VPP Energy Resources Management Considering Emissions: The Case of Northern Portugal 2020 to 2050

In SGs context, Distributed Generation (DG) based on renewable sources represents an alternative paradigm of energy supply and the opportunity for significant reduction in CO₂ emissions. However, strict emissions regulations might impact profit seeking Virtual Power Plants (VPP) operation. This paper addresses energy management at distribution level and evaluates if electricity emissions are worth to be considered in different time horizons. A realistic case study is developed for a chosen area of the northern region of Portugal, namely one part of the distribution grid from Vila Real managed by a VPP, with estimated penetration of Electric Vehicles (EV), several Distributed Generation (DG), Demand Response (DR) and Energy Storage Systems (ESS). The considered characteristics of the case study took into account several studies and the forecasts made in the literature. For 2030 it is expected an average CO₂ grid emission of 50 kgCO₂/MWh in Portugal. The repository-based multi-objective Particle Swarm Optimization (MOPSO) is used to tackle the developed optimization problem. Three scenarios are evaluated for the profit seeking VPP in 2020, 2030 and 2050 perspectives.