Abstract
Communication plays a key role in the effective management of virtual power plants (VPPs). For effective and stable operation of VPPs, a reliable, secure, and standardized communication infrastructure is required. In the literature, efforts were made to develop this based on industry standards, such as the IEC 60870-5-104, OpenADR 2.0b and IEC 61850. Due to its global acceptance and strong object-oriented information models, IEC 61850 standard-based communication is preferred for smart grid operations, including VPPs. However, communication models based on IEC 61850 present cybersecurity and scalability challenges. To address this issue, this paper presents an eXtensible Message Presence Protocol (XMPP)-based IEC 61850 communication for VPPs. Firstly, a full mapping of IEC 61850 messages for VPP energy management is carried out. Secondly, XMPP-based single- and multiple-domain communications are demonstrated. Finally, a federation concept has been added to facilitate communication in multi-domain communication networks. These models show that a standard communication model can be implemented with IEC 61850 and XMPP, not only for VPPs but other wide-area communication implementations in smart grids. This not only facilitates plug-and-play (PnP) with easy component additions but secures smart grid communication against cyber-attacks.
Highlights
A virtual power plant (VPP) is an aggregated cluster of heterogenous distributed energy resources (DERs), controllable loads, and distributed energy storage systems (DESDs) that form a single virtual generating unit
An Energy Management (EM) program is run at every VPP control center among the various available power generating resources and Energy Storage Devices (ESDs) in a VPP. This prepares a schedule for the available power with a VPP for a specified time slot, which VPP can commit to the distribution system operator (DSO) for carrying out the EM at the DSO level
The Combined Heat and Power (CHP) station participates in EM of VPP as per the final dispatch schedule received from the VPP for time slot of
Summary
A virtual power plant (VPP) is an aggregated cluster of heterogenous distributed energy resources (DERs), controllable loads, and distributed energy storage systems (DESDs) that form a single virtual generating unit. In [6] and [7], authors provided optimal dispatch and distributed energy management strategies with limited communication requirements In both studies, details of the communication aspect were not discussed. Most of the communication standards proposed for VPP communication in literature do not have the capability to address these issues of scalability and security To address this problem of scalability and security in IEC 61850 communication for smart grids, the IEC 61850-80-3 [20] recommends eXtensible Message Presence Protocol (XMPP) [21] web protocol as a middleware solution for IEC 61850 communication in smart grids, as XMPP protocol provides high network scalability, robust security mechanisms, and decentralized architecture. Energy management in VPPs is achieved in a standard way with IEC 61850 messages Mapping of these to XMPP stanzas is demonstrated in this paper. This paper is organized as follows: Section 2 presents the energy management formulation in VPP; Section 3 presents mapping of IEC 61850 communication messages to XMPP; Section 4 demonstrates the energy management of VPP though XMPP communication via different federations; and Section 5 presents conclusions
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