus, after minimisation of the objective function,
MPC scheme, but there is only one objective function that can the measured output of the system z(t), see (16) and (21), is
be expressed as expected to follow the desired trajectory zref (t).
N1 Finally, note that the proposed implementation for the
0
J= (zref 2
k+ W Yk+|k ) , (22) distributed MPC scheme requires a coordinating aggregator
=0 with knowledge of the fraction of available demand resource
at each cluster, wi , as well as the reference signal for the
where zref is the desired value of z(t) in (21) at time k + ,
 k+ 0 aggregate demand z(t) in (16). Although the available number
W = w1 w2 . . . wc Rc is the clusters weight vector, of ACs that determines the available resource of each cluster
h i0
and Yk+|k = y1k+|k y2k+|k . . . yck+|k Rc is the vector can dynamically change with different weather conditions,
of predicted output estimations at time k + for all clusters. time and type of the day, the fraction for each cluster can be
reasonably assumed almost constant. This assumption remains
true as long as the weather conditions of all clusters change
C. MPC implementation
at the same time. This further means all the clusters should
In the distributed MPC scheme, the optimal control se- be within the same climate zone.
quence ui from time k to k + N 1 is individually computed
for each cluster by solving the following optimisation problem IV. C ASE STUDY
subject to the appropriate input constraints:
This section analyses the performance of the proposed MPC
min Ji , i = 1, 2, ..., c. (23) strategies on a simulated general heterogeneous population
uik ,uik+1 ,...,uik+N1
of n =1000 ACs with distributed parameters as per Table I.
In the centralised MPC scheme, the vector of optimal The population is assumed to be divided in three clusters
control sequence U from time k to k + N 1 is obtained for comprising w1 = 65%, w2 = 25% and w3 = 10% of the ACs.
all clusters by solving The mean electrical power of the ACs in these are respectively
4kW, 5kW, and 6kW.
min J, (24) In all simulations below, the ACs in the population are
Uk ,Uk+1 ,...,Uk+N1
0 represented by 1000 independent sets of dynamics (1), (2) with
where Uk = u1k u2k . . . uck Rc is the clusters input

a common temperature setpoint and regulation hysteresis band.
vector at time k. The simulations are initialised with the ensemble dynamics in
At each step, the first element of the optimal control steady-state, which means that the initial proportion of ACs in
sequence is chosen as the current control signal and applied the ON state (m = 1) is equal to D0 , defined by the initial value
to both prediction model and population of the ith cluster. By of ambient temperature using (14). Initial room temperatures
using the observer gain Lki described in the prediction model, of the ACs are sampled from a uniform probability distribution
the estimated output yik|k will approximately track the system with support on the hysteresis band [T , T+ ].

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

We consider two choices for the desired signal to be tracked
by the population of ACs: a) the locally generated solar PV
power, obtained from PV output measured at the CSIRO Black
Mountain site, ACT, Australia, see section IV-A, and b) the
short-term solar forecast based on sky imager observation at
that site or persistence method, see section IV-C. In the first
part, the performance of the centralised and the distributed
MPC schemes are investigated that provides an upper bound
on the controllers expected performance by using the solar PV
that the thermostat state of each AC in the population does
not change its behaviour excessively frequently, despite the
frequent fluctuations in solar capacity in the period considered.
For illustration, the switching actions of two individual ACs
are shown in the last plot of Figure 5, where it may be observed
they only switched four times during the 2 hours of simulation.
2000
PV generation

power (kW)
Aggregate
1500 z(t) at Distributed MPC
power. In the second part, we study the effects of different
solar forecasts methods on the performance of centralised or 1000
distributed schemes.
Additionally, we introduce a method for model parameter 500
0 20 40 60 80 100 120

Temperature setpoint
identification and compare the results with the case that 1
u3
nominal values are used as the parameters. u2
Figure 4 shows the generated PV power and its 2 minute 0.5

offset ( o C)
u1
ahead forecasts on a very hot summer day in 2014, with
0
maximum temperature of 37 C and fluctuations of up to 400
kW per minute. Some fluctuations occur between 10am-noon,
-0.5
the box in Figure 4, where ambient temperature changes from 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
29 to 34 C and some occur before 10am. In this paper, we 1 m1

on/off
focus on the modulation of aggregate AC demand to com- m700
pensate fluctuations in power supply due to short-term solar 0
variability between 10am-noon, where enough AC resource is 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
available. We cannot use the aggregate AC demand to mitigate time (minute)
the fluctuations before 10am, since temperature is not high
enough for the end-users to turn their ACs on. Fig. 5. Simulated aggregate demand z(t), see (16) in the distributed MPC
scheme (thin red line) versus solar PV generation (thick blue line) (top),
unconstrained control input to each cluster (middle), and ON/OFF state of the
1500 40 relay for two sample ACs (bottom). Prediction horizon N = 2.
Ambient temperature (oC)

