Demand response for increasing renewable energy penetration in isolated power systems

Electric power industry is undergoing a profound change. The change is driven by technical, economic and environmental factors. The emerging challenges are particularly significant for distribution grids, where the level of automation or “smartness” is relatively low. With the push for energy conservation, demand response is becoming a vital tool under the smart grid paradigm. This paper outlines some experience obtained at the University of Tasmania, Hydro Tasmania and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO), Australia in developing fast DR for isolated power systems. The paper presents results of the implementation of DR for enabling higher wind energy penetration in isolated power systems. The presented approach is based on the centralized control of residential and commercial loads with the DR execution time of 1 second. The technology discussed in the paper has been implemented in the King Island power system in Australia.