Virtual Power Plants: Unlocking Flexibility in a Decentralised Energy Future

This article was produced by Ricardo, a member of IPFA. 

The rise of virtual power plants marks the beginning of a new era in grid and power system modernisation. As a response to the exponential increase in distributed energy resource systems (such as rooftop solar panels), network technologies have initially provided increased visibility down to distribution voltage levels, subsequently evolving into active network management enabling further grid flexibility – meaning the power grid is able to adapt to fluctuations in electricity supply and demand in real time.

Moving away from traditional aggregators, virtual power plants use a combination of control and software-driven systems to optimise a combination of power supply, storage, grid, and/or demand resources to behave as one “virtual” power source, optimised to maximise revenue and minimise system constraints concurrently. This could be the start of the next era of power systems.

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