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👋 Welcome!
Welcome to the vpp-sim wiki! For now, this will serve as a (mostly unstructured) glossary of terms relevant to this project. Over time, it will be expanded into a more structured reference for simulation concepts, use-cases, and learning resources.
A Virtual Power Plant (VPP) is a cyber-physical system that orchestrates heterogeneous distributed energy resources (DERs) and demand response assets through advanced control, optimization, and market integration.
Key technical aspects include:
- Centralized or decentralized optimization algorithms to manage DER dispatch
- Delivery of capacity, energy, ancillary services (e.g., frequency regulation, voltage support), and resilience functions
- Acting as market-facing entities, bidding aggregated flexibility into wholesale electricity markets or participating in capacity and ancillary service auctions
In essence, VPPs operationalize the concept of a decentralized, transactive grid, enabling DERs to substitute or complement traditional centralized generation in both technical and economic dimensions.
DERs are small-scale energy assets connected to the distribution grid. Examples include:
- ☀️🏠 Rooftop solar PV
- 🔋 Home battery systems
- 🚗 Electric vehicles (EVs)
- 📱 Smart appliances and flexible demand technologies
DERs are the building blocks of a VPP, providing both generation and demand-side flexibility.
An Aggregator is the entity (human, software, or hybrid) that coordinates many individual DERs to act as a single controllable portfolio.
Aggregators may:
- Optimize local dispatch decisions
- Ensure devices respect physical and contractual constraints
- Interface with wholesale markets or distribution utilities on behalf of DER owners
- Flexible loads can be shifted in time or adjusted in response to signals (e.g., EV charging, HVAC, water heating).
- Inflexible loads must be met immediately and cannot be shifted (e.g., lighting, refrigeration).
The interplay of flexible and inflexible demand is central to VPP operation.
In vpp-sim, the system advances in discrete timesteps (e.g., 5 minutes) at accelerated speed. This allows exploration of:
- Device-level dynamics
- Aggregator decision-making
- Grid and market interactions