Integration of Distributed Energy Resources into a Virtual Power Plant-A Pilot Project in Dubai

The high penetration of Distributed Energy Resources (DERs) brings new challenges in the operation of the power grid such as generation-demand imbalance, voltage violations, reverse power flow, etc. To address the aforementioned challenges, Virtual Power Plant (VPP) can be used, which would be best deployed as a cloud-based system due to its ease of implementation, scalability, and ease of service and support. VPP can effectively integrate, aggregate, optimize, control, and dispatch various Behind-The-Meter (BTM) DERs to support grid operations. Therefore, this work discusses the integration and control of DERs such as rooftop solar PV, electric vehicle charging stations, flexible loads, and battery energy storage systems (BESS) through a VPP platform that has been implemented on a pilot scale in Dubai. The connectivity of the VPP with DERs has been established using an Internet of Things (IoT) gateway as well as cloud-to-cloud communication via REST application programming interface (API). The test results are presented to show the response of various DERs based on the instructions through the VPP platform. The current work forms the basis for future work to scale up the VPP connectivity with DERs on a larger network and evaluate the best-suited VPP use cases for the Dubai power network.