In the joint operation of multiple virtual power plants, after day-ahead optimal dispatch is completed, some participants may engage in speculative behaviors such as misreporting profit contribution data to obtain greater benefits during profit distribution, thereby undermining fairness. To address this issue, this paper constructs a profit distribution model designed to prevent speculation. An improved Nash bargaining equilibrium algorithm based on a third-party trading intermediary is proposed to curb speculative actions. Furthermore, a dual-layer monitoring mechanism centered on profit deviation is established, which can effectively identify both single-day speculative behaviors and long-term systematic speculative trends, thereby triggering verification procedures. This forms a closed-loop management mechanism for speculation prevention—“detection, monitoring, analysis, verification”—ensuring fair profit distribution among participants within virtual power plants. Case study results demonstrate that the proposed method achieves an average deviation of only 2.32% compared to the profit distribution outcome under non-speculative conditions. In contrast, commonly used methods such as the Shapley value method, nucleolus method, and Nash–Harsanyi bargaining solution exhibit an average deviation as high as 18.44%. The research presented in this paper enables the detection of speculative behaviors among participants and facilitates verification, significantly enhancing the fairness and rationality of profit distribution.
Zhang et al. (Mon,) studied this question.