Hierarchical Decentralized Management and Experimental Evaluation of Virtual Power Plants consisting of Multiple Facilities include Generation, Storage and Demand Equipment

This paper considers a hierarchical decentralized control for virtual power plants. Virtual power plants act as aggregator of electric energy resources, including distributed generator, battery storage/electric vehicle and controllable loads. A virtual power plant becomes a large-scale system containing a large number of electric power equipment. A centralized management method may not be suitable for operation of virtual power plants. We propose the individual optimization by each equipment and real-time pricing strategy. The proposed management methodology allows plug-and-play type operation and can mitigate the effects of uncertainties due to weather condition, load profiles, machine failure or installation of additional equipment. The effectiveness of the proposed hierarchical decentralized management method is evaluated through real physical experiments including real-scale electric power equipment and actual load changes.