Development of the Virtual Power Plant

technology in Vietnam
Workshop to present and discuss main findings
Thursday, September 23, 2021
Agenda

Time Topic

13:30 - 14:00 Registration and Reception

14:00 - 14:05 Introduction

Moderator
14:05 - 14:10 Openng Speech
Mr. Tran Tue Quang, Deputy General Director of ERAV
14:10 - 14:15 Opening Remark
Mr. Markus Bissel, Project Director of Smart Grids for RE and EE
project (SGREEE)
Group Photo

14:15 - 14:45 Task 1: Virtual Power Plant (VPP): an introduction into

technology and international applications
Dr. Matthias Lange, energy & meteo systems
14:45 – 14:55 Q&A

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Agenda

Time Topic
14:55 - 15:20 Task 2 (Part 1): Current Situation of the Operation Control
Center (OCC) for Renewables in Vietnam
Mr. Nguyen Manh Cuong, Institute of Energy
15:20 - 15:30 Q&A
15:30 - 15:40 Break time
15:40 - 16:10 Task 2 (Part 2): Assessment of the current Situation of the
Operation Control Center (OCC) for Renewables in Vietnam
Task 3: vRE control solutions and their application in Vietnam
Mr. Ulrich Kaltenbach, energy & meteo systems
16:10 - 16:20 Q&A
16:20 - 16:45 Task 4 and 5: Proposal for a VPP testing phase in Vietnam
Mr. Ulrich Kaltenbach, energy & meteo systems
16:45 - 16:55 Q&A
16:55 - 17:00 Closing Remark
Mr. Tran Tue Quang, Deputy General Director of ERAV
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 Introduction to the scope, goals of
the assignment | energy & meteo
systems

Thursday, September 23, 2021

Scope of the project

Title of assignment

Development of the Virtual Power Plant technology in Vietnam.

Scope of work

Virtual Power Plant: An introduction into technology and applications

A review of the power market situation in Vietnam (IE)
Assessment of OCCs, general cybersecurity issues
Proposal for a Virtual Power Plant application in Vietnam
Concept for a Virtual Power Plant testing phase in Vietnam

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 Task 1:
An introduction to Virtual Power Plant
technology and international
applications | energy & meteo systems

Thursday, September 23, 2021

The need for Virtual Power Plant

Dynamic proliferation of variable renewable energy plants

poses a number of challenges to existing power systems

➢ A large number of geographically distributed energy resources (DER)

➢ Plants range widely in size and are connected to different voltage levels
➢ A large number of plant owners and operators
➢ For many plants no real-time production data are available
➢ Volatile, weather-dependent production from vRE plants
➢ Lack of efficient control over these assets

The Virtual Power Plant technology has emerged as a key

technology to deal with these challenges!

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What is a Virtual Power Plant?

Digital aggregation of distributed

energy units to single portfolio
Connects to unlimited number
of wind, solar, hydro, storage
systems…
Integrates power forecasts
for connected plants
Monitors current and future
power output (considering outages)
Remote-controls plants to adjust
power output
Direct interface with power markets

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What is a Virtual Power Plant?

Equipped with intelligent

control capabilities, the
Virtual Power Plant acts
as a single power plant

The Virtual Power Plant can

adjust production or
consumption to changing
market and grid situations
The VPP coordinates each
individual unit that remains
independent in ownership and
operation.

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Technical setup and data flow

100101011010010101101001010110
1010100110 0111010001
User / Client
Client/Server architecture
0111010001energy markets

011101000100100101110010010111 Trading schedules

0010010111 1101100010
Measurements and control signals 1101100010
110110001001110100010111010001 Activation signals and
0111010001
vRE plants
0010010111 0010010111
measurement data

00100101110010010111 Platform provider

Virtual Power Plant
0101010111
TSO
operation and hosting
Figure: energy & meteo systems

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Real-time connection of plants

It is crucial for the functionality of the Virtual Power Plant to

establish a live connection with the assets (via SCADA or data logger)
IT security of major importance, hence a safe Virtual Private Network
(VPN) connection is required

VPN plant
Vendor encrypted control unit
Virtual Power Plant

VPN
encrypted
plant
control unit
Figure: energy & meteo systems

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Real-time connection of plants

Alternatively, the VPP can retrieve data from an existing data

management system (e.g., O&M tool)

measurement
data
& Customer
schedules data
Vendor management
Virtual Power Plant system

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Data management in Virtual Power Plant

Connected plants have digital twin in the VPP

(e.g. location, installed capacity…)
Retrieved data from assets include real-time production data,
wind speed temperature, etc.

