A Special Issue: “Key Technologies of Virtual Power Plant and Distributed Energy Resources” for Global Energy Interconnection

The increasing penetration of renewable and distributed energy resources (DERs) is transforming the power grid into a new type of clean and low-carbon power system.However,the uncertainty and volatility of DERs have also brought severe challenges to the secure and reliable operation of the power systems.In order to successfully integrate renewable DERs,virtual power plant (VPP) has emerged as a new technique for coordinating demand-side DERs,which has drawn significant attention from industry and academia.

This Special Issue aims to foster original research to tackle the challenging issues related to VPP and the coordinated aggregation and control of large-scale DERs.5 papers were selected for publication in the main column Key Technologies of Virtual Power Plant and Distributed Energy Resources,where Youbo Liu et al.from Sichuan University proposed a novel residential virtual power plant scheduling method that leveraged a gate recurrent unit-integrated deep reinforcement learning algorithm.Wei Pei et al.from Institute of Electrical Engineering,Chinese Academy of Sciences proposed a synergetic optimization operation method for soft open points and photovoltaic in a distribution network to improve power control capability and flexibility with better power quality and PV consumption rate.Jiekang Wu et al.from Guangdong University of Technology reported a multi-dimensional evaluation system for urban energy system (UES) with multiple energy complementary and presented a demonstration project for a UES in China.Hao Li et al.from Shanghai University of Electric Power proposed an innovative method to evaluate the turn insulation state of inverter-fed machines by utilizing the fractional Fourier transform with a Mel filter.Lizhen Wu et al.from Lanzhou University of Technology and University of Technology Sydney reported a graphical short-term prediction method for generalized loads based on modal decomposition.The other 5 papers are included in the two regular columns Advanced Transmission Technologies and Smart Grid.

We believe that this special issue will help to address the relevant theoretical,methodological,and applied issues and modeling methodology of VPP and DERs.We would like to thank all the authors for contributing high-quality papers to this special issue.We are also grateful to the reviewers for their valuable feedback,which significantly expedited the review and editing process.

Wei Pei received the B.S.and M.S.degrees in electrical engineering from Tianjin University,Tianjin,China,in 2002 and 2005,respectively,and the Ph.D.degree in electrical engineering from the Institute of Electrical Engineering,Chinese Academy of Sciences,Beijing,China,in 2008.He is currently a Professor and the Director of the Distributed Generation and Power System Research Group,Institute of Electrical Engineering,Chinese Academy of Sciences.His research interests include the impact of integration of renewable energy sources on the electricity grid and the development of the distribution grid for large-scale renewable integration,active distribution networks,and AC/DC microgrids.

Xiaojun Shen received the B.S.and M.S.degrees in electrical engineering from North China Electric Power University,Beijing,China,in 2001 and 2004,respectively,and received the Ph.D.degree in electrical engineering from the Electrical Engineering Department,Shanghai Jiaotong University,Shanghai,China,in 2007.He is currently a Professor with the Department of Electrical Engineering,Tongji University,Shanghai.His main research directions are new energy-efficient utilization and energy saving,power equipment state perception and intelligent diagnosis.

Xin Zhang is the Professor in Control and Power Systems at the University of Sheffield,United Kingdom.He is with Electrical Machines and Drives Research Group and the Department of Automatic Control and Systems Engineering.He is the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI)Future Leaders Fellow in power system digitalisation.His research experience covers power system control,planning and operation,cyber-physical system,cybersecurity and resilience of power systems,real-time digital simulation,and grid integration with transport electrification.