Multi-objective scheduling of a virtual power plant considering emissions

Virtual power plants are decentralized energy management systems, which gather the capacity of renewable units, non-renewable units, storage devices, and distributable loads, contribute to the energy market, and trade energy (and services) with the upstream network. One of the most important goals of a virtual power plant for presenting in the energy market is to achieve profit, and it can reach the highest possible profit with proper scheduling and selection of the desired strategy. Virtual power plants reduce the need to build very large units by collecting the capacity of smaller units and therefore play an important role in reducing emissions from large units. Paying attention to the issue of emissions in a virtual power plant can affect its profit. This chapter deals with the economic scheduling of the virtual power plant by considering emissions in the form of a multi-objective problem with two different methods and tries to select the best strategy for the virtual power plant, leading to the highest profit and the lowest emissions.