Analysis of water booster pressure systems as dispatchable loads in smart-grids

Water Booster Pressure Systems (WBPSs) are responsible for supplying water and maintaining pressure in a building pipeline. Whereas there are plenty of buildings using these hydraulic systems, the WBPSs are potentially useful to offer energetic services required by Smart-Grids. Then, it is necessary to evaluate if the systems are dispatchable, and what energy services they can offer. In this work, it is developed a model of a WBPS as a dispatchable load. The model is carried out from first-principles and tuned with experimental data of air pressure, power consumption and water flow. It is shown that the WBPS has the possibility of behaving as dispatchable load by changing the pressure set point. Finally, from the time response to the variation of the set point, WBPS can provide Spinning Reserve Services.