Distributed MPC Applied to a Network of Households With Micro-CHP and Heat Storage

This paper considers heat and power production from micro Combined Heat and Power systems and heat storage in a network of households. The goal is to balance the local heat demand and supply in combination with balancing the power supply and demand in the network. The on-off decisions of the local generators are done completely distributed based on local information and information exchange with a few neighbors in the network. This is achieved by using an information sharing model with a distributed model predictive control method based on dual-decomposition and sub-gradient iterations. Because of the binary nature of the decisions, a mixed integer quadratic problem is solved at each agent. The approach is tested with simulation, using realistic heat and power demand patterns. We conclude that the distributed control approach is suitable for embedding the distributed generation at a household level.