Differential Predictive Control of Residential Building HVACs for Enhancing Renewable Local Consumption and Supporting Fast Voltage Control

High penetration of distributed energy resources (DER) in distribution systems, such as rooftop solar PVs, has caused voltage fluctuations which are much faster than typical voltage control devices can react to, leading to increased operation cost and reduced equipment life. Residential buildings consume about 35% of the electricity in the U.S. and are co-located with rooftop solar PV. Thus, they present an opportunity to mitigate these fluctuations locally, while benefiting both the grid and building owners. Previous works on DER-aware localized building energy management mostly focus on commercial buildings and analyzing impacts either on buildings or the grid. To fill the gaps, this paper proposes a distributed, differential predictive control scheme for residential HVAC systems for maximizing renewable local consumption while maintaining occupant comfort. In addition, a detailed controller-building-grid co-simulation platform is developed and utilized for analyzing the potential impacts of the proposed control scheme on both buildings and distribution systems. Our studies show that the proposed method can provide benefits to both the buildings’ owners and the distribution system by reducing electricity bills by 5%, voltage violations and fast fluctuations by 48%, and the number of tap changes in voltage regulators by 19%.