Optimisation algorithm for a virtual power plant operation

There is a growing interest in distributed generation (DG) by both the scientific and industrial communities because of emerging new technologies, changes in environmental policies and liberalisation of energy markets. An attractive idea is to aggregate a number of small size, environmentally compatible, generators close to the loads to supply both thermal and electrical power; this is the underlying concept of a virtual power plant (VPP). In this paper an optimisation algorithm is proposed to integrate many DG into a VPP, which will be able to generate and sell both thermal and electrical energy. Suitable models are proposed to simulate electric and thermal productions, CHP plants, thermal storages, and the energy exchange with the grid. The optimisation problem is here formulated as a nonlinear minimisation algorithm with constraints, where the objective function is the variable cost associated with the supply of thermal and electric energy to the loads. A working example of application to a case study of a VPP complete the paper.