AC-Feasible Power Transfer Regions of Virtual Power Plants: Characterization and Application

Abstract: Distributed energy resources (DERs) in distribution networks can be aggregated as a virtual power plant (VPP) for transmission-level operations. A critical challenge for such coordination is the complexity of the AC-feasible power transfer region between a VPP and the transmission system at their point of common coupling. To overcome this challenge, this paper develops a characterization method for such regions. The proposed method constructs linear constraints to inner-approximate the AC-feasible power transfer regions. To guarantee AC-feasibility, the parameters in these constraints are determined by applying the Brouwer fixed point theorem to the second-order Taylor expansion of the nonlinear Dist-Flow equations. Based on the power transfer regions characterized with our method, a transmission-level operation problem with VPP participation is formulated and solved through big-M linearization. The proposed methods are verified by numerical experiments in the IEEE 33-bus and IEEE 136-bus test systems.