Award Date

5-1-2014

Degree Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Science in Electrical Engineering (MSEE)

Department

Electrical Engineering

First Committee Member

Yahia Baghzouz

Second Committee Member

Shahram Latifi

Third Committee Member

Ebrahim Saberinia

Fourth Committee Member

Hossein Tehrani

Number of Pages

119

Abstract

To ensure stability of the power grid, electricity supply and demand must remain in balance in real time. Traditionally utilities, call upon peaking power plants to increase power generation to meet the peak demand during the afternoons of the hot summer months. Demand-side management (DSM), which includes energy efficiency and demand response (DR), works from the other side of the equation - instead of adding more generation to the system, it pays energy users to reduce consumption as it is cheaper and easier to procure than traditional generation. As a consequence, demand-side management allows utility customers to act as a "virtual power plant": by voluntarily lowering their demand for electricity, they help stabilize the grid, and they are paid for providing this important service. Utilities and grid operators treat demand response capacity as a dispatchable resource that is called upon only when needed.

This thesis reviews the different DMS methods, and then it evaluates one possible means of reducing demand by operating at the low end of the acceptable voltage supply a method known as Conservation Voltage Reduction (CVR). This method was used effectively in the past to conserve energy and it is still being applied in some regions. But as the load is becoming more and more nonlinear and more energy efficient, the CVR is becoming a less effective tool for demand-side management.

Keywords

Demand-side management (Electric utilities); Electric power; Electric power consumption—Management; Electric power-plants--Load--Simulation methods

Disciplines

Electrical and Computer Engineering | Electrical and Electronics | Power and Energy

File Format

pdf

Degree Grantor

University of Nevada, Las Vegas

Language

English

Rights

IN COPYRIGHT. For more information about this rights statement, please visit http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC/1.0/

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