Planning and design of smart grids with virtual power plants

While traditional planning and design of the distribution network is mainly based on developments of power demand and connection requests, nowadays the contribution of distributed energy resources (DER), including storage devices and controllable loads, as well as the deployment of electrical vehicles should be taken into account. To embed these newcomers in the power system and to give them an active role the concept of the virtual power plant (VPP) is selected. While the combination of VPP systems with active distribution network management leads to smart grids operation, this paper discusses the planning and design of smart grids in which the VPP concept is fully employed. First the developments of DER, controllable loads, storage devices and electrical vehicles are considered. This is followed by an assessment of the planning methodology of the passive and active distribution network in order to discuss the needed optimization.