A Case Study of a Virtual Power Plant (VPP) as a Data Acquisition Tool for PV Energy Forecasting

Tomasz Popławski, Sebastian Dudzik, Piotr Szeląg and Janusz Baran
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Tomasz Popławski: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland
Sebastian Dudzik: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland
Piotr Szeląg: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland
Janusz Baran: Faculty of Electrical Engineering, Czestochowa University of Technology, 42-200 Czestochowa, Poland

Energies, 2021, vol. 14, issue 19, 1-24

Abstract: This article describes problems related to the operation of a virtual micro power plant at the Faculty of Electrical Engineering (FEE), Czestochowa University of Technology (CUT). In the era of dynamic development of renewable energy sources, it is necessary to create alternative electricity management systems for existing power systems, including power transmission and distribution systems. Virtual power plants (VPPs) are such an alternative. So far, there has been no unified standard for a VPP operation. The article presents components that make up the VPP at the FEE and describes their physical and logical structure. The presented solution is a combination of several units operating in the internal power grid of the FEE, i.e., wind turbines, energy storage (ES), photovoltaic panels (PV) and car charging stations. Their operation is coordinated by a common control system. One of the research goals described in the article is to optimize the operation of these components to minimize consumption of the electric energy from the external supply network. An analysis of data from the VPP management system was carried out to create mathematical models for prediction of the consumed power and the power produced by the PVs. These models allowed us to achieve the assumed objective. The article also presents the VPP data processing results in terms of detecting outliers and missing values. In addition to the issues discussed above, the authors also proposed to apply the Prophet model for short-term forecasting of the PV farm electricity production. It is a statistical model that has so far been used for social and business research. The authors implemented it effectively for technical analysis purposes. It was shown that the results of the PV energy production forecasting using the Prophet model are acceptable despite occurrences of missing data in the investigated time series.

Keywords: virtual power plant; short-term forecasting; measurement data processing; process control; energy management (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q Q0 Q4 Q40 Q41 Q42 Q43 Q47 Q48 Q49 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (6)

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