PV generation
PV forecast The results of the centralised MPC implementation when the
PV power (kW)

Amb. temp. clusters share the same probabilistic distributions of parame-

1000 30
ters as in the distributed case are shown in Figure 6. Note that
the magnitude of the control signals are very different for each
500 20
cluster, which suggests an unfair relative contribution of the
clusters with respect to their sizes in tracking a common goal.
This is in contrast of the distributed MPC, where all clusters
0 10 have more or less the same relative contribution.
2am 6am 10am 2pm 6pm 12pm
2000
Fig. 4. PV generation, 2 minute ahead PV forecast, and ambient temperature PV generation
power (kW)
Aggregate

of 14 November 2014, CSIRO Black Mountain site, ACT, Australia. The box 1500 z(t) at Centralised MPC
specifies the changes from 10am-noon.
1000

500
A. Solar PV generation 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Temperature setpoint

1.5
Here, the solar PV generation is used as a reference signal, u3
offset ( o C)

sometimes called perfect forecast, in two different strategies: 1 u2

u1
i) distributed MPC with a common tracking goal, and ii) 0.5
centralised MPC. The model has been discretised with = 1 0
minute, and parametrised with nominal values of each cluster.
-0.5
By utilising the proposed distributed control method, the 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
tracking performance of the PV generation and control inputs 1 m1
on/off

can be observed in Figure 5. Since the share of each cluster m700

in compensating a common tracking goal depends on the 0
available number of ACs in that cluster, the order of magnitude 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
time (minute)
of locally optimised control inputs are quite similar in the un-
constrained case. The difference between the locally optimised Fig. 6. Similar to Figure 5, but for the simulated aggregate demand z(t) in
inputs is due to the different parameters of the clusters. Note the centralised MPC scheme.

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

Figure 7 illustrates the response of the constrained cen-
tralised case, where the input to each cluster is constrained
to the acceptable limit for the end-users of each cluster. Here,
we assume 0.5 C for Cluster 1, 0.7 C for Cluster 2, and 1 C
for Cluster 3. It can be seen that after t = 55, the magnitude
of the input to the first and third cluster (u1 and u3 ) has
increased with respect to their values in the unconstrained
case, see Figure 6, to let the second input u2 reduce its
value under the acceptable limit of 0.7. Note that the tracking
performance of the constrained case is very similar to the
unconstrained performance. However, at t = 112, all inputs
have been saturated, and hence, the output of the system
cannot follow the desired trajectory.
2000
PV generation
power (kW)
Aggregate
which maps the effect of ambient temperature on the aggregate
power demand of a population of ACs. This non-linear model
shares the same parameter set of the LPV model (7)-(15),
and may be identified using weather and demand data, with
no need for identification experiments involving simultaneous
changes in temperature setpoint.
Here, the ambient temperature shown in Figure 4 is fed to
a population of ACs, each governed by (1)-(2) with nominal
parameters listed in Table I. The generated normalised aggre-
gate demand of each cluster and ambient temperature are then
used as an input-output set for the non-linear model in [18]
to identify the parameters. Table II shows the mode of the
estimated distribution for each parameter, when = 3 is used
for all clusters.

1500 z(t) at Centralised MPC TABLE II

I DENTIFIED PARAMETERS .
1000
Parameter Nominal Estimation Estimation Estimation
500
value Cluster 1 Cluster 2 Cluster 3
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 P=4kW P=5kW P=6kW
Temperature setpoint

1
u3 R 2 2 1.6 1.6
u2 C 3.6 6.26 5.6 5.7
0.5
offset ( o C)

u1 Tr 20 18 18 18.5
rel 0.2 0.38 0.34 0.36
0

-0.5 Figure 8 shows the simulated results of the unconstrained

0 20 40 60 80 100 120
centralised MPC, when the prediction model of each cluster is
1 m1
on/off

parametrised with the estimated parameters listed in Table II.

m700
It can be seen that by tuning the parameters, the spike at t = 60
0
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
has completely disappeared and MPC tracks the PV generation
time (minute) very well.

