{"id":{"repo_id":"cambridge","oai_identifier":"oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/390927"},"canonical_url":"https://search.dev.ndltd.org/etd/cambridge/oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/390927","repository":{"repo_id":"cambridge","name":"Cambridge University","base_url":"https://api.repository.cam.ac.uk/server/oai/request"},"display":{"title":"Market Analysis and Control Design for the Grid Integration of Battery Storage and Heat Pumps","abstract":"To address the pressing challenges of climate change, power grids have seen a substantial increase in renewable energy integration. While renewable generation is preferable to fossil fuel generation from an emission standpoint, power output from renewable generations depends on various natural resources with inevitable variability in their behaviour, which makes these plants extremely difficult to control and presents challenges for power system operators. Simultaneously, new trends in power systems offer promising opportunities to address these challenges, particularly through the flexibility to shift load and store energy: The growing integration of battery energy storage provides the flexibility of shifting energy over time with its fast charging and discharging capabilities; Also, the electrification of heat loads is accelerating the deployment of heat pumps, which can provide additional flexibility through its fast response and connection to large-capacity heating systems. However, these trends also introduce new challenges. The rapid expansion of battery storage has saturated ancillary service markets, and storage is actively participating in wholesale electricity markets. While heat pumps have great potential to provide affordable ancillary frequency services, their effective integration requires to consider the operation of interconnected heating systems. As a result, under the current market design and control frameworks, system operators must balance economic efficiency with system reliability when integrating battery storage and heat pumps into power systems. This thesis focuses on two main topics: the wholesale electricity market participation of battery storage and control design for heat pumps. Specifically, in the first topic of storage market integration, we investigate whether current market designs support or hinder the contribution of investor-owned storage to cost-effective decarbonization. To this end, we develop an agent-based model to analyse the market interactions between profit-driven storage participants and system operators who aim to maximize social welfare. The analysis of system costs and carbon emissions will provide recommendations for potential improvements in market design. Moreover, we investigate whether storage acts as an honest participant or market manipulator in market participation. To address this concern, we formulate a theoretical framework to analyse storage withholding behaviour in wholesale markets. In the second topic of the control design of heat pumps, we address technical challenges related to stability and power sharing in both primary and secondary frequency regulation, which are a part of the ancillary service market. We first address the concerns that the engagement of heat pumps in frequency regulation may disrupt heating system operation. We first propose a power sharing scheme within the heating network that ensures fair and economic power sharing among multiple sources while guaranteeing supply-demand balance. We then propose two participation schemes for heat pumps to contribute to frequency regulation, operating as a frequency-dependent load and as a converter-linked load. Next, we design a primary control framework that enables heat pumps and the heating systems to contribute to frequency regulation with guaranteed stability and optimality in the combined heat and power network. Finally, we explore how two mainstream distributed secondary control frameworks, the distributed averaging-based proportional-integral and primal-dual approaches, can accommodate the two proposed heat pump participation schemes with guaranteed stability and optimal power sharing. These two focal areas contribute to maintaining supply-demand balance across different time scales of power system operation. Battery storage in wholesale markets operates within the economic dispatch time scale from minutes to hours, while heat pumps contribute to frequency regulation on a time scale from seconds to a few minutes, serving as cost-efficient and reliable resources in increasingly saturated ancillary service markets. Together, these efforts aim to support the affordable decarbonization of power systems.","abstract_html":"To address the pressing challenges of climate change, power grids have seen a substantial increase in renewable energy integration. While renewable generation is preferable to fossil fuel generation from an emission standpoint, power output from renewable generations depends on various natural resources with inevitable variability in their behaviour, which makes these plants extremely difficult to control and presents challenges for power system operators. Simultaneously, new trends in power systems offer promising opportunities to address these challenges, particularly through the flexibility to shift load and store energy: The growing integration of battery energy storage provides the flexibility of shifting energy over time with its fast charging and discharging capabilities; Also, the electrification of heat loads is accelerating the deployment of heat pumps, which can provide additional flexibility through its fast response and connection to large-capacity heating systems. However, these trends also introduce new challenges. The rapid expansion of battery storage has saturated ancillary service markets, and storage is actively participating in wholesale electricity markets. While heat pumps have great potential to provide affordable ancillary frequency services, their effective integration requires to consider the operation of interconnected heating systems. As a result, under the current market design and control frameworks, system operators must balance economic efficiency with system