A Transactive Energy Framework for Inverter-Based HVAC Loads in a Real-Time Local Electricity Market Considering Distributed Energy Resources

Rapidly increasing distributed energy resources (DERs) bring more fluctuating output power to the distribution network and put forward a higher requirement on local regulation resources for maintaining the network's balance. Heating, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) loads account for more than 40% of power consumption in modern cities and have huge regulation potential as flexible loads. However, HVACs equipped with inverter devices have rarely been studied for providing regulation services in the local electricity market (LEM), even though they have exceeded regular fixed-speed HVACs. To address this issue, this article proposes a real-time LEM and a distribution network's optimization framework to exploit the regulation potential of inverter-based HVACs considering multiple DERs. This LEM can avoid iterations in real time and significantly decrease the difficulty related to the participation of small end-users in urban distribution networks. Moreover, in this article, we propose a transactive capacity evaluation method to assist end-users in deciding their inverter-based HVACs regulation capacities in the real-time LEM, which considers buildings’ thermal features, users’ multiple comfort requirements, and dynamic ambient temperature. On this basis, a multilevel bidding strategy is developed for inverter-based HVACs to decrease energy cost, increase fluctuating DERs local utilization rate, and alleviate the distribution network's congestion. Finally, a realistic distribution network is utilized to verify the effectiveness of the proposed methods.