Fig. 7. Same as the centralised scheme in Figure 6, but inputs are constrained
as |u1 | 0.5, |u2 | 0.7, and |u3 | 1. 2000
PV generation
power (kW)
Aggregate

1500 z(t) at centralised MPC

B. Identification of model parameters
As it can be seen in Figures 5-7, there is a spike at t = 60 1000
regardless of the MPC control strategy. This spike occurs right
500
after a sudden change of 400 kW per minute in the solar PV 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
Temperature set point

generation, when the MPC tries to compensate the error by 1.5

u
3
creating a step change in the setpoint offset. 1 u2
offset ( C)

Even though the LPV model response gives a good approx-

0.5 u1
o

imation of the aggregate demand response of a population of

ACs over a range of varying ambient temperature, as shown in 0
Figures 1-2, the model response computed with the nominal -0.5
parameter means and variances displays a relatively large error 0 20 40 60 80 100 120
with respect to the population demand response right after the time (minute)
step change in the setpoint temperature. This is the reason of
Fig. 8. Unconstrained centralised MPC with identified parameters as in
the tracking error spike observed at t = 60. Table II.
So far, the LPV model has been parametrised with nominal
mean values of a population, following the heuristics proposed
in [7]. However, the LPV model structure with parameters
identified to minimise model errors will more closely model
the population demand response, and improve closed-loop C. System performance
performance, as we illustrate next.
For parameter identification, we take the Bayesian approach To compare the distributed and centralised MPC perfor-
proposed in [28] with the non-linear model developed in [18], mance we will use the following mean absolute percentage

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid
error (MAPE) indexes
100 K |zref (t) z(t)|
MAPE1 = zref (t) ,
K t=1
K
100 |PVactual (t) z(t)|
MAPE2 = PVactual (t) ,
K t=1
where K is the total number of simulation sample time, and the
reference signal zref (t) could be either of actual PV generation
PVactual (t), persistence forecast PVpersistence (t), or sky imager
forecast PVskycam (t). While MAPE1 compares the output with
the reference signal, MAPE2 always compares the output with
the actual PV generation, regardless of the choice for reference
signal.
Persistence forecasting is a standard method for produc-
ing a baseline case for comparison of forecasting methods.
Persistence forecasting is based on the assumption that the
conditions at the time of the forecast will not change over
the prediction horizon. So, the previous and present PV mea-
surements are simply used as the future values. To compare
with persistence forecasting, a variety of solar forecasting
techniques might be employed, such as statistical, satellite
and numerical weather predictions, see e.g., [29], [30] and
the references therein. However, ground-based imagery (sky-
cams) are generally accepted to provide more accurate short-
horizon forecasts from visible cloud observations with fast
update intervals, only limited by image acquisition frequency.
[19].
Figure 9 shows the output of the distributed MPC scheme
after the prediction model is parametrised with estimated val-
ues in Table II, when 5-minute ahead skycam and persistence
forecasts are used as reference signals. As illustrated, the
MPC outputs of both cases track the forecast signal fairly
well. However, due to forecasting errors, the overall tracking
performance does not perform as well as the case illustrated
in Figure 8, where the PV generation was used as a reference
signal.
Table III lists the MAPE of the output z(t) in several
centralised and distributed MPC cases with different prediction
horizons and different reference signals, using the prediction
model with nominal and identified parameters. Note that
MAPE2 shows the overall performance that is the upper bound
in the achievable performance with different solar PV forecast
methods, while MAPE1 only shows the tracking performance
of the reference signal.
Observe that in all cases the MAPE results of the distributed
MPC are quite similar to the centralised MPC, or sometimes
better, which shows the effectiveness of the distributed MPC
for the control of a population of ACs without using any
information from the neighbouring cluster.
Additionally, the performance of the system has been
improved when the prediction model is parametrised with
identified parameters rather than the nominal values. This
improvement is significant when the PV generation signal,
PVactual , is used as a reference signal. For example, the MAPE
error of 5.8% shows the solar variability can be reduced by
more than 94% with minimal impact to end-user comfort
levels.
1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
2000
PV generation
z(t) at Distributed MPC
power (kW)
Aggregate
1500 Skycam forecast
1000
500
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
2000
PV generation
z(t) at Distributed MPC
power (kW)
Aggregate
1500 Persistence forecast
1000
500
0 20 40 60 80 100 120
time (minute)
Fig. 9. The output of the distributed MPC scheme after parameter identifica-
tion versus the actual PV generation, when a 5-minute ahead skycam forecast
(top) or a 5-minute ahead persistence forecast (bottom) is used as a reference
signal.
From this maximum achievable performance, 90% and
87.7% reduction in the solar variability have been achieved,
respectively, by persistence and skycam forecasts in N=2 min-
utes prediction horizon. It can be seen that the performance of
persistence forecast is better in shorter horizons. However, the
solar variability reduction of the persistence forecast dropped
into 85% when the prediction horizon is N=5 minutes. For
the skycam forecast, on the other hand, it remains around the
same value and suggests a better option for longer horizons.
V. C ONCLUSIONS
This paper develops an MPC strategy to control the ag-
gregate demand of distributed populations of ACs to com-
pensate fluctuations in solar generation output at a substation
or distribution transformer aggregation level. The proposed
strategy relies on a new linear slowly varying parameter model
for the aggregate demand response of a population of ACs
to common changes in temperature setpoints, parameterised
by a real ambient temperature profile. Based on this model,
practical distributed and centralised MPC schemes are for-
mulated to modulate the demand of clusters of ACs to track
fluctuations in PV capacity. Numerical simulations show that
solar variability can be reduced by 91.5%, MAPE = 8.5%, at
PV capacities equal to the peak AC demand using a prediction
model based on nominal parameter values. Solar variability is
reduced by 94.2%, MAPE = 5.8%, when a prediction model is
parametrised using values identified from simulated population
data. Additionally, persistence and sky imaging short-term
PV forecasting methods have been used as reference signals
to illustrate their overall achievable performance. Persistence
yields better results for shorter prediction horizons and sky
imaging for longer horizons. The overall performance with
these PV forecasts, however, is not as good as in the case
where PV generation is directly used as a reference signal,
which indicates substantial improvements in performance can
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

