Review of virtual power plant operations: Resource coordination and multidimensional interaction

Virtual power plants (VPPs) have become an important technological means for large-scale distributed energy resources to participate in the operation of power systems and electricity markets. However, the operation of VPPs is challenged by stochastic resource characteristics, complex control features, heterogeneous information structures, and strategic game behaviors among stakeholders. To clarify the key problems and solutions to these challenges, this article describes the resource coordination problems and multidimensional interaction mechanism, and it elaborates the overall decision-making process of VPPs. It also discusses different specific operational stages that VPPs should attach importance to from three separate perspectives: energy, communication and the market. From each perspective, every section first analyzes the motivation of decision-making, then analyzes the complexity of the problem models, and summarizes the different modeling methods and solving techniques, thus completing a comprehensive review of VPP operation. Furthermore, the article adopts an interdisciplinary approach, utilizing a literature review and technical statistics to capture the multifaceted contributions of decision-making to VPP operations. It delves into the evolving trends of decision-making technology, analyzed from the coupling cyber-physical-social perspective. Finally, the future trajectory of research issues is deliberated.