What Is a Virtual Power Plant?
Virtual power plant is not a power plant in the traditional sense, but a set of intelligent energy management system, which realises the effective aggregation and collaborative optimisation of basic resources such as distributed power supply, energy storage, charging piles, industrial adjustable loads, and so on, through the means of advanced information and communication and digital technology. The virtual power plant installs high-precision power collection terminals on the enterprise side to collect current, voltage, power and other data of the enterprise at the minute level, sensing the demand situation of the enterprise in real time and providing timely and accurate data support for the virtual power plant operation platform.
Key Roles of IoT Communication Terminal
1. Data collection and transmission: collecting various data inside and outside the virtual power plant in real time through various sensors, such as power parameters, environmental conditions, etc., and transmitting the data to the cloud for processing and analysis through the communication network.
2. Remote monitoring and control: Realise remote monitoring and control of virtual power plant equipment and systems, achieve switching, adjustment and fault diagnosis of equipment through remote operation, and improve operation efficiency and safety.
3. Data security and protection: adopting advanced encryption algorithms and security protocols to ensure the security and reliability of data during transmission and storage, and effectively protect the information assets of the virtual power plant.
Technology Practice and Industry Application
1. Smart grid scheduling optimisation: real-time monitoring of grid load and energy supply and demand to achieve smart grid scheduling optimisation and improve grid operation efficiency and energy utilisation.
2. Distributed energy management: monitoring and management of distributed energy equipment, such as photovoltaic power stations, wind power plants, etc., to achieve effective use and management of energy.
3. Intelligent power consumption service: monitoring and analysis of users’ power consumption behaviour, providing personalised power consumption suggestions and services, and achieving a dynamic balance between power consumption demand and supply.
Future Outlook and Development Trends
1. Intelligence and automation: increasingly intelligent and automated, capable of achieving automatic identification, automatic configuration and automatic maintenance, reducing operation and maintenance costs and manual intervention.
2. Edge Computing and Artificial Intelligence: Combined with edge computing and artificial intelligence technology, it realises data processing and decision-making on the device side, reduces dependence on the cloud, and improves response speed and efficiency.
3. Ecology and openness: pay more attention to ecology and openness, support interconnection and interoperability with other devices and systems, achieve collaborative work and data sharing between devices, and promote industry chain cooperation and ecological construction.
The application of IoT communication terminals in virtual power plants marks the arrival of a new era of digital transformation and intelligent development. As a key node connecting the physical power system and the smart grid, IoT communication terminal will play an increasingly important role in the future power industry.