Co-optimization of multiple virtual power plants considering electricity-heat-carbon trading: A Stackelberg game strategy

With the improvement of the electricity-heat-carbon trading mechanism, it has been a trend for multiple virtual power plants (MVPP) to participate in the market competition. Firstly, in order to mitigate the burden of environmental pollution and balance the conflicting market interests of MVPP, this paper proposes a Stackelberg game strategy for the operator and MVPP considering a ladder-type carbon price mechanism and a dualcompensated demand response (DR) mechanism, which consists of an optimal pricing strategy for the operator and an optimal energy scheduling strategy for each VPP. During the game process, the operator serves as the leader, guiding the energy transactions of MVPP through price optimization, while each VPP acts as the follower, optimizing the internal aggregated units and loads based on the price issued. To solve the Stackelberg game equilibrium, a Kriging metamodel is then adopted to fit the energy scheduling model of the VPP. Finally, several cases are analyzed to verify that the proposed strategy can effectively contribute to the energy complementation and carbon reduction of MVPP.