Virtual Power Plants for Enabling Large-Scale Integration and Coordination of Distributed Energy Resources: A bottom-up, efficient system

This paper introduces the Self-approaching Optimization-based Virtual Power Plant (SVPP) as an innovative solution for large-scale integration and coordination of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs). To address the challenges of managing geographically dispersed DERs with diverse characteristics, SVPP integrates the autonomous decentralized system architecture with self-approaching operation methods. The architecture enables efficient connection and dynamic aggregation of DERs, while the operation method coordinates their operations through an event-driven approach. The paper demonstrates SVPP’s practical implementation in a commercial park in southern China, where it successfully manages over 4,500 DER terminals with approximately 1 MW capacity. Results show that SVPP effectively addresses key challenges in renewable energy utilization, off-grid operation, and grid interaction, achieving environmental and economic benefits.