A Robust Bidding Strategy for VPPs Including Gamified Customer Engagement

Virtual power plants (VPPs) are becoming critical parts of energy systems to increase renewable energy integration and to reduce the cost of electricity. To maximize the benefits to customers and VPP owners, the consumers' engagement is important for adding flexibility to the electricity load of the VPP. In this paper, the impact of customer contributions into a VPP energy management system through gamification is studied. To this aim, the contribution of customers within a realistic VPP of 67 dwellings in Western Australia is modelled. This model is included in a robust optimized procedure to maximize the profit of a VPP owner over a year. In this platform the uncertainties associated with renewable energy generation and market electricity are considered to find the optimum solution for the worst case scenario of uncertainties. The simulation results show that the gamified customer involvement has positive impacts on increasing the profit of the VPP.