Multiagent System-Based VPPs Cooperative Power Control for Frequency Regulation Considering Diverse Communication Issues

Virtual power plants (VPPs) possess significant potential to support power systems’ frequency regulation through the aggregation of demand-side distributed energy resources. However, due to their heavy reliance on information technology, VPPs inevitably face diverse communication issues, such as cyber-attacks, privacy disclosure, and packet losses, which poses a serious challenge to ensure efficient power control for frequency regulation. To this end, this paper proposes a multiagent system-based VPPs cooperative power control strategy to achieve frequency regulation in a resilient, optimal, and scalable manner. First, a joint design scheme of VPPs cooperative power control and information interaction mechanism is presented to determine the optimal regulation power of VPPs for frequency regulation, where a consensus-based collaborative strategy is designed for cyber-attacks and a homomorphic encryption technology is introduced for privacy protection. Also, an event-triggered mechanism is adopted for communication burden. Second, a dynamic power control scheme for inverter is presented to enable the internal units of VPPs to track the power reference from the joint design scheme, in which an improved model predictive control method is suggested for packet losses to enhance control performance. Finally, simulation results reveal that, when confronting diverse communication issues, the proposed strategy exhibits significant effects in defending against cyber-attacks, ensuring privacy security, alleviating the communication burden, and achieving fast response, thus effectively facilitating VPPs frequency regulation.