Demand-side resources (DSRs) show great potential to help maintain the real-time balance of power system through demand response (DR) programs. However, load payback effect resulted from the control of DSRs poses a threat to the system stability. It is therefore essential to reasonably evaluate payback load so that the benefits of DR will not be over-estimated. Characteristics of load payback effect vary with different types of devices, consumers’ behaviour and control mechanisms. This entails a need to model the payback effect considering different scenarios.
This paper focuses on the load payback effect of air conditioners (ACs) for the provision of curtailment services. Two-stage payback model is proposed to characterize the dynamics of payback load during the curtailment period and the recovery period in a more accurate way. Moreover, indexes of capacity payback and energy payback are designed to evaluate the quantity and duration of the payback load. Illustrative studies indicate that the proposed methods can provide reference for selecting control mechanisms, scheduling dispatched ACs and guiding the recovery behaviour of consumers.