Decentralized Optimization in Scheduling Virtual Power Plant (VPP)

The scheduling of virtual power plants (VPPs) has received much attention in the last few years. VPP refers to the integration of several power plant units together, which is considered as a single power plant. In this paper, three VPPs are considered, each of which includes different power plant units and must supply the desired load. Besides supplying the desired load, they should maximize their profit. Decentralized optimization method has been used to optimize these three VPPs. The reason for using decentralized method is to increase network security and also to not need a central computer. On the other hand, using the decentralized optimization method increases the speed of problem solving. Finally, the obtained results have been compared with the centralized method. The simulations show that almost the same result has been obtained by using different optimization methods. These results increase the tendency to use decentralized methods in VPPs.