TABLE III
MAPE results computed for centralised and distributed MPC with different reference signal zref and different prediction horizon N, using the prediction
model with nominal and identified parameters.

Nominal model parameters Identified model parameters

Reference Index Centralised Centralised Distributed Distributed Centralised Centralised Distributed Distributed
zref (t) N=2 N=5 N=2 N=5 N=2 N=5 N=2 N=5

PVactual MAPE2 9.96 8.33 8.55 8.51 5.8 5.76 5.85 5.81
PVpersistence MAPE2 11.5 16.33 11.87 16.36 9.9 15.04 10.1 15.1
MAPE1 8.22 8.53 8.42 8.53 6.11 6.51 6.22 6.53
PVskycam MAPE2 13.88 12.42 13.64 12.56 12.31 12.3 12.28 12.24
MAPE1 5.45 4.5 6.14 5.11 6.7 5.05 6.4 5.1

be achieved with more accurate forecasting. Ongoing work
focuses on further performance improvements by use of local
forecasts per cluster in the distributed case instead of a
common goal for all of them.
R EFERENCES
[1] IEA, Medium-term renewable energy market report 2015, International
Energy Agency, Tech. Rep., 2015.
[2] L. Collins and J. K. Ward, Real and reactive power control of distributed
PV inverters for overvoltage prevention and increased renewable gener-
ation hosting capacity, Renew. Energy, vol. 81, pp. 464471, 2015.
[3] S. Shivashankar, S. Mekhilef, H. Mokhlis, and M. Karimi, Mitigating
methods of power fluctuation of photovoltaic (PV) sources A review,
Renew. Sustainable Energy Rev., vol. 59, pp. 11701184, 2016.
[4] D. Callaway and I. Hiskens, Achieving controllability of electric loads,
Proc. of the IEEE, vol. 99, no. 1, pp. 184199, 2011.
[5] S. Meyn, P. Barooah, A. Busic, Y. Chen, and J. Ehren, Ancillary service
to the grid using intelligent deferrable loads, IEEE Trans. on Automatic
Control, vol. 60, no. 11, pp. 28472862, 2015.
[6] H. Hao, B. Sanandaji, K. Poolla, and T. Vincent, Aggregate flexibility
of thermostatically controlled loads, IEEE Trans. on Power Systems,
vol. 30, no. 1, pp. 189198, 2015.
[7] C. Perfumo, E. Kofman, J. H. Braslavsky, and J. K. Ward, Load
management: Model-based control of aggregate power for populations of
thermostatically controlled loads, Energy Conversion and Management,
vol. 55, pp. 3648, 2012.
[8] D. S. Callaway, Tapping the energy storage potential in electric loads to
deliver load following and regulation, with application to wind energy,
Energy Convers. Manage., vol. 50, no. 5, pp. 13891400, 2009.
[9] E. Burger and S. Moura, Generation following with thermostatically
controlled loads via alternating direction method of multipliers sharing
algorithm, Electric Power Systems Research, vol. 146, pp. 141160,
2017.
[10] M. Liu and Y. Shi, Model predictive control of aggregated hetero-
geneous second-order thermostatically controlled loads for ancillary
services, IEEE Trans. Power Syst., vol. 31, no. 3, pp. 19631971, 2016.
[11] S. Kundu, N. Sinitsyn, S. Backhaus, and I. Hiskens, Modelling and
control of thermostatically controlled loads, in Proc. Power Systems
Computation Conference, Stockholm, 2011.
[12] S. Bashash and H. Fathy, Modeling and control of aggregate air
conditioning loads for robust renewable power management, IEEE
Trans. Control Syst. Technol., vol. 21, no. 4, pp. 13181327, 2013.
[13] D. Mayne, J. Rawlings, C. Rao, and P. Scokaert, Constrained model
predictive control: Stability and optimality, Automatica, vol. 36, no. 6,
pp. 789814, 2000.
