Optimal participation of virtual power plants in the electricity market considering multi-energy systems

Abstract

The growth and modernization of the power system are the keys to enabling economic progress. The deregulation, added to the new emerging production technologies, conversion, and storage, triggered a change in the way of managing the power system worldwide. This work analyses the optimal dispatch of a virtual power plant (VPP) with active participation in the electricity market, considering multi-energy systems. The objective is to minimize the total operating cost of the power plant. The power plant is fed by two external networks: electrical and natural gas. The VPP is composed of energy production, conversion, and storage technologies, also considering the integration of a wind turbine and a set of electric vehicles (EVs). In addition to the Grid-to-Vehicle (G2V) charging, the advantage of Vehicle-to-Grid (V2G) technology is also verified, which allows the injection of power into the grid through the vehicles and Vehicle-to-Load (V2L) technology, enabling EVs to contribute to the satisfaction of the electrical load, reducing the costs, showing the advantages as well of EVs' integration in the VPP under analysis.