An Integrated Human-physical Framework for Control of Power Grids

Abstract: In this paper, we bridge two disciplines: systems & control and environmental psychology. We develop second order Behavior and Personal norm (BP) based models (which are consistent with some studies on opinion dynamics) for describing and predicting human activities related to the final use of energy, where psychological variables, financial incentives and social interactions are considered. Based on these models, we develop a human-physical system (HPS) framework consisting of three layers: (i) human behavior, (ii) personal norms and (iii) the physical system (i.e., an AC power grid). Then, we formulate a social-physical welfare optimization problem and solve it by designing a primal-dual controller, which generates the optimal incentives to humans and the control inputs to the power grid. Finally, we assess in simulation the proposed models and approaches.