The National Development and Reform Commission issued the "Basic Rules for the Operation of the Electricity Market", which clearly includes virtual power plants (VPPs) as new operating entities and members of the electricity market, on May 14.

In order to meet demand for the market-oriented operation of virtual power plants, State Grid Shanxi Electric Power Company, based in North China's Shanxi province, has innovatively proposed a business process that integrates VPP evaluation and testing, operation management, and transaction settlement based on the policy environment of the province's electricity spot market. By utilizing technologies such as cloud platform, big data, Internet of Things, and automatic control, a VPP management service system platform has been built in the spot market.

The business process covers the power grid operation and management departments, as well as market entities such as power sales companies and virtual power plant operators, connecting all links in the chain, including VPP access, testing, grid connection, trading, control, settlement, and withdrawing.

Unlike other provincial VPP service platforms, the Shanxi company's VPP has achieved full-process closed-loop management in its business model and thus significantly improved business efficiency.

The Shanxi company has completed the construction plan review for 23 VPPs, with 14 VPPs connected to the VPP management service platform, of which three plants support spot settlement. To date, the platform has achieved an accumulated settlement profit of over 5 million yuan ($689,254.14) for operators, with a total aggregated resource capacity of 15.10 million kilowatts.