Without building factories, generating electricity, or emitting smoke, the problem of asymmetry and imbalance between power supply and demand can be solved through "cloud" operations. How can virtual power plants intelligently "transport" electricity? The virtual power plant aggregates and optimizes the power load resources such as charging piles, air conditioning, and distributed photovoltaics that are idle among end users. Through market-oriented means, it solves the problem of power dispatch, promotes peak shaving and valley filling, supply-demand balance, and achieves a win-win situation for the power grid, users, and investors. Recently, some regions in China have been experiencing widespread high temperatures, leading to a continuous increase in electricity demand. In some areas of northern Shenzhen, Guangdong, when there is a peak in electricity consumption during certain periods, the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center immediately sends an invitation to the virtual power plant operator to adjust the load. Through big data, we accurately identify charging stations that can participate in regulation and scientifically reduce the power of their charging piles by 30% Liu Yaowei, Energy Operations Manager of Shenzhen TeDian New Energy Co., Ltd., a virtual power plant operator, promptly provided feedback to the management center. During the peak summer season, similar scenarios of power resource scheduling are not uncommon. Currently, many regions in China are vigorously developing virtual power plants. In August, Chongqing's first virtual power plant was put into operation for the first time, Zhejiang's virtual power plant management platform was officially launched, and Shanghai's virtual power plant reached a new historical high in peak load regulation... As an important support and solution to ensure stable power supply, virtual power plants are like invisible intelligent power "movers". It is not a physical power plant. On August 6th from 11:45 to 13:15, the load needs to be adjusted by 200000 kilowatts. On August 5th, after receiving a peak shaving invitation from the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center, the Ganghua Energy VPP Star (Virtual Power Plant Operation Management System) automatically declared participation within its adjustable capacity, decomposed the participation into its aggregated distributed energy storage and load, and directly provided electricity consumption plan instructions. Different devices have different control methods. For example, energy storage can not charge and discharge during peak shaving periods, charging stations can turn off some stations or reduce power, and building air conditioning can slightly increase temperature Lv Chaoqing, Director of VPP Products at Ganghua Energy, gave an example. What is a virtual power plant? How can virtual power plants play a role in energy scheduling? A virtual power plant is not a physical power plant, but a new energy power management system. It is like an invisible power 'transporter', which can directly dispatch massive and dispersed power load resources during periods of tight power supply, achieving load regulation during specific time periods Li Jiangnan, the manager of Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center, said. The reporter learned that, using the energy Internet technology, the virtual power plant aggregates and optimizes the power load resources such as charging piles, air conditioners, distributed photovoltaic, which are idle in the end users. It is equivalent to a "cloud power plant" and a digital energy management system integrated with "Internet plus+source network load storage". The power system needs to maintain real-time balance between power generation and consumption. In traditional power systems, in order to ensure the smooth operation of the power grid, users' electricity needs are often met by adjusting the power supply. In the case of insufficient power supply, users are generally guided to use electricity during off peak or off peak periods through demand response or load management Speaking about the background of the construction of the virtual power plant regulation and management cloud platform, Ou Mingyu, the specialist of the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center, told reporters that with the acceleration of the construction of new energy systems and new power systems, coupled with the large-scale integration of new energy electricity, this poses challenges to power balance and safe operation of the power grid. The core of virtual power plants lies in cross node wide area resource aggregation, optimization, and control. By scheduling demand side resources, they adapt to the volatility of new energy generation and ensure the relative stability of the power system. Especially for new energy sources such as photovoltaics, which have strong volatility, randomness, and intermittency, a high proportion of them connected to the power grid will interfere with the frequency of the existing power system and affect the safety of the power system Ou Mingyu said. Since the beginning of this year, the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center has carried out 31 precise responses, effectively solving problems such as peak load, section overload, and main transformer overload in the city. The Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Control and Management Cloud Platform has a total connected resource capacity of over 2.75 million kilowatts, with an adjustable capacity of 600000 kilowatts. There are a total of 55000 connected resource devices and nearly 50 virtual