[14] G. C. Goodwin, M. M. Seron, and J. De Dona, Constrained Control
and Estimation: An Optimisation Approach. Springer Verlag, 2005.
[15] M. Almassalkhi and I. Hiskens, Model-predictive cascade mitigation in
electric power systems with storage and renewables Part I: Theory
and implementation, IEEE Trans. Power Systems, vol. 30, no. 1, pp.
6777, 2015.
[16] M. Farina, A. Guagliardi, F. Mariani, C. Sandroni, and R. Scattolini,
Model predictive control of voltage profiles in MV networks with
distributed generation, Control Eng. Practice, vol. 34, pp. 1829, 2015.
[17] R. Hermans, A. Joki, M. Lazar, A. Alessio, P. Van Den Bosch,
I. Hiskens, and A. Bemporad, Assessment of non-centralised model
predictive control techniques for electrical power networks, Interna-
tional Journal of Control, vol. 85, no. 8, pp. 11621177, 2012.
[18] N. Mahdavi, J. H. Braslavsky, and C. Perfumo, Mapping the effect of
ambient temperature on the power demand of populations of air condi-
tioners, IEEE Trans. Smart Grid, 2016, to appear. [Online]. Available:
http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=7515217
[19] S. R. West, D. Rowe, S. Sayeef, and A. Berry, Short-term irradiance
forecasting using skycams: Motivation and development, Solar Energy,
vol. 110, pp. 188207, 2014.
[20] J. Mathieu, S. Koch, and D. Callaway, State estimation and control of
electric loads to manage real-time energy imbalance, IEEE Trans. on
Power Systems, vol. 28, no. 1, pp. 430440, 2013.
[21] W. Zhang, J. Lian, C. Chang, and K. Kalsi, Aggregated modeling and
control of air conditioning loads for demand response, IEEE Trans. on
Power Systems, vol. 28, no. 4, pp. 46554664, 2013.
[22] R. Malhame and C.-Y. Chong, On the statistical properties of a
cycle diffusion process arising in the modeling of thermostat-controlled
electric power system loads, SIAM Journal on Applied Mathematics,
vol. 48, no. 2, pp. 465480, 1988.
[23] , Electric load model synthesis by diffusion approximation of
a high-order hybrid-state stochastic system, IEEE Transactions on
Automatic Control, vol. 30, no. 9, pp. 854860, 1985.
[24] M. Kamgarpour, C. Ellen, S. E. Z. Soudjani, S. Gerwinn, J. L. Mathieu,
N. Mullner, A. Abate, D. S. Callaway, M. Franzle, and J. Lygeros,
Modeling options for demand side participation of thermostatically
controlled loads, in Proc. IEEE Bulk Power Syst. Dyn. Control-IX
Optim., Sec. Control Emerg. Power Grid (IREP), Greece, Aug. 2013.
[25] L. Totu, J. Leth, and R. Wisniewski, Control for large scale demand
response of thermostatic loads, in Proceedings of the American Control
Conference, 2013, pp. 50235028.
[26] J. Mohammadpour and C. W. Scherer, Eds., Control of Linear Parameter
Varying Systems with Applications. Springer, 2012.
[27] G. C. Goodwin, S. F. Graebe, and M. E. Salgado, Control system design.
Prentice Hall, 2001.
[28] N. Mahdavi, C. Perfumo, and J. H. Braslavsky, Bayesian parameter
estimation for direct load control of populations of air conditioners, in
19th world congress of the IFAC, vol. 19, August 2014, pp. 99249929.
[29] J. Antonanzas, N. Osorio, R. Escobar, R. Urraca, F. J. Martinez-de Pison,
and F. Antonanzas-Torres, Review of photovoltaic power forecasting,
Solar Energy, vol. 136, pp. 78111, 2016.
[30] M. Q. Raza, M. Nadarajah, and C. Ekanayake, On recent advances in
pv output power forecast, Solar Energy, vol. 136, pp. 125144, 2016.

