A Survey on Demand Response in Smart Grids: Mathematical Models and Approaches

TLDR

The smart grid represents the informationization of the power grid, with demand response enabling users to reschedule consumption to lower operating costs and postpone capacity expansion. This survey investigates four key aspects of demand response: programs, issues, approaches, and future extensions. It reviews incentive tariffs, mathematical models, and state‑of‑the‑art solutions used by utilities to encourage and manage demand‑side participation. The study identifies remaining challenges and proposes future research directions for demand response in smart grids.

Abstract

The smart grid is widely considered to be the informationization of the power grid. As an essential characteristic of the smart grid, demand response can reschedule the users' energy consumption to reduce the operating expense from expensive generators, and further to defer the capacity addition in the long run. This survey comprehensively explores four major aspects: 1) programs; 2) issues; 3) approaches; and 4) future extensions of demand response. Specifically, we first introduce the means/tariffs that the power utility takes to incentivize users to reschedule their energy usage patterns. Then we survey the existing mathematical models and problems in the previous and current literatures, followed by the state-of-the-art approaches and solutions to address these issues. Finally, based on the above overview, we also outline the potential challenges and future research directions in the context of demand response.