Assessing Value of Renewable-based VPP Versus Electrical Storage: Multi-market Participation Under Different Scheduling Regimes and Uncertainties

TL;DR

This study compares renewable-based virtual power plants and electrical storage systems in multi-market participation, analyzing their performance, strategies, and economic outcomes under various uncertainties and scheduling regimes.

Contribution

It introduces a robust optimization framework for fair comparison and proposes an algorithm for sizing electrical storage to match renewable virtual power plant performance.

Findings

RVPPs and ESSs have different strengths depending on market conditions.

The proposed sizing algorithm aligns ESS performance with RVPP outcomes.

Simulation results offer quantitative insights into the value of each approach.

Abstract

This paper compares the participation of Renewable-only Virtual Power Plants (RVPPs) and grid-scale Electrical Storage Systems (ESSs) in energy and reserve markets, evaluating their technical performance, market strategies, and economic outcomes. To ensure a fair comparison, scheduling is analyzed over representative sample days that capture seasonal operating regimes, and the associated uncertainties are explicitly modeled. Two-stage robust optimization frameworks are employed: the RVPP model addresses price, generation, and demand uncertainties, whereas the ESS model considers price uncertainty only. In addition, an algorithm is proposed for sizing the ESS so that its market performance matches that of the RVPP. Simulations cover both favorable and unfavorable scenarios, reflecting seasonal energy limits for dispatchable resources, varying forecast errors for nondispatchable resources, and alternative uncertainty-management strategies. The results provide operators with quantitative guidance on the relative value of each approach.