Self-Organising Virtual Power Plants of Distributed Energy Resources

The concept of Virtual Power Plant (VPP) has been recently introduced as a mean to integrate many distributed energy resources (DER) in the power grid. DERs are typically small-medium renewable electricity producers connected to the grid at the distribution level. Due to the fact that individual DERs have a small and uncertain generation capacity, they are often excluded from the wholesale electricity market. By forming VPPs of adequate size, DERs can coalesce into an entity that profitably sells energy to the grid. Although DERs are willing to cooperate and form a VPP, different DERs have different preferences over the possible VPPs that can be formed.

The goal of the semester project is studying the VPP formation problem from a game-theoretical point of view, proposing an algorithm for VPP formation, analysing the stability and composition of the VPPs that are formed over time, and modeling the incentives of DERs for truthfully revealing their private information.

If you have any question, just drop me an email, or come to my office:

• Matteo Vasirani (BC114): [email protected]

Prerequisites

• Familiar with game theory and multiagent systems concepts