Spokane Eco-District Campus Performance Under Alternative Electricity Rates: Benefits for virtual power plant participants and suppliers

The respective benefits for virtual power plant participants and suppliers are revealed and compared under alternative electricity rate structures, including conventional large commercial electricity rates, large commercial electricity rates with special rates for demand-side generation, and dynamic hourly transactive prices. These three scenarios were explored using the capabilities of the Eco-District campus, a virtual power plant in Spokane, Washington, that is supplied electricity by Avista Utilities. The Eco-District Campus was modeled to host solar power generation, battery energy storage, and thermal energy resources that must be coordinated with building heating and cooling needs. First, the electricity supplier’s costs for energy, infrastructure, and energy losses were modeled. Then, the virtual power plant’s performance was modeled while presuming that its manager would minimize its costs under its electricity rate structure. The demand charges of conventional commercial electricity rates managed monthly peak, as would be expected, but hourly dynamic transactive pricing resulted in a striking alignment between the costs incurred by the supplier and the virtual power plant’s energy costs.