Conventional Power Plants:Conventional power plants need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity and maintain grid balance. Energy generation takes place at a fixed location. When energy demand increases, more fossil fuels are burned. Generally, power plants operate at 80% capacity, keeping 20% of reserves to accommodate fluctuations in energy demand.
Virtual Power Plant (VPP):It is not a power plant in the traditional sense, it is a kind of smart energy system that aggregates one or more resources such as different spatially adjustable (interruptible) loads, energy storage, microgrids, electric vehicles, distributed energy resources, etc., to achieve autonomous coordination and optimal control, and participate in the operation of the power system and the transaction of the power market.
The picture comes from the Internet, invaded and deleted.
(1) What is the ** of the virtual power plant?
The emergence of the concept of virtual power plant is the common product of the power market and demand-side response, and the reform of electricity marketization is to restore the commodity attributes of electric energy commodities and adjust the balance of power supply and demand through the tool of marketization.
As shown in the figure below, we can see the various entities involved in retail transactions in the electricity market and their relationship with each other.
I look at the flow of electricity from the top down, and there is itPower generators, that is, thermal power, hydropower, photovoltaic wind energy, nuclear energy and other power plants, but also includes small individual power generation entities. Power generation companies deliver electricity to various places through grid companies.
Due to the difference in the size of the electricity consumer, the demand for electricity is different, so it was bornE-commerce。The transaction needs of small users of the e-commerce company are finally distributed to each through the distribution companyElectricity terminals
Each transaction needs to be reported to the dispatching center for security checking, and at the same time, a trading company needs to be cleared to determine the amount of electricity, power consumption curve and **. The center evaluates the supply and demand of power generators and consumers at all times, and balances them through transactions.
In this process, due to the limited efficiency of the market coordination mechanism and unexpected circumstances, there will always be electricity that has not been completely absorbed and fluctuating demand, such as the frequent occurrence of hydropower due to short-term heavy rainfall, or the limited operation of electricity to the point that the electricity load plummets.
However, the safety and immediacy of electricity itself leads to demand-side response by unleashing its potential on the power consumption side. In the case of mismatch between power supply and demand, under certain incentive measures, users take the initiative to change their electricity consumption methods and behaviors, participate in supply and demand adjustment, and achieve a balance between power supply and demand, thereby reducing the overall pressure on the power system and ensuring the stability of power operation.
(2) What is the development stage of a virtual power plant?
Invitation stage,This refers to the fact that in the absence of an electricity market, the ** department or dispatching agency takes the lead in organizing and various aggregators participate in the process of soliciting, responding and incentivizing.
Market-based stage:This refers to the fact that after the establishment of the electricity spot market, auxiliary market and capacity market, virtual power plant aggregators participate in these markets in a similar model to physical power plants to obtain revenue. In the second stage, there will also be an invitation model, and the main body of the invitation is the system operating organization. In China, only the pilot of the virtual power plant carried out by the North Hebei Electric Power Trading Center is a market-oriented virtual power plant.
Autonomous Dispatching Virtual Power Plant:It is the virtual power plant of the future, with the increasing types of resources aggregated by the virtual power plant, the larger and larger quantity, and the wider and wider space, in fact, it can be called the "virtual power system", which can realize the autonomous dispatch across spaces.
(3) What problems can a virtual power plant solve?
Virtual power plants are a fundamental shift in the way energy systems operate. They can solve some of the problems that exist in more traditional power plant-to-consumer systems.
Virtual power plants are the enablers of democratic transformation in the power sector, where responsibility shifts back to society and the operator does not own the power plant; They just optimize how each link asset (which is still owned by a third party) is used.
In the process, today's largest virtual power plants have surpassed the total capacity of the largest nuclear power plants to date, leveraging connected assets to produce climate-neutral electricity and solve the upcoming challenges facing the electricity market.
These challenges include the increasing number of electric vehicles in the transportation sector and the exponential growth in the number of network hubs and computer centers in response to digitalization, all of which require large amounts of electricity. With conventional power supplies and/or single power supplies, these requirements cannot be met in accordance with climate protection objectives. The hybrid and decentralized approach to virtual power plants leverages a wide range of technologies and energy sources and is an important tool in shaping the energy landscape of the future.
Currently, many countries are experimenting with virtual power plants. According to an article by GTM, Australia, Germany and some Nordic countries are showing increasing interest in virtual power plants. The largest VPP demonstration was in Australia, implemented by Sydney utility AGL. The $15 million, 5-megawatt VPP, which will integrate battery packs and residential PV systems through a single platform, has been developed for years at a virtual power plant in Germany, which is at the forefront of renewable energy.