Experimental Demonstration of Frequency Regulation by Commercial Buildings – Part II: Results and Performance Evaluation

This paper is the second part of a two-part series presenting the results from an experimental demonstration of frequency regulation in a commercial building test facility. In Part I, we developed relevant building models and designed a hierarchical controller for reserve scheduling, building climate control and frequency regulation. In Part II, we introduce the communication architecture and experiment settings, and present extensive experimental results under frequency regulation. More specifically, we compute the day-ahead reserve capacity of the test facility under different assumptions and conditions. Furthermore, we demonstrate the ability of model predictive control to satisfy comfort constraints under frequency regulation, and show that fan speed control can track the fast-moving RegD signal of the Pennsylvania, Jersey, and Maryland Power Market (PJM) very accurately. In addition, we discuss potential effects of frequency regulation on building operation (e.g., increase in energy consumption, oscillations in supply air temperature, and effect on chiller cycling), and provide suggestions for real-world implementation projects. Our results show that hierarchical control is appropriate for frequency regulation from commercial buildings.