A fully distributed ADMM-based dispatch approach for virtual power plant problems

In this paper, a fully distributed approach is proposed for a class of virtual power plant (VPP) problems. By characterizing two specific VPP problems, we first give a comprehensive VPP formulation that maximizes the economic benefit subjected to the power balance constraint, line transmission limits and local constraints of all distributed energy resources (DERs). Then, utilizing the alternating direction method of multipliers and consensus optimization, a distributed VPP dispatch algorithm is developed for the general VPP problem. In particular, Theorem 1 is derived to show the convergence of the algorithm. The proposed algorithm is completely distributed without requiring a centralized controller, and each DER is regarded as an agent by implementing local computation and only communicates information with its neighbors to cooperatively find the globally optimal solution. The algorithm brings some advantages, such as the privacy protection and more scalability than centralized control methods. Furthermore, a new variant of the algorithm is presented for improving the convergence rate. Finally, several case studies are used to illustrate the efficiency and effectiveness of the proposed algorithms. (C) 2017 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.