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Data management in Virtual Power Plant

VPP checks data completeness and plausibility

Park-level vRE forecasts from several sources can be integrated and are
aggregated to portfolio level
VPP can create an optimized meta-forecast out of several power forecasts
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Data management in Virtual Power Plant

Non-availabilities of plants can be read in via interfaces

Schedules and potentials can be calculated or imported
With remote-control of assets, the output can be dynamically and
precisely adjusted to grid and market requirements
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Data monitoring as basis for decision-making

Visualization of data
to monitor in real-
time current and
future production
On the left, the
plants connect to the
VPP are shown.
They can be grouped
to a portfolio or sub-
portfolio
e.g. bundling plants
according to
technology
or a grid section

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Data monitoring as basis for decision-making

The horizontal white

line represents the
installed capacity of
the portfolio (6.4 GW)
The vertical red line is
the current point of
time.
The grey area limited
by the white line
shows the power
output until now.
The colored lines are
different power
forecasts.

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Optimization process: metaforecasts

Metaforecast feature in VPP Outperformance of metaforecasts versus single forecasts

If several forecasts are integrated, the VPP can create optimized metaforecasts
The VPP evaluates the historic performance of each single forecast and
suggests weighting factors to combine them in the metaforecast
The metaforecasts are more accurate than each single power forecast
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Optimization process: short-term forecasts

Shortest-term meta forecasts

NWP based forecasts

Real-time measurement

Additionally, the VPP is able to take into account real-time production data
from the plants to correct the forecast which relies only on the weather model
This shortest-term meta-forecast outperforms the accuracy for the next hours
and is used for settling deviations
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Remote-control of assets

Reduction of power
output according to
Forecast-based
curtailment schedule
schedule

Remote-control function allows dynamic adjustment

Settling deviations, responding to grid constraints or market signals
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Application: providing ancillary services

Assets connected to VPP

can supply primary,
secondary or tertiary
reserve power
Often pre-qualification
by grid operator Wind farms contribute to
required (in particular ancillary services.
Germany)
VPP has to cover high
standards on availability
and security Curtailment of 24 MW wind park to provide ancillary services

In Germany wind farms

participate in ancillary
services market

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Application: trading of renewable energy

Internationally, vRE support schemes move from FiT to direct marketing

Plant operators need to actively trade their production!
Example: in Germany vRE plants above 100 kW need to market their output,
in total about 75 GW of wind, solar, biogas and small hydro
Aggregators trade production for plant owners, bundling large portfolios
Statkraft bundles in Germany about 10 GW of vRE plants
The VPP has emerged as the state of the art solution for digitally connecting
large numbers of plants and trading their combined production
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Application: Demand Side Management

VPP can integrate controllable loads for DSM applications

Example: cooled warehouse(s) connected to VPP as load
Flexibility of warehouses defined in advance and considered in operational
ranges of VPP
VPP used to optimize energy supply and purchase via spot market and
regulation market
Production units such as wind farms and solar plants added
Also used to minimize impact of forecasting errors

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Application: Demand Side Management

Increase load of cooled ware house Decrease load

when wind surplus when wind deficit

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Application: VPP as vRE control room for TSOs

VPP can be used by grid operators to monitor and remote-control

current and future feed-in from renewable energy plants
The Argentinian TSO CAMMESA uses a VPP to achieve more transparency
on feed-in from wind parks in Southern Argentina (Patagonia)

Wind parks covered by VPP:

27 wind parks
Capacity: 1,5 GW

Wind parks are connected to same

substation and transmission line
Energy needs to be transported to
load centre in Buenos Aires

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 Application: VPP as vRE control room for TSOs

Actual
production

Historic
forecast

Forecast

View of VPP for CAMMESA to monitor feed-in from wind parks in Southern Argentina

Thursday, September 23, 2021 Page

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 Conclusion

The Virtual Power Plant technology is very successful in integrating

decentralized units into grids and markets
VPP is a proven technology for monitoring and remote-controlling
many thousands of plants
VPP will play a key role in the digital energy transition
VPP is a highly versatile IT platform which can be used for different
business and decision processes of electricity sector participants
Scope of application is rather defined my market design than by
technology

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Thank you!