A virtual power plant (VPP) is a system that integrates multiple, possibly heterogeneous, power sources to provide grid power.[1] A VPP typically sells its output to an electric utility.[2][3][4][5][6][7] VPPs allow energy resources that are individually too small to be of interest to a utility to aggregate and market their power.[6] As of 2024, VPPs operated in the United States, Europe, and Australia.
One study reported that VPPs during peak demand periods are up to 60% more cost effective than peaker plants.[8]
^Shabanzadeh M; Sheikh-El-Eslami, M-K; Haghifam, P; M-R (January 2015). "Decision Making Tool for Virtual Power Plants Considering Midterm Bilateral Contracts". 3rd Iranian Regional CIRED Conference and Exhibition on Electricity Distribution, at Niroo Research Institute (NRI), Tehran, Iran. 3 (3): 1–6. doi:10.13140/2.1.5086.4969.
^Shabanzadeh M; Sheikh-El-Eslami, M-K; Haghifam, P; M-R (October 2015). "The design of a risk-hedging tool for virtual power plants via robust optimization approach". Applied Energy. 155: 766–777. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2015.06.059.
^Shabanzadeh M; Sheikh-El-Eslami, M-K; Haghifam, P; M-R (May 2016). "A medium-term coalition-forming model of heterogeneous DERs for a commercial virtual power plant". Applied Energy. 169: 663–681. doi:10.1016/j.apenergy.2016.02.058.
^ abShabanzadeh M; Sheikh-El-Eslami, M-K; Haghifam, P; M-R (January 2017). "Risk-based medium-term trading strategy for a virtual power plant with first-order stochastic dominance constraints". IET Generation, Transmission & Distribution. 11 (2): 520–529. doi:10.1049/iet-gtd.2016.1072. S2CID114478127.
^Shabanzadeh M; Sheikh-El-Eslami, M-K; Haghifam, P; M-R (April 2016). "Modeling the cooperation between neighboring VPPS: Cross-regional bilateral transactions". 2016 Iranian Conference on Renewable Energy & Distributed Generation (ICREDG). Vol. 11. pp. 520–529. doi:10.1109/ICREDG.2016.7875909. ISBN978-1-5090-0857-5. S2CID16453458.