reliability when integrating battery storage and heat pumps into power systems. This thesis focuses on two main topics: the wholesale electricity market participation of battery storage and control design for heat pumps. Specifically, in the first topic of storage market integration, we investigate whether current market designs support or hinder the contribution of investor-owned storage to cost-effective decarbonization. To this end, we develop an agent-based model to analyse the market interactions between profit-driven storage participants and system operators who aim to maximize social welfare. The analysis of system costs and carbon emissions will provide recommendations for potential improvements in market design. Moreover, we investigate whether storage acts as an honest participant or market manipulator in market participation. To address this concern, we formulate a theoretical framework to analyse storage withholding behaviour in wholesale markets. In the second topic of the control design of heat pumps, we address technical challenges related to stability and power sharing in both primary and secondary frequency regulation, which are a part of the ancillary service market. We first address the concerns that the engagement of heat pumps in frequency regulation may disrupt heating system operation. We first propose a power sharing scheme within the heating network that ensures fair and economic power sharing among multiple sources while guaranteeing supply-demand balance. We then propose two participation schemes for heat pumps to contribute to frequency regulation, operating as a frequency-dependent load and as a converter-linked load. Next, we design a primary control framework that enables heat pumps and the heating systems to contribute to frequency regulation with guaranteed stability and optimality in the combined heat and power network. Finally, we explore how two mainstream distributed secondary control frameworks, the distributed averaging-based proportional-integral and primal-dual approaches, can accommodate the two proposed heat pump participation schemes with guaranteed stability and optimal power sharing. These two focal areas contribute to maintaining supply-demand balance across different time scales of power system operation. Battery storage in wholesale markets operates within the economic dispatch time scale from minutes to hours, while heat pumps contribute to frequency regulation on a time scale from seconds to a few minutes, serving as cost-efficient and reliable resources in increasingly saturated ancillary service markets. Together, these efforts aim to support the affordable decarbonization of power systems.","abstract_has_math":false,"creators":["Qin, Xin"],"institution":"University of Cambridge","degree_name":"Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)","degree_level":"Doctoral","degree_discipline":null,"degree_department":null,"school":null,"contributors":[],"advisors":["Lestas, Ioannis"],"committee_chairs":[],"committee_members":[],"year":2025,"date_issued":"2025-07-15","date_published":"2025-07-15","updated_at":"2026-07-22T22:24:14Z","subjects":["Electricity market","Control","Battery storage","Heat pump"],"languages":["eng"],"rights":[],"rights_urls":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4f8e12df-fd6a-4ae8-aca9-e52c72817b53/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"],"identifier_entries":[{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["000000033170285X"],"render_values":[{"text":"0000-0003-3170-285X","href":"https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3170-285X","code":true}]}]},"links":{"outbound_url":"https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.122271","outbound_label":"DOI","outbound_source":"dc:identifier.doi"},"metadata_groups":[{"id":"people","label":"People","entries":[{"key":"dc:contributor.advisor","label":"Advisor","values":["Lestas, Ioannis"]},{"key":"dc:contributor.sponsor","label":"Sponsor","values":["N/A"]},{"key":"dc:creator","label":"Author","values":["Qin, Xin"]},{"key":"dc:creator.authoridentifier","label":"Author Identifier","values":["000000033170285X"]}]},{"id":"academic_context","label":"Academic Context","entries":[{"key":"dc:date.issued","label":"Date","values":["2025-07-15"]},{"key":"dc:publisher.institution","label":"Dc Publisher Institution","values":["University of Cambridge"]},{"key":"dc:relation.isreferencedby.uri","label":"Dc Relation Isreferencedby URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/390927"]},{"key":"dc:type","label":"Dc Type","values":["Thesis"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationlevel","label":"Dc Type Qualificationlevel","values":["Doctoral"]},{"key":"dc:type.qualificationname","label":"Dc Type Qualificationname","values":["Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)"]}]},{"id":"subjects_keywords","label":"Subjects and Keywords","entries":[{"key":"dc:subject","label":"Dc Subject","values":["Electricity market","Control","Battery storage","Heat pump"]}]},{"id":"language_rights","label":"Language and Rights","entries":[{"key":"dc:language","label":"Dc Language","values":["eng"]},{"key":"dc:rights","label":"Dc Rights","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/4f8e12df-fd6a-4ae8-aca9-e52c72817b53/download","http://purl.org/NET/rdflicense/allrightsreserved"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargodate","label":"Dc Rights Embargodate","values":["2026-10-15"]},{"key":"dc:rights.embargotype","label":"Dc Rights Embargotype","values":["embargo"]}]},{"id":"identifiers","label":"Identifiers","entries":[{"key":"dc:identifier.doi","label":"DOI","values":["https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.122271"]},{"key":"dc:identifier.uri","label":"Identifier URI","values":["https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/95a59ccc-5619-4c42-9354-38999ff17ae2/download"]}]},{"id":"additional","label":"Additional Metadata","entries":[{"key":"dc:description.abstract","label":"Abstract","values":["To address the pressing challenges of climate change, power grids have seen a substantial increase in renewable energy integration. 