Shanghai fosters virtual power plant to “adjust power to tide over summer” amid continued high temperatures
2024-08-08
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Shanghai, August 8 (Reporter Zheng Yingying) Shanghai has been experiencing high temperatures for days, and the power load is heavy. Zhu Minglin, deputy director of the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, said at the 2024 Virtual Power Plant (Shanghai) Summit Forum on the 8th that Shanghai's power load has hit three new highs this year, with the highest load exceeding 40.3 million kilowatts. Among them, the virtual power plant has an adjustable capacity of more than 700,000 kilowatts, providing important support for Shanghai's power supply.
On August 8, the 2024 Virtual Power Plant (Shanghai) Summit Forum was held in Shanghai. (Photo provided by the organizer)
A virtual power plant is a smart energy management system. Zhou Leiyong, secretary general of the Shanghai Electric Power Industry Association, said that a virtual power plant is not a power plant in the traditional sense. It does not rely on physical power generation equipment and land resources, but uses advanced information technology and intelligent control methods to integrate dispersed distributed energy resources, energy storage systems and controllable loads into a virtual energy system that can be uniformly dispatched and managed.
Shanghai is one of the first cities in China to carry out virtual power plant pilot projects, and has currently cultivated 24 virtual power plant market entities.
Shanghai Zhadian Donghai Electric Power Engineering Co., Ltd. is one of the 24 companies. Huang Zhijian, the person in charge of the company, said that this summer, Shanghai had many hot days, and the peak shaving (reducing the peak load of the power grid) capability of the virtual power plant was fully verified.
He said in an interview that the company's platform has more than 650 users, and the platform can automatically adjust the equipment of some users, such as raising the air-conditioning temperature by 2 degrees Celsius, so as to leave "margin" for electricity consumption. "The technical link for automatic adjustment has been opened, and we are constantly increasing the equipment that can be automatically adjusted."
"The original electricity users were consumers. Under the virtual power plant model, if users have room for adjustment, they will also be (electricity) producers," said Huang Zhijian.
In fact, it is not only Shanghai, but the Yangtze River Delta region is also actively exploring virtual power plants.
Wei Ping, director of the Market Department of the East China Regulatory Bureau of the National Energy Administration, said at the forum that this summer, the Yangtze River Delta region has experienced continuous high temperatures. The surplus demand-side adjustable resource mutual aid trading products between the provinces and cities in the Yangtze River Delta were launched twice on July 22 and July 31, respectively. Taking advantage of the temporal and spatial differences in the peak loads of various provinces and cities, the cross-provincial mutual aid trading of surplus demand-side resources was realized through the market mechanism for the first time. 47 demand-side adjustable resources in the Yangtze River Delta region participated in the transaction, with a total maximum transaction volume of 361,000 kilowatts, supporting Shanghai's peak power of 131,000 kilowatts, supporting Jiangsu and Zhejiang's peak power of 100,000 kilowatts each, and supporting Anhui's peak power of 30,000 kilowatts.
It is reported that the 2024 Virtual Power Plant (Shanghai) Summit Forum is guided by the Shanghai Development and Reform Commission, Shanghai Economic and Information Commission, National Energy Administration East China Regulatory Bureau, State Grid Shanghai Electric Power Company, and hosted by the Shanghai Electric Power Industry Association. At the forum that day, industry professionals gathered together to work together to explore ideas for the high-quality development of virtual power plants. (End)
