Dynamic virtual power plants management for frequency regulation service provision

Abstract

Renewable integration in power systems causes a surge of frequency fluctuations, primarily due to the reduced inertia. To address this challenge, distributed energy resources (DERs) pave one promising way to support the frequency regulation capability of the system by their aggregation as a dynamic virtual power plant (DVPP). On behalf of massive DERs, a DVPP serves as a market participant in the frequency regulation market for service provision and thus to make a profit. For a DVPP’s management of DERs in the frequency regulation market, both the frequency reserve capacity and the dynamic regulation performance need to be considered. Given the technical heterogeneity of DERs, the aggregated dynamic regulation performance of DVPP would vary significantly across different DER portfolios. To guarantee a DVPP's desired dynamic regulation performance, this thesis proposes integrating aggregated dynamic regulation performance into its DER management schemes. On this basis, the management of a DVPP in different time scales is explored for frequency regulation service provision, including long-term planning, day-ahead scheduling, hour-ahead bidding, and real-time regulation allocation. A comprehensive technical and economic analysis is conducted to validate the effectiveness of the proposed approach.

First, in the long-term stage, we propose a DVPP planning framework that integrates small modular reactors (SMRs) with hydrogen energy systems. The framework incorporates both static operational constraints and dynamic frequency response constraints to ensure system feasibility and the service quality of ancillary frequency regulation. Results demonstrate that the integration of SMR-hydrogen energy systems significantly improves the flexibility and frequency response capabilities of DVPPs.

Second, in the day-ahead stage, we propose a two-level privacy-preserving energy scheduling scheme for DVPPs. For the individual level, a distributed solution framework is proposed to keep the private information of the internal DERs of each prosumer preserved locally. For the aggregated level, a differential privacy mechanism is integrated into the information exchange process, thus reducing the privacy leakage risk of the prosumer's net power profile. Results verify the performance of the proposed method in terms of optimality and privacy protection levels.

Third, in the hour-ahead stage, we propose a performance-integrated bidding scheme for a DVPP to optimize the utilization of heterogeneous DERs in the frequency regulation market. The relationship between the frequency regulation performance and the DER reserve portfolio is revealed through a data-driven method and integrated into the aggregation and disaggregation processes of a DVPP. Results demonstrate the profit promotion of a DVPP with frequency regulation performance integration.

Finally, in the real-time stage, a grid code-informed regulation allocation scheme for a DVPP is proposed, which aims to effectively provide frequency regulation services while meeting the dynamic performance requirements specified in grid codes. Specifically, we represent the rise time constraint—one of the key dynamic performance requirements—with the portfolio of DERs through a data-driven framework. Results demonstrate that this approach not only minimizes the regulation costs for the DVPP but also ensures compliance with grid codes for frequency regulation.