Assembly and Competition for Virtual Power Plants With Multiple ESPs Through a “Recruitment–Participation” Approach

Distributed energy resource (DER) owners have many concerns when participating in virtual power plants (VPPs), including low returns and a limited variety of plans. Therefore, it lacks incentives for them to participate in VPPs. This paper proposes a flexible VPP assembly approach to recruit DERs by energy service providers (ESPs). The contributions of each ESP and DER to VPPs are evaluated separately as the basis for a fair payoff allocation. Rebates are adopted to incentivize DER owners to participate in the VPPs. Based on the above fundamentals, a multi-ESP VPP assembly and competition method are proposed and simulated, considering diverse preference behaviors and electricity price fluctuations. The existence of the solution to the proposed multi-ESP VPP rebate competition problem is discussed. Case studies are conducted to simulate a 35-VPP assembly and disassembly process and a 6-ESP rebate competition process. The results indicate that DER owners are motivated to participate in VPPs with high payoffs, and the payoffs of ESPs increase by attracting more customers.