Non-Convex Economic Dispatch of a Virtual Power Plant via a Distributed Randomized Gradient-Free Algorithm

The economic dispatch problem of a virtual power plant (VPP) is becoming non-convex for distributed generators’ characteristics of valve-point loading effects, prohibited operating zones, and multiple fuel options. In this paper, the economic dispatch model of VPP is established and then solved by a distributed randomized gradient-free algorithm. To deal with the non-smooth objective function, its Gauss approximation is used to construct distributed randomized gradient-free oracles in optimization iterations. A projection operator is also introduced to solve the discontinuous variable space problem. An example simulation is implemented on a modified IEEE-34 bus test system, and the results demonstrate the effectiveness and applicability of the proposed algorithm.