power plant operators. On August 7th, at the Shenzhen Power Supply Bureau of Southern Power Grid, Ou Mingyu pointed to a virtual power plant operator's historical execution monitoring column on one of the display screens and told reporters that the peak electricity consumption in Shenzhen is from 11:45 to 13:15 noon, and buses, taxis, and other vehicles need to be charged and recharged during lunchtime, which requires peak shaving. How to manage a virtual power plant after its establishment? Many people used to think that virtual power plants were unreliable because they were afraid to schedule and didn't know how much resources they had and how much they could allocate Cheng Chunli, General Manager of Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center, said. To this end, at the end of 2021, Shenzhen Innovation launched a virtual power plant regulation and management cloud platform. As the "intelligent commander-in-chief" of the city's virtual power plants, this platform has broken through the real-time interactive barriers of power grid dispatching, realizing the functions of resource access, operation monitoring, command decomposition, and dispatching system interaction. In the past few years, there were no virtual power plants involved in regulating electricity. With the rapid development of new energy generation, the power generation sharply increases when weather conditions are good, and the user side cannot fully consume it. To maintain stable operation of the power grid, equipment can only be shut down, resulting in the phenomenon of wind and solar power curtailment Lv Chaoqing said that with the virtual power plant and "intelligent overall command", the problem of power dispatching has been solved, achieving multiple benefits. According to relevant data, since its official operation, the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center has organized operators to carry out load regulation 64 times through the platform, regulating nearly 2.1 million kilowatt hours of electricity, creating direct social and economic benefits of 55.673 million yuan, and reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 1749.8 tons. The situation of electricity supply and demand is sometimes tight and sometimes loose, sometimes supply exceeds demand, sometimes supply is less than demand... It is precisely because of the asymmetry and imbalance between the supply and demand sides of electricity that virtual power plants have emerged Liu Dian'an, Deputy General Manager of Shenzhen Electric Energy Technology Group Co., Ltd., added that virtual power plants can promote peak shaving and valley filling, supply-demand balance, and achieve a win-win situation for the power grid, users, investors, and other parties without changing the connection between users and the power grid. Why are so many companies willing to participate in the power demand response business of the Shenzhen Virtual Power Plant Management Center, with market returns being the biggest driving force? Market returns are the greatest driving force. Taking charging stations as an example, in the past they could only earn service fees, but now they can also earn certain profits by participating in response. Taking user side energy storage as an example, due to the increase in revenue channels, the investment return cycle of investors has been shortened, and due to the improvement of digital operation capabilities, platform operating costs have also been greatly reduced Liu Dian'an introduced. Tang Meng, a specially invited expert from the Shenzhen New Energy Storage Industry Association, also shares this feeling. He gave an example that user side energy storage has three advantages when participating in virtual power plant regulation response. Firstly, it has more stable response capacity and response time; Secondly, it will not have a significant impact on the users who participate in the response; Thirdly, energy storage itself can enjoy the benefits brought by the peak valley price difference after being put into operation. The development and growth of virtual power plants cannot be separated from policy guidance and support. Since 2022, Shenzhen has introduced multiple policies to support the development of virtual power plants and established the first virtual power plant management center in China. In June of this year, Shenzhen issued the "Several Measures to Support the Accelerated Development of Virtual Power Plants in Shenzhen", using real money to promote the full chain and ecological development of virtual power plants. According to statistics, Shenzhen has driven more than 100 enterprises to enter the relevant industry chain through the management of virtual power plants. Another major advantage of virtual power plants is that they do not occupy land resources and do not require the construction of new transmission channels. Taking the construction of a 200 MW virtual power plant as an example, it can save 40700 tons of standard coal annually, reduce carbon dioxide emissions by 108000 tons and sulfur dioxide emissions by 3261 tons, and save land resources worth approximately 900 million to 1 billion yuan. The reporter learned that by 2025, Shenzhen plans to build a virtual power plant with adjustable capacity of 1 million kilowatts, forming a stable regulation capacity of 5% of the annual maximum load, guiding large-scale adjustable user resources to actively participate in system regulation, and reducing greenhouse gas emissions by about 540000 tons per year, effectively supporting the construction of a new energy system and the development of green and low-carbon industries. (New Society)