Offering model for a virtual power plant based on stochastic programming

Abstract

A virtual power plant aggregates various local production/consumption units that act in the market as a single entity. This paper considers a virtual power plant consisting of an intermittent source, a storage facility, and a dispatchable power plant. The virtual power plant sells and purchases electricity in both the day-ahead and the balancing markets seeking to maximize its expected profit. Such model is mathematically rigorous, yet computationally efficient.The offering problem is cast as a two-stage stochastic mixed-integer linear programming model which maximizes the virtual power plant expected profit. The uncertain parameters, including the power output of the intermittent source and the market prices, are modeled via scenarios based upon historical data. The proposed model is applied to a realistic case study and conclusions are drawn.