Dynamic aggregation optimization model of virtual power plant considering economic and environmental cost equilibrium

The virtual power plant (VPP) provides flexible management of decentralized, diverse and heterogeneous distributed energy sources (DES) through advanced metering, communication and control technologies, which enables the complementary use of different resources. In order to explore the optimal aggregation strategy of VPP, five types of DES are selected in this paper for dynamic aggregation. The economic-environmental benefits of VPP operation are comprehensively considered and the cooperation surplus of various types of DES integrated into VPP are deeply analyzed. The results show that: (1) When environmental benefits are not taken into account, gas turbines can significantly reduce the total cost of VPP by the advantage of low power generation costs. (2) Considering environmental benefits can reduce the average power abandonment penalty cost by nearly 60% and increase the utilization of renewable energy by a small margin. (3) Blindly integrating DES does not necessarily improve the overall effectiveness of VPP. The optimal structure of VPP needs to change dynamically according to the external environment.