ESTA: A real-time consumer control scheme for space conditioning usage under spot electricity pricing

Under spot electricity pricing the price of electricity represents actual demand and supply equilibrium conditions and consumers respond to price variations as to achieve the best cost-service tradeoff over a given time period. Using a decision modeling approach developed for prescribing consumer response to a varying electricity price, the case of space conditioning usage is analyzed in detail and a real-time control scheme is proposed. Important classes of consumers, such as hospitals, commerical buildings and dwellings, are modeled and simulations are performed. It is found that significant savings on a daily basis can be achieved through this scheme at the price of only small fluctuations of indoor temperature around its ideal value. Consumer preference consciousness results in static and dynamic savings. The latter are by far the largest and are only enabled by a varying price of electricity. A short-sight property limits the effective control horizon drastically, thereby rendering price forecasting practically unnecessary and reducing the data and computing requirements of the control scheme.