Towards Joint Power-Communication System Modelling and Optimisation for Smart Grid Application: Virtual Power Plant (TOPMOST)

英国的电力网络每天为数百万人提供服务，但现在正面临着一个充满挑战的未来，基础设施老化，但可再生能源（RESs）的渗透率越来越高。因此，天然气和电力市场办公室（Ofgem）已批准计划花费170亿英镑，通过使用智能技术升级英国的电力网络，直到2023年。作为最有前途的解决方案之一，智能电网引起了人们的广泛关注，因为它能够在电网基础设施中实现能源和通信的双向流动，这对于提高电力系统的可靠性，安全性和效率以及以最低的成本为消费者提供照明至关重要。拟议的研究涉及一个关键的智能电网应用，即，虚拟发电厂（VPP），其被设计为聚合许多不同的分布式能源（DER）的容量和灵活的需求，以创建作为一个“虚拟发电厂”的单个操作配置文件，从而帮助在真实的时间内平衡供应和需求。为了促进VPP，优化算法和通信技术都起着重要的作用，但由于缺乏联合电力通信系统模型以及对通信系统不完善对优化算法的影响的透彻分析，VPP的全部潜力受到阻碍。如果研究成功，将有助于更好地理解VPP中这两个密切交互的系统，开发更先进的VPP设计方法，并在达勒姆智能电网实验室实现具有双向实时通信能力的VPP硬件试验床。这可能会导致更有效的可再生能源管理和灵活的需求，最终提高电网的运营效率，为系统运营商和消费者降低成本。然而，也许最重要的是，这项研究将使我们能够开始询问我们如何优化智能电网技术的性能，不仅考虑电力系统，而且考虑现实的通信系统，从而鼓励多学科研究和交叉施肥两个领域。

The UK's electricity networks are serving millions of people everyday but now are facing a challenging future, with ageing infrastructure but increasing penetration of Renewable Energy Sources (RESs). As such, the Office of Gas and Electricity Markets (Ofgem) has approved plans to spend £17bn for upgrading the UK's electricity networks till 2023 by using smarter technologies. As one of the most promising solutions, smart grid has attracted much attention, since it is capable of enabling bidirectional flows of energy and communications in the power grid infrastructure, that is crucial in improving the reliability, security, and efficiency of the electric systems and keeping the lights on at minimum cost to consumers. The proposed research is concerned with one key smart grid application, i.e., Virtual Power Plant (VPP) which is designed to aggregate the capacity of many diverse distributed energy resources (DERs) and flexible demands to create a single operating profile as one "virtual power plant" that helps balance supply and demand in real time. To facilitate VPP, both optimisation algorithms and communication technologies play a significant role, but the full potential of VPP has been hampered by the lack of joint power-communication system models and the thorough analysis of the impact of communication system imperfections to optimisation algorithms. If successful, this research will provide better understandings of these two systems operating with close interactions in VPP, develop more advanced methods in the design of VPP, and implement a hardware testbed of VPP with two-way real-time communication capability in Durham Smart Grid Laboratory. These could potentially lead to more efficient management of RESs and flexible demands, ultimately to improved operational efficiency of power grids for system operators and to reduced cost for consumers. Perhaps most importantly, however, is that this research will enable us to begin asking how we shall optimise the performance of smart grid technologies, considering not only power systems but also realistic communication systems, thus encouraging multidisciplinary research and cross-fertilising both fields.