Economic simulations of the participation of virtual power plants on the swiss balancing market

In this paper, economic simulations of virtual power plants participating on the Swiss balancing market are performed and discussed. The simulations are performed by creating a generic simulation model for balancing markets which account for functions such as bidding, market clearing, delivery of control energy, and others. Several simulations allowed to estimate the opportunity from both the capacity and the energy market products. The simulations indicated that an example company could hope a decrease in its energy cost between 3 and 4% by participating in a virtual power plant providing frequency control over a year assuming the aggregator gets 50% of the market income. Other simulations demonstrated the greater profit expected from secondary reserves compared to tertiary reserves for a virtual power plant made of controllable loads. Moreover, the paper also gives an insight into balancing markets role and designs, and presents the virtual power plant concept and the potential participants for the provision of frequency control.