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.
This article has been accepted for publication in a future issue of this journal, but has not been fully edited. Content may change prior to final publication. Citation information: DOI 10.1109/TSG.2017.2717447, IEEE
Transactions on Smart Grid

Nariman Mahdavi (M16) received the B.Sc. de-

gree from Isfahan University of Technology, Isfahan,
Iran, in 2004, and the M.Sc. and Ph.D. (first class)
degrees from Amirkabir University of Technology,
Tehran, Iran, in 2007 and 2011, respectively, all in
Electrical Engineering. He was a Guest Researcher
with the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Re-
search (PIK), Potsdam, Germany, 2011. Since 2013,
he is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Energy
Business Unit of the Australian Commonwealth Sci-
entific and Industrial research Organisation (CSIRO)
and the University of Newcastle, Australia. His main research interests
are modelling and control of complex systems, demand side management,
computational intelligence, and their applications in controls.

Julio H. Braslavsky (M99- SM13) graduated as

Electronic Engineer from the National University of
Rosario, Argentina, in 1989, and received the Ph.D.
degree from the University of Newcastle, Australia,
in 1996. He is a Senior Research Scientist with the
Energy Business Unit of the Australian Common-
wealth Scientific and Industrial research Organisa-
tion (CSIRO). He has held research positions at the
Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium, (1996),
the University of California, Santa Barbara, USA
(1997), and the University of Newcastle, Australia
(1998-1999, 2002-2010). In 1999-2002 he was Adjoint Investigator with
the National Research Council (CONICET) and Associate Professor at the
National University of Quilmes, both in Argentina. He is currently Associate
Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Control Systems Technology and was
Associate Editor of the IEEE Transactions on Automatic Control (2010-2014).
He is a Conjoint Senior Lecturer with the School of Electrical Engineering
and Computing at the University of Newcastle. His research interests include
modelling, analysis and control of energy systems, demand-side energy
management, and switched and sampled-data control systems.

Maria M. Seron received the Electronic Engineer

degree from the Universidad Nacional de Rosario,
Argentina in 1988 and the Ph.D. degree from The
University of Newcastle, Australia in 1996. During
1997-1998, she held post-doctoral positions in Bel-
gium, Australia and the USA. From 1999 to 2002,
she was an Associate Professor at the Universidad
Nacional de Rosario, Argentina. Since 2002, she
has been a Research Fellow with the Centre for
Complex Dynamic Systems and Control, the Uni-
versity of Newcastle. Her research interests include
constrained control, fault tolerant control and hybrid systems.

Samuel R. West is a Senior Experimental Scientist

working in the Grids and Energy Efficient Systems
Program in CSIRO Energy. He specialises in the
development and application of computer science,
software engineering, machine learning, big data an-
alytics and computer vision techniques in renewable
energy grid integration, solar forecasting and energy
efficiency domains.

1949-3053 (c) 2016 IEEE. Personal use is permitted, but republication/redistribution requires IEEE permission. See http://www.ieee.org/publications_standards/publications/rights/index.html for more information.