Virtual power plant with pumped storage power plant for renewable energy integration

Abstract

Renewable energy sources such as wind and photovoltaic are highly volatile and their integration into the grid, goes more and more through combining them together with complementary and flexible sources, a concept known as Virtual Power Plant, VPP. Specific control of power plants in a VPP pool lead to a redefinition of their dynamic constraints. Interactions between them and the rest of the grid are complex. System level model and simulation of such grid featuring VPP is necessary and must be used for research as well as for the design phase. This paper illustrates by time domain simulations a situation with a VPP consisting of wind power (200MW), photovoltaic power (100MW) and pumped storage (+/- 250MW), integrated into an islanded grid with a thermal power plant for base load (1300MW). Different control strategies of the pumped storage power plant show how it can improve the overall power quality of the VPP.