Advanced Monitoring and Control System for Virtual Power Plants for Enabling Customer Engagement and Market Participation

To integrate large-scale renewable energy into energy systems, an effective participation from private investors and active customer engagement are essential. Virtual power plants (VPPs) are a very promising approach. To realize this engagement, an efficient monitoring and control system needs to be implemented for the VPP to be flexible, scalable, secure, and cost-effective. In this paper, a realistic VPP in Western Australia is studied, comprising 67 dwellings, including a 810 kW rooftop solar photovoltaic (PV) system, a 700 kWh vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB), a heat pump hot water system (HWS), an electric vehicle (EV) charging station, and demand management mechanisms. The practical and detailed concept design of the monitoring and control system for EEBUS-enabled appliances, and also for the PV and VRFB system, with smart inverters, is proposed. In addition, a practical fog-based storage and computing system is developed to enable the VPP owner to manage the PV, VRFB, and EV charging station for maximizing the benefit to the customers and the VPP owner. Further, the proposed cloud-based applications enable customers to participate in gamified demand response programs for increasing the level of their engagement while satisfying their comfort level. All proposed systems and architecture in this paper have the capability of being implemented fully and relevant references for practical devices are given where necessary.