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The rapid expansion of battery storage has saturated ancillary service markets, and storage is actively participating in wholesale electricity markets. While heat pumps have great potential to provide affordable ancillary frequency services, their effective integration requires to consider the operation of interconnected heating systems. As a result, under the current market design and control frameworks, system operators must balance economic efficiency with system reliability when integrating battery storage and heat pumps into power systems. This thesis focuses on two main topics: the wholesale electricity market participation of battery storage and control design for heat pumps. Specifically, in the first topic of storage market integration, we investigate whether current market designs support or hinder the contribution of investor-owned storage to cost-effective decarbonization. To this end, we develop an agent-based model to analyse the market interactions between profit-driven storage participants and system operators who aim to maximize social welfare. The analysis of system costs and carbon emissions will provide recommendations for potential improvements in market design. Moreover, we investigate whether storage acts as an honest participant or market manipulator in market participation. To address this concern, we formulate a theoretical framework to analyse storage withholding behaviour in wholesale markets. In the second topic of the control design of heat pumps, we address technical challenges related to stability and power sharing in both primary and secondary frequency regulation, which are a part of the ancillary service market. We first address the concerns that the engagement of heat pumps in frequency regulation may disrupt heating system operation. We first propose a power sharing scheme within the heating network that ensures fair and economic power sharing among multiple sources while guaranteeing supply-demand balance. We then propose two participation schemes for heat pumps to contribute to frequency regulation, operating as a frequency-dependent load and as a converter-linked load. Next, we design a primary control framework that enables heat pumps and the heating systems to contribute to frequency regulation with guaranteed stability and optimality in the combined heat and power network. Finally, we explore how two mainstream distributed secondary control frameworks, the distributed averaging-based proportional-integral and primal-dual approaches, can accommodate the two proposed heat pump participation schemes with guaranteed stability and optimal power sharing. These two focal areas contribute to maintaining supply-demand balance across different time scales of power system operation. Battery storage in wholesale markets operates within the economic dispatch time scale from minutes to hours, while heat pumps contribute to frequency regulation on a time scale from seconds to a few minutes, serving as cost-efficient and reliable resources in increasingly saturated ancillary service markets. 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The rapid expansion of battery storage has saturated ancillary service markets, and storage is actively participating in wholesale electricity markets. While heat pumps have great potential to provide affordable ancillary frequency services, their effective integration requires to consider the operation of interconnected heating systems. As a result, under the current market design and control frameworks, system operators must balance economic efficiency with system reliability when integrating battery storage and heat pumps into power systems. This thesis focuses on two main topics: the wholesale electricity market participation of battery storage and control design for heat pumps. Specifically, in the first topic of storage market integration, we investigate whether current market designs support or hinder the contribution of investor-owned storage to cost-effective decarbonization. To this end, we develop an agent-based model to analyse the market interactions between profit-driven storage participants and system operators who aim to maximize social welfare. The analysis of system costs and carbon emissions will provide recommendations for potential improvements in market design. Moreover, we investigate whether storage acts as an honest participant or market manipulator in market participation. To address this concern, we formulate a theoretical framework to analyse storage withholding behaviour in wholesale markets. In the second topic of the control design of heat pumps, we address technical challenges related to stability and power sharing in both primary and secondary frequency regulation, which are a part of the ancillary service market. We first address the concerns that the engagement of heat pumps in frequency regulation may disrupt heating system operation. We first propose a power sharing scheme within the heating network that ensures fair and economic power sharing among multiple sources while guaranteeing supply-demand balance. We then propose two participation schemes for heat pumps to contribute to frequency regulation, operating as a frequency-dependent load and as a converter-linked load. Next, we design a primary control framework that enables heat pumps and the heating systems to contribute to frequency regulation with guaranteed stability and optimality in the combined heat and power network. Finally, we explore how two mainstream distributed secondary control frameworks, the distributed averaging-based proportional-integral and primal-dual approaches, can accommodate the two proposed heat pump participation schemes with guaranteed stability and optimal power sharing. These two focal areas contribute to maintaining supply-demand balance across different time scales of power system operation. Battery storage in wholesale markets operates within the economic dispatch time scale from minutes to hours, while heat pumps contribute to frequency regulation on a time scale from seconds to a few minutes, serving as cost-efficient and reliable resources in increasingly saturated ancillary service markets. 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