ABSTRACT
the daily life activities have now a high dependency on electrical energy, which leads various utilities to do significant improvements in the energy infrastructure, especially in the power generation sector to improve its flexibility. In the place of central power generation, the distributed energy resources (DERs) have been given major consideration due to their reduced distribution losses and improved voltage profile; however, most of the DERs are renewable based and have intermittent generation, which limits their application in the distribution grid. The virtual power plant (VPP) is an innovative concept that addresses these issues by coordination of these DERs with demand response (DR) programs and energy storage devices and aggregates the system into a single operating profile. In this paper, the VPP concept is utilized in the particular distribution feeder to improve the flexibility of the grid in the event of the utility outage. The DER CAM optimization model is used to find the optimal solution to enhance the flexibility and annual energy cost. The results indicate that in the event of supply interruption, the DER and DR provide the required flexibility and act as an alternative supply resource. Moreover, the annual energy cost is reduced by 7.1% and operational cost by 49% in the optimal configuration of DER and storage.
