Electric-Carbon Coordinated Scheduling of Community-Level Virtual Power Plant

In the context of China's “Carbon Peaking and Carbon Neutrality Goals”, integrating Virtual Power Plants (VPPs) with the power grid and distributed resources is crucial. VPPs help regulate electricity and carbon markets, addressing the instability of modern power systems. This study explores the regulatory roles of VPPs, trading strategies, and resource coordination, focusing on the synergy between electricity and carbon markets. First, the paper reviews current research on distributed resource scheduling, modeling, and electricity market bidding, highlighting the need for integration. It then proposes an integrated approach and analyzes global electricity markets, particularly the trends in new participants, auxiliary services, and clean energy consumption in China's market. Next, it outlines the trading framework for VPPs in electricity and auxiliary service markets and analyzes the carbon emissions trading (CET) market, laying the groundwork for carbon trading models. Finally, the study introduces a VPP “bidding + scheduling” decision-making model that integrates the electricity and CET markets. The model divides a day into 24 hourly nodes, using Monte Carlo scenario generation and probability distance elimination to forecast photovoltaic output. It aims to maximize VPP operator revenue in day-ahead electricity spot market trading, considering constraints such as interruptible loads, electric vehicles, gas turbines, and energy storage. A commercial complex case study validates the model's effectiveness by comparing scenarios with and without electricity-carbon coupling. This research offers insights into optimizing VPPs for sustainable development in the energy sector.