The Reliability and Profitability of Virtual Power Plant with Short-Term Power Market Trading and Non-Spinning Reserve Diesel Generator

Abstract

This study examines the profitability and reliability of a virtual power plant (VPP) with the existence of a diesel genset (DG) in the day-ahead (DA) and intra-day (ID) power markets. The study’s unique contribution lies in integrating the VPP system with non-spinning reserve DG while limiting the DG operation via minimum running time and maximum number of switching times (on/off) per day. This contribution decreases the renewables’ uncertainty and increases the VPP’s reliability. Moreover, the study proposes an optimization model as a decision-making support tool for power market participants to choose the most profitable short-term market. The proposed model suggests choosing the DA market in 62% of time (from 579 days) based on estimated VPP power supply, and market prices. Even though there is uncertainty about VPP power supply and market prices, the division between the plan and actual profits is 1.8 × 106 Japanese yen [JPY] per day on average. The share of surplus power sold from the mentioned gap is 5.5%, which implies the opportunity cost of inaccurate weather forecasting. The results also show that the reliability of the VPP system in the presence of a DG increases from 64.9% to 66.2% for 14 h and mitigates the loss of power load by 1.3%.