TRANSMISSION & DISTRIBUTION TECHNOLOGY
Pentti Bruun and Aleksanteri Nummi explain how advanced power electronics help to keep batteries alive for longer and enable operators to control their system through an innovative cloud-based solution
he energy industry is at a turning point. Traditionally, energy production has been centralised into huge power plants, but the
industry is changing towards decentralised and smarter production. Global trends to decrease CO2 emissions and make cities smarter have driven the development and implementation of renewable energy sources worldwide. Conventional energy systems have relied on massive-scale power plants to deliver the needed power for the consumers, however, new novel solutions in the energy distribution sector are able to change the centralised generation into decentralised with possibility to utilise more renewables than currently. Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a system that integrates several types of power sources to give a reliable power supply for the electricity distribution grid. A central cloud-based IT system controls the VPP functions and aggregates together
multiple different distributed energy resources (DERs) almost in real time. Te aggregated units can be traditional wind or solar plants, hydropower or other conventional power sources, but emerging new solutions, such as electric vehicle batteries, telecom stations battery back-ups, industrial loads (e.g. heating and flexible power consumers) can also be used. When the IT system manages all these different sources together, the VPP functions like a traditional power plant, but with a lower latency time and higher response for occasional demands.
GAME-CHANGINGGRID TECHNOLOGY T
BUILT-IN FLEXIBILITY VPP gives flexible power for the grid that helps to manage the electric load more efficiently. During the peak demand times VPP can participate into peak clipping, valley filling or load shifting activities to smoothen the demand peaks and lows. Tis decreases the need for fossil-based backup power sources, for example, coal plants and diesel generators. When the electricity consumption is low, VPP can charge battery-based reserve units with renewable energy and use the reserve capacity during high peak demand times. Te essential difference compared to current operation is that battery back-up changes from passive back-up
power to active energy storage, which is discharged and recharged according to the situation. As a result, the used energy is green – which decreases emissions and means electricity distributors can avoid the start of fossil-based power plants and generators, therefore generating cost savings.
A key benefit that VPP brings is more efficient electricity markets. Currently, the energy producers have huge-scale power plants and it is difficult to participate into the markets as a small-scale player. VPP makes it possible to aggregate different smaller scale energy sources together, that enables new producers and prosumers to take part into the markets. Emerging 5G technology and faster broadband have made it possible for electricity grid operators to monitor and adjust the grids in millisecond times. Te latency of control is one of the cornerstones of VPP, in which way even more than 100,000 small energy recourses can be commanded with a delay of less than a second. Te lower response times mean faster demand response and up-to-date information of the grid. Consequently, there are fewer blackouts and outages in the distribution, which affects the grid stability, reliability and congestion bottlenecks. In other words, the markets
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