Shulou(Shulou.com)11/24 Report--

As the global climate problem becomes more and more serious, the traditional power grid, which is hit by extreme weather, is likely to collapse.

The power grid was paralyzed in the extremely cold weather in Texas in 2021, the large-scale power cut caused by the sudden drop in wind power output in Northeast China, and the severe drought in Sichuan and Chongqing in 2022, which broke through the power supply dominated by hydropower and the power supply crisis brought about by the hot weather in California. It all shows the deteriorating relationship between energy supply and demand. At the same time, the continuous increase of renewable energy with strong volatility and poor stability in the energy supply structure also puts forward new requirements for grid adaptability.

How to establish a more flexible, reliable and efficient system to manage power resources to meet the new needs of both supply and demand has become a top priority.

Virtual power plant is a possible answer.

What is virtual power plant (Virtual Power Plant, referred to as VPP) is a set of highly intelligent energy management system. Based on the Internet of things, it integrates the distributed power, energy storage facilities, controllable load and other resources in the power grid, carries out centralized dispatching, participates in the dispatching and operation of the power grid, and provides flexible services for the power market. Virtual power plant has the same function as power plant, but there is no factory building in the traditional sense, so it is called "virtual power plant".

In 1997, the economist Dr. Simon Awebach (Shimon Awerbuch) put forward the concept of virtual power plant. In his book "Virtual Public facilities: description, Technology and Competitiveness of emerging Industries", he defined it as: flexible cooperation between market-driven independent entities, and can provide consumers with the efficient power services they need without having to own the corresponding assets [1].

On August 26 this year, China's first virtual power plant management center was unveiled in Shenzhen. It is connected to 14 load aggregators such as distributed energy storage, data centers, charging stations and subways, with an access capacity of 870000 kilowatts. Close to the installed capacity of a large coal power plant [2]. In the period of tight power supply, the virtual power plant can directly dispatch scattered power resources such as charging piles, air conditioners and energy storage, and reduce the power consumption through them [3].

The most prominent feature of the virtual power plant is that it has the characteristic of "source-load", which can not only be used as a "positive power plant" to supply power to the system for peak regulation, but also as a "negative power plant" to increase load dissipation and cooperate with the system to fill valleys, and can respond quickly to instructions. cooperate to ensure the stability of the power grid and obtain economic compensation, and can also participate in power market transactions and power auxiliary service transactions directly like traditional power plants.

And because the virtual power plant relies on a highly intelligent control system and is connected to the Internet of things of a large number of devices, the theoretical response speed and regulation ability are far higher than the traditional peak regulation methods, especially wind and photovoltaic power. renewable energy that requires a rapid response from the power grid.

Another advantage of virtual power plant is its excellent economy. According to the calculation of the State Grid, if the peak cutting and valley filling of the power system is realized through thermal power plants, it will require an investment of 400 billion yuan to meet 5% of the peak load. However, it only needs to invest 50 billion ~ 60 billion yuan to achieve this goal through the virtual power plant, that is, the cost of the thermal power plant is less than that of the thermal power plant, and its cost-effective advantage far exceeds the traditional redundant system construction scheme [4].

The industry chain of virtual power plant is composed of upstream basic resources, middle reaches virtual power plant operators and downstream power demand side.

Upstream basic resources: adjustable load, distributed power supply and energy storage equipment. The key points of controllable load are industrial, commercial and public buildings, residents, etc., and the load adjustable potential of different application scenarios is quite different. The adjustable loads of commercial and public buildings are mainly air conditioning, lighting, power, etc., which are relatively easy to manage. Residents' adjustable load distribution is scattered, single-point capacity is small, and aggregation is difficult. Distributed power refers to small distributed photovoltaic, wind power, thermal power, hydropower and other units. Energy storage includes mechanical energy storage, chemical energy storage and so on.

Mid-stream virtual power plant operators: including resource aggregators and technical services. Resource aggregators mainly rely on the Internet of things, big data and other technologies, integration, optimization, scheduling, decision-making from all levels of data information, to achieve the core function of the virtual power plant-coordinated control, is the key link of the virtual power plant industry chain. Technical service providers focus on the construction of virtual power plant software platform to provide technical services for resource aggregators.

Downstream power demand side: public utilities (power grid companies), energy retailers (power sales companies) and all the main bodies involved in power market transactions, to achieve power trading, peak and frequency modulation and demand-side response to participate and obtain benefits.

The current virtual power plant has not yet built a clear business model in China, but there are two relatively mature examples abroad for reference. One is to focus on distributed generation units to gain revenue by participating in power transactions; the other is to focus on user-side power resources to obtain revenue by providing auxiliary services.

The first business model is more common in Europe. In this mode, the virtual power plant mainly collects commission by providing technical support to optimize power generation costs and reduce unnecessary losses, or assist power generation units to connect to the power grid, complete power transactions, and get service fees and premium share. The representative enterprise is Next Kraftwerke, a German virtual power plant company, which is also the largest virtual power plant operator in Europe.

Next Kraftwerke profit model is roughly divided into three types: one is to provide services to renewable energy power generation enterprises to assist power generation companies to monitor power generation and save unnecessary costs; the second is to provide short-term flexible energy storage services to the grid side to provide peak regulation and frequency modulation services from the generation side to earn income; the third is to control the demand side and serve the grid side to earn corresponding fees.

As of the second quarter of 2022, Next Kraftwerke has managed 14414 distributed power generation equipment, including biomass power plants, cogeneration, hydropower stations, wind power stations and other highly diversified equipment, with a total management scale of 10836MW [5].

The second model is common in the US electricity market. Specifically, the energy retailer carries out the virtual power plant project, which provides low-cost energy storage batteries or cash in exchange for control of part of the electricity of the household and, if necessary, provides electricity to the retailer. The retailer's virtual power plant aggregates these energy storage and provides them to the users who need them during the peak period, so as to obtain auxiliary service benefits.

Not the savior, we need to make it clear that virtual power plants do have a lot of positive significance, but it does not mean to completely subvert the existing energy supply system, nor does it have the ability to solve all problems.

First of all, virtual power plants only more efficiently co-ordinate distributed power generation resources and various forms of available power generation capacity or stock power, and achieve more intelligent allocation of electricity, but can not fundamentally solve the "shortage".

For example, the serious power shortage in Sichuan and Chongqing in the past is due to a sudden drop in the generating capacity of the hydropower system by 40% to 50% due to the severe drought, and hydropower accounts for more than 80% of the local power generation structure, resulting in a substantial increase in residential electricity consumption caused by superimposed high temperatures, resulting in a huge power gap [6].

This is something that virtual power plants are unable to solve. Looking back at the situation at that time, even if a mature virtual power plant system was built locally, it was only possible to carry out limited optimization to further reduce unnecessary consumption that had not been paid attention to, and to protect residential electricity in a more efficient way. but there is nothing we can do about the huge gap itself, let alone the protection of industrial production.

After all, even if the virtual power plant has great skills, it is impossible for it to generate electricity in vain and "change" the power to plug the gap.

This applies to the current European energy crisis as well as the California and Texas power crises in the United States-virtual power plants do not have the ability to fill the shortage of natural gas, nor can they fundamentally solve the contradiction between supply and demand. What it does is to integrate, coordinate and manage, and does not have the ability to fundamentally solve the problem.

In the final analysis, a reliable energy system, no matter what the specific power generation structure, whether it relies on traditional fossil energy or all kinds of renewable energy, must be able to meet the demand.

Secondly, the construction of virtual power plant is far more than the development of a new digital control system, but also depends on the equipment that matches its functions.

For example, in the description of the virtual power plant, the power battery carried by the new energy vehicle is often regarded as a distributed temporary energy storage tool, but in the current practice, not all charging piles have the function of obtaining electricity from the vehicle battery. naturally, it is impossible to transmit electricity to the power grid. This phenomenon also exists widely in all kinds of power equipment which are included in the concept of virtual power plant, but do not have the conditions of intelligent management.

If the current power grid wants to adapt to the regulation and control mode of virtual power plants, it will need a wide range of technical facilities to upgrade. Considering the huge volume and complexity of the power grid, the corresponding infrastructure will be quite tedious and long-term systematic engineering.

As an ideal management system, the necessity of virtual power plant to the power system in the new era can not be ignored, but it does not mean that it can go beyond the existing power grid, or completely replace the existing energy supply mode. We do not need and should not have unrealistic illusions about the virtual power grid, and we should be more vigilant against the atmosphere of hype.

Special risk after the combination of virtual power plants and traditional power facilities, the large-scale interconnection of equipment, highly intelligent mode of operation, coupled with the characteristics of traditional power facilities, bring a risk that is not prominent in the past: network security loopholes.

For the "digital transformation" of the energy industry, access to digital technology and new control systems play a vital role, but merging the key equipment of limited networking in the past into a more complex large-scale system will expose some of the previously relatively secure links to possible cyber attacks.

Taking the virtual power plant as an example, the whole system is composed of a large number of devices interconnected, which leads to network attacks that may occur on any grid-connected devices, and the devices at the end are unlikely to have security similar to the core devices, which makes them particularly vulnerable in network attacks, which greatly increases the difficulty of prevention.

The "microgrid" is a similar example. The highly complex local power grid makes the operation of the system highly dependent on computer networks for control and management, but it also increases the risk of network attacks and the potential losses that may be caused by breaches.

On the other hand, the increasingly prominent exposure risk is also related to the characteristics of the energy industry.

As the foundation of modern industrial society, the energy industry is undoubtedly important to any social component, which shows a conservative attitude towards new technology in the specific development process of the industry.

The energy industry does not reject new technologies, but has high requirements for reliability and safety, which inevitably leads to strict supervision of new technologies and the corresponding low adoption rate. In terms of hardware, this is shown as a relatively slow upgrade and a longer verification cycle; at the software level, it means controlling the longer investment cycle and service life of the system. especially compared with those industries where system upgrades are very frequent (such as consumer electronics).

Specifically, when the energy industry is working well, it often only replaces equipment that is close to its useful life, and the demand for upgrading digital systems is not very strong. Even at present, the renewable energy represented by wind and solar power has brought a full impact, the development of the whole industry is still promoted in a stage of several years, and the vertical acceleration is obvious, but the horizontal comparison of other industries is still prudent.

However, this pace of development does not adapt to the development model of the "digital age".

The "calm" style of the traditional energy industry is likely to be dangerously slow to respond to crises when dealing with a wide variety of and secretive cyber attacks.

We have seen such examples in recent years.

Relatively early, in 2015, the Ukrainian power company suffered network intrusions, resulting in large-scale power outages in more than half of Ukraine; in 2019-2020, the Venezuelan power system was repeatedly attacked by cyber attacks, resulting in large-scale power outages; in 2020, the Brazilian power company was subjected to blackmail software attacks, hackers extorted 14 million dollars, and so on [7].

Recently, on May 7, 2021, Coronier Pipeline Transportation, the largest operator of fuel pipelines in the United States, was attacked by hackers and forced to shut down the entire pipeline system. This has led to fuel shortages and panic purchases in many parts of the United States, soaring fuel prices and even forcing the federal government to declare a state of emergency. The panic did not ease until the transportation system was back online on the 13th day. In early 2022, several terminals in Europe, including Amsterdam and Antwerp, were also subjected to widespread cyber attacks, with oil loading, unloading and transshipment severely hampered, as well as delays in barges transporting oil to inland cities [8].

In China, power network security monitoring data of a certain province show that the province's power network suffered more than 420000 network attacks in 2020, of which high-risk attacks accounted for 65.4%, and overseas attacks accounted for 18.27%, mainly from the United States, India and other countries. High-risk attacks and professional attacks show signs of substantial growth, and the security pressure on the energy system is increasing [7].

If a similar successful network attack appears in the virtual power plant system, combined with its characteristics, it may lead to a large-scale paralysis that spreads the entire power grid, and the loss will expand rapidly with the growth of coverage.

How to resolve the increasing potential risks with the intelligent process of the energy system will be a question that must be answered by the highly intelligent energy network in the future.

On the other hand, the energy industry is unlikely to complete the digital infrastructure on its own, and will inevitably introduce external partners, such as network providers, cloud service providers, etc., but these suppliers tend to have lower requirements for security and reliability.

For example, Amazon cloud services have experienced more than one major outage in recent years, or even a complete collapse of the system, and all services are temporarily unavailable. The energy industry is unlikely to accept such a risk, and the damage and losses caused by it go far beyond the simple shutdown of trading systems or logistics chaos.

To address such risks, the energy industry may also need to build a new collaboration framework to buy digital services with higher levels of security from suppliers to better adapt to the security upgrade cycle of the Internet era. but this undoubtedly represents more costs and lower profit margins.

How to balance security and economy and how to establish a more effective cooperation mechanism with other industries will also be an unavoidable problem for the energy industry in the digital age.

Besides technology, as a relatively forward-looking concept, virtual power plant faces not only technical problems in the process of development.

As an industry in the early stage of exploration, the positioning and development route of virtual power plants in the current domestic power market is relatively vague, lack of top-level design. Key issues such as who to build, who to operate, who to supervise, who to participate in, how to design the system, pricing mechanism, technical standards, subsidies and other key issues are not even clear, the long-term development of the industry is facing great difficulties.

The lack of key policies leads to inconsistent understanding of virtual power plants, and there are many differences in various pilot demonstration projects, which may lead to a waste of resources and is not conducive to unified access to the large power grid in the future.

The specific business model of virtual power plant also needs to be further explored. Although the operation mode is different, the essence of virtual power plant is still power transaction, but the current electricity market in our country is not completely open. The advantage of the incomplete market-oriented power industry is that the electricity price can be maintained at a low level, but it greatly weakens the profitability of the virtual power plant, and the commercial operation becomes very difficult.

At the same time, the low electricity price has also dealt a blow to the participation enthusiasm of power supply units. at this stage, the domestic virtual power plants are mainly invited, led by government departments, and the active participants are limited. The inability to attract enough participants from the society means that the virtual power plant will be difficult to guarantee the basic power supply capacity.

How to explore a set of business model in line with the characteristics of China's electricity market is also a subject that virtual power plants must face.

It can only be said that as a new thing, the virtual power plant has a long way to go.

References:

Zhang Ling: it rose 70% and then plummeted. Can this new tuyere still get on the bus? China Fund Daily. 2022.09.02 https://www.chnfund.com/ article / AR2022090200081489164238

Shi Jun, Cheng Rongli, Li Jiangnan & Liu Chuanshu: the first virtual power plant management center in Shencheng. Science and Technology Daily, 2022.08.26 http://stdaily.com/ index / kejixinwen / 202208/49189d3b60194341bc4ce848f51537f4.shtml

[3] China Electric Power News: the first network-to-ground integrated virtual power plant platform is coming! . 2021.11.29 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/ s / MIVFUv0RntRoP1wGTMTfWg

[4] Science News: thermal power cost 1pm 7! Virtual power plant is in urgent need of top-level design. China Power Grid. 2022.09.09 http://www.chinapower.com.cn/ zx / hyfx / 20220909/166521.html

[5] Debon Securities: Debon Securities Electric Power Series report (2): virtual power plant, the east wind of power reform has arrived, and the vast blue sea will become. 2022.08.17

[6] Li Xinyi: why is there a power shortage in Sichuan, a major hydropower province? . Kawagawa News. 2022.08.17 https://cbgc.scol.com.cn/ news / 3665626

[7] Zhu Han & Lin Guangyao: China encounters more than 2 million malicious cyber attacks abroad every year: how to defend against high-risk attacks? . A half-monthly talk. 2021.10.22 https://mp.weixin.qq.com/ s / Y8gOyn1qlO5axGP4V9F8Rg

[8] Chen Ming: suddenly! Hackers attack European port oil facilities, oil tankers can not dock! Oil prices have soared to a seven-year high and trillions of new energy tracks are making a comeback? . China, a securities firm. 2022.02.06

This article comes from the official account of Wechat: fruit Shell hard Technology (ID:guokr233), author: Chen Qianlei, Editor